Georgi Gospodinov, who is widely regarded as a leading voice in European literature today, has made it to the shortlist of the 2023 International Booker Prize with his newest novel Time Shelter. Translated into English by Angela Rodel, it features a mysterious flaneur named Gaustine, who builds a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, that promises to heal Alzheimer’s sufferers by reproducing a decade in minute detail thus taking patients back in time. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who has been entrusted with collecting historical flotsam such as 1960s furniture, 1940s shirt buttons, odours and even afternoon light. As the chambers become increasingly convincing, a rising number of healthy individuals seek out the clinic as a “time shelter,” trying to escape the horrors of the present. This leads to the unanticipated quandary of the past entering the present.
The pull of the past (Shutterstock)
Gospodinov’s writing is unique, and his humour is masterful. This is not just a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end; it’s an interactive experience that engages the reader on multiple levels. The narrator is intelligent and witty, constantly challenging you to think deeper about the themes of time and memory. It’s easy for the reader to see themselves in the protagonist’s shoes as they question their own past and how it has shaped who they are today. The writing often induces you to laugh out loud and is both entertaining and thought-provoking.
“The time is coming when more and more people will want to hide in the cave of the past, to turn back. And not for happy reasons, by the way. We need to be ready with the bomb shelter of the past. Call it the time shelter, if you will”
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov 296pp, ₹665 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
Unlike Gaustine, the narrator is a realist who understands that travelling back in time might have a variety of negative effects. Sure enough, the narrative takes a terrifying turn when the idea of a time clinic and the allure of nostalgia catches with the entire continent of Europe expressing an interest in travelling back in time by choosing a specific period of the past, such as the 1950s or the 1970s. They want to turn the present into the past by means of a referendum. For some nations such as Norway and Switzerland with a more anodyne history, this time selection of a specific era is a simple business. For others. such as Germany and Romania, things are much more fraught.
The masterful story has an amazing structure – every experiment is supported by examples, and none of them appear impossible. In one section, the narrator returns to his native Bulgaria after a long absence and reminisces about his own past. Simultaneously, he witnesses how the referendum appears to work from the ground up, eventually realising how the horrors of the past seem to be returning to the present through this process. Given the state of the world with the ongoing Ukrainian War and other looming crises, it all feels eerily like a prediction that’s about to come true.
“We are constantly producing the past. We are factories for the past. Living past-machines, what else? We eat time and produce the past. Even death doesn’t put a stop to this. A person might be gone, but his past remains. Where do all those heaps of personal past go? Does someone buy them, collect them, throw them away? Or does it drift like an old newspaper, blown away by the wind along the street?”
Author Georgi Gospodinov (Phelia Baru/Columbia Harriman Institute)
Time Shelter asks important questions at the personal and political levels: What use do histories and recollections of the past serve? Is it necessary to continuously have these memories in mind when thinking about the present, or are they mostly to blame for wreaking unanticipated devastation. Not unpredictably, the plot builds up to a catastrophic conclusion.
The histories of contemporary nations across the world seem constantly entangled in the past. The nostalgia for a lost golden age, when populations were supposedly more culturally and ethnically homogenous, has both inspired great creativity and led to violent upheavals and ethnic cleansing. The past is a different country that continues to seduce with its sepia tones and lost pleasures. Indeed, it is true that memory can influence individuals and the collective in unfathomable ways.
In the end, what makes Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter especially arresting is that it leads the reader down mental pathways inducing them to behold the seductions of nostalgia even as they grow aware of its poisoned kiss.
Hritik Verma is an independent reviewer. He blogs at allayingart.wordpress.com. He is @Hritik38233434 on Twitter and @allayingart on Instagram.
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