A complicated reflection on memory and time. Part science fiction, part history lesson, Time Shelter urges readers to look ahead toward the past so we may keep its beauty and terrors present in our minds while the future creeps out of sight, breathing down our backs. Forgetting is the antagonist of this story and, since we seem doomed to repeat the worst of history, of humankind as well. In that sense, the brain is a cohort of the enemy that is Forgetfulness, as it is liable to rob us blind of our personal history and we are completely powerless against it.

This was my takeaway from Time Shelter. I felt attacked by the chaos of its narrative, which was a feature Gospodinov intended. His fictional self (the narrator) and his secondary fictional self (Gaustine) weave a tale that his true self (the author) coalesce into a cautionary story that promises hopelessness over happiness. This bleak worldview is offered up as realism rather than pessimism with 50 pages of point-proving examples from European history.

I admit the end product was not what I expected, but that is to the author's credit as I was surprised by the course the story does not take and the way it all falls apart in the end, even though we're warned about this from the very beginning. If this review is as confusing as I think it is, it's only because I'm still processing the novel. I may have to revisit it in the future after learning a bit more Bulgarian history. Ultimately, this book made me want to read more translations of Gospodinov's works and that alone for me makes this a four star read.