Time Shelter: A Novel

Author: Georgi Gospodinov

I try to read all Booker Prize winners and am happy to report that this book made it to the top in 2023. This is an unusual book with a very unique and interesting premise. Gospodinov conjures up a world in which an enterprising sould is creating a refuge for people who are losing their memories. Through this setting he comes up with a lot of interesting observations that are thought provoking and amusing. I list some of them here as a sample.

While describing a conversation between two Bulgarians he says

for a Bulgarian, complaining is like talking about the weather in England, you can never go wrong

In comparing major European cities and their appeal to the different age groups he says

Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam for youth… Then comes the maturity of Vienna, or Brussels.… OK, for those who still do not wish to grow old – Rome, Barcelona, Madrid… To the late youth, I would also add New York, yes, I count it as a European city that ended up across the ocean due to a certain chain of events.

He borrows from Doors, Beatles, and even modifies the famous Tolstoyan quote as follows. 

Happens stories are all alike, every unhappened story isn’t happened in its own way.

There are tons of pithy observations like 

Anthropocene, the first era named for man, will likely turn out to be the last for him.

Another wonderful observation. 

Happiness doesn’t make it into the history textbooks (there only battles, pogroms, betrayals and bloody murders of some archduke make the cut).

Gospodinov acknowledges that we don’t live our lives in isolation. Our experiences are the result of our interactions with the many different people we share our lives with. Some are fleeting moments that we barely pay attention to, while others are true experiences that we cherish or hate,  or feel some thing in between. In summary, he says

My whole life is sewn together from other peoples lives

Finally, he drops this on us

In the end, writing arises when man realizes that memory is not enough

It’s a brilliant book that makes you appreciate and reflect on a lot of things happening around you that you might just not have had the insight to stop and look at in they way the author has done for us.