A thoughtful and playful novel. Georgi Gospodinov takes his readers through time and memory. We begin with a simple idea of a clinic where rooms are decorated from the 50s, 60s, 70s etc for people who suffer from dementia. The popularity of these clinics leads to a European referendum on turning back the clock to a different county. Here his writing is funny as he considers each country and the decade or year they chose to return to and the implications of this. The latter part of the book sees the writer returning to Bulgaria and then leaving and travelling and is disjointed and sometimes hard to follow as his memories become more sporadic and unclear. Generally enjoyable. ( )

Time Shelter is a novel about memory that speculates beyond the salubrious effects that nostalgia can have on the aging mind to the broader and potentially damaging outcomes that could result when the act of remembering is appropriated by authorities for political gain. Georgi Gospodinov’s ingenious conceit is that an enigmatic character—a psychologist named Gaustine—has opened a clinic for dementia patients where various rooms are outfitted in ways that recall an earlier decade—complete with fixtures, appliances, paint colours, wallpaper patterns, and even commercial products (snacks, cigarettes) from the era—a time when the patients felt secure and were living active, rewarding lives. The hope is that the patient’s memory will be stimulated by the familiar surroundings, and they will become more engaged and outgoing as a result. Gaustine’s plan is successful. Soon he is preparing to expand his operation beyond the original stand-alone clinic in Zurich to other European cities. But, as we see, with great success comes greater scrutiny and greater demand, and even abuse. The novel is narrated in a somewhat ironic tone by an unnamed friend of Gaustine, a Bulgarian who bears more than a passing resemblance to the author. He tells us that as Gaustine’s clinics gain in popularity, the clientele grows beyond dementia sufferers to healthy folk who simply want to re-live happier times and are willing to pay a fee for the experience. Eventually Gaustine disappears (the narrator suspects he’s decamped to the US) as the idea of living in the past spreads across the continent and takes off in the European political realm. Referendums will be held: citizens will vote for the decade to which their country will return. But nothing is simple because no two countries, just as no two people, share quite the same experience of the past. One country’s pleasing memory is another country’s horror. In its latter sections Gospodinov’s novel becomes a sardonic critique of 20th-century European history. Because the narrative is driven by abstract supposition rather than the fates of individuals, the reader’s connection to the action is intellectual rather than emotional, resulting in a novel that does not generate much suspense in the conventional sense. Instead, we turn the pages to see where Gospodinov’s playful conjectures are taking us. What we learn from Time Shelter—that the past does not actually shelter us from the present—is not unexpected. Still, it is a lesson that many world leaders would do well to bear in mind as we move forward. ( )

I was really enjoying this philosophical novel about the appeal of the past for the first hundred pages, when it was examined sympathetically on the individual, personal level; more specifically, how such appeal becomes the lone surviving supplier of joy and meaning to elderly persons in the grip of dementia. The characters provoked empathy and understanding, the plot device of creating institutions and then whole neighborhoods set in past decades was fun and played off other works that do something similar that I’ve enjoyed (the film “Goodbye, Lenin”, etc.). The writing hit melancholic notes that resonate with me:

Monsters still do exist, however. There is one monster that stalks every one of us. Death, you’ll say, yes, of course, death is his brother, but old age is the monster. This is the true (and doomed) battle, with no flashiness, no fireworks, no swords inlaid with the tooth of Saint Peter, with no magical armor and unexpected allies, without hope that bards will sing songs about you, with no rituals…

Alas the novel then shifts focus from the individual to the societal level, becoming about the evils of politically weaponized nostalgia for an idealized past of national greatness. Everyone is familiar with this populist nationalist trend. People who pick up and read this novel are likely to be opposed to it already and don’t need convincing, and in the absence of excellent and tight prose (and it is absent here) writers hammering political themes you were already prepared to grant them becomes a wearying use of one’s time. At least to me. This lasts for one hundred fifty pages.

The last and briefest section of fifty pages becomes Gospodinov engaged in autofictional and philosophical musings. This was a bit better, but it didn’t particularly grab me.

For me then, an outstanding start that became quite a disappointment. ( )

A literary ramble through the past: memory, forgetting ( )

Such wonderful initial ideas - but lengthened and detailed beyond breaking point, then a descent into primordial chaos (which the author seems really proud about!) ( )