Georgi Gospodinov

For fans of Yoko Ogawa and Dave Eggers, a mesmerizing, dystopian novel of time and memory from Bulgaria's most significant living writer.

Time Shelter

Jemima Scott

If we are not in someone else's memory, do we even exist at all? 

clara

Jawahir M

The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined.

The more a society forgets, the more someone produces, sells, and ills the freed-up niches with ersatz-memory.

Forgetting takes a lot of work. You have to constantly remember that you are supposed to forget somnething. Surely that's how every ideology functions 

Isabel 

How do you leave this life, goddamn it, where have they hidden the door?

Taira Robles

In any case, the basic question for both was how the past is made.

Will someone arrive like He the Messiah? Someone who will take mercy on the past's stiff dis-member-ed parts, its pale face and its stopped heart, and say, "Lazarus, come forth!" and it will gradually get its breath back, blood will start to flow beneath the waxy skin, its members will start to move, its plugged ears will clear up, and its eyes will open.

Or, while were waiting, various false prophets, tempters, and mad scientists will perform experiments upon its corpse and every time will end up with Frankenstein's monster. Can the past be resurrected or re-member-ed again? Should it be?

Actually, our bodies turn out to be quite merciful by nature, a little amnesia rather than anesthesia at the end. Our memory, which is leaving us, lets us play a bit longer, one last time in the Elysian fields of childhood. A few well-begged-for, please-just-five-more minutes, like in the old days, playing outside in the street. Before we get called home for good.

Forgetting takes a lot of work. You have to constantly remember that you are supposed to forget something. Surely that's how every ideology functions.

Swords are not forged from happiness, its stuff is fragile, its stuff is brittle. It does not lend itself to grand novels or songs or epics.

Novels and stories offer deceptive consolation about order and form.

Time Shelter quotes

Join the club