Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov is a Bulgarian poet and novelist. Time Shelter is his 5th novel, published originally as Времеубежище in 2020, and translated into English by Angela Rodel in 2023.

Time Shelter centres around the development of a clinic which reproduces the past of various eras. The idea proves popular and spreads, soon whole nations vote on what era they want to recreate.

The idea is an interesting one, and explores ideas of nationalism, presenting 'golden eras' which, in actual fact, were anything but. The rhetoric used by Gospodinov's imagined factions is disturbingly similar to Farage's Reform party, and the Make America Great Again brigade.

There is a recurring motif of characters smoking pretty horrendous cigarettes, and I wonder if this is intended as a deliberate statement on survivor bias. These eras are portrayed as ultimately benign, yeah namby-pamby millennials, or Gen Zers (I don't really understand the whole generation thing) might whinge about how things weren't 'safe' then, but we all survived didn't we? But what about those that didn't survive? We don't hear from the people who died from lung cancer, or rotted in a gulag, or had their heads stoved in for being Jewish, or gay, or foreign. History is written by the winners, but the winners are created by history.

As interesting a premise as the novel has, I struggled to get into it. I think this was largely down to the fact that it doesn't really have a protagonist in the traditional sense. The book is narrated from Gospodinov's own point of view, or at least that of an alternate universe version of himself. The only other persistent character is a product of his imagination, who variously does and doesn't exist. But Gaspodinov doesn't have much stake in the plot, or even any particularly strong emotional reactions to it. He is not overly affected by anything that happens. I kind of get why Gospodinov did this; I think most people who were present at turning points in history didn't get swept up in the emotion. Sure, some people did, waving flags and shouting appropriate (or inappropriate, depending on your viewpoint) slogans. But most simply went about their lives, watching, slightly baffled, from the sidelines. This lack of engagement, though, meant the reading lacked emotion and became very dry.

★★★☆☆