In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a 'clinic for the past' that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.
As Gaustine's assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a 'time shelter', hoping to escape from the horrors of our present - a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.
Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov's reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature.
Dr. Gaustine starts a clinic for patients with Alzheimer's disease where they get to travel to their past. Each room is designed and designated to a particular time period in history, hence the title 'Time Shelter'. Once the clinic becomes famous for its work, people start rushing to it to relive their former lives, even though they are perfectly normal.
A political agenda is formulated, and people must now vote on which period and where they would all want to return. Is it Germany during the Great War, Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution, Spain during the Spanish flu or Rif War, Poland in the 1920s, or Switzerland, which was considered a haven at the risk of soon being overcrowded? Were they the perfect time and place to revisit without causing any temporal chaos in the present? The narrator takes us on a ride through history to reveal the secrets of time.
But why did Dr. Gaustine start the clinic in the first place? Did he do it for the patients or his own sake? As with the narrator, we don't get to learn much about him except that he assists Dr. Gaustine in running the clinic. But there are also moments in the book that made me doubt if the narrator actually existed or was just the doctor's second personality.
This book is so nuanced that a lot of nonfiction gets passed off as fiction as it's entirely based on European history in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and the author has decided to make an elaborate commentary on it without boring the readers - genius-level writing. Fifty years from now, this book might share space with Gabriel Marquez, Murakami and Co, and people might come up with their own theories and interpretations of the text.
I loved reading the book as I am a historical fiction enthusiast, but people who aren't would find it difficult. It needs attention to detail and patience to go through facts and fallacies to fall in love with this book. But once you get to the end, you sure will.
Georgi Gospodinov crafts a narrative that resonates like a blend of Italo Calvino and Franz Kafka, pulling readers into a world where the past, present, and future collide.
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