The Ministry of Time
image taken from Amazon
The Summary (No Spoilers)
“The Ministry of Time” is a novel about a group of people who have been brought from the past and paired with present day guides (members of the UK’s fictional Ministry of Time) to help them acclimate to the modern world over the course of a year. The reason for why they have been brought through time develops over the course of the book. Some might say “the work is mysterious and important” (for the Severance fans out there).
Touchstones
Despite my modest review below, there were some really great lines in this book. I don’t have much to expound upon them, except to say that they fell roughly along three themes.
Theme 1: Luxury and Work
“He had been handed a plush-lined life, with time to read, to pursue thoughts to their phantasmagoric end, to take in whole seasons at the British Film Institute, to walk for miles, to master sonatas, and paint to his heart’s content. He did not need to work, to exchange the sweat of his brow or the creak of his mind for board and bed. And yet, he was bored of having no purpose.”
“He had a presence as mild as salad and the beautiful crow’s-feet of someone who could afford to age attractively. He seemed like he shouldn’t have the job… as jobs are not very chic.”
Theme 2: Chosen Paths and the Chaos Lottery
“Life is a series of slamming doors. We make irrevocable decisions every day.”
“You can’t trauma-proof life, and you can’t hurt-proof your relationships. You have to accept you will cause harm to yourself and others. But you can also fuck up, really badly, and not learn anything from it except that you fucked up. It’s the same with oppression. You don’t gain any special knowledge from being marginalized.”
“I thought I was doing something constructive, escaping exploitation by becoming exceptional. In fact, what I was doing was squeezing my eyes shut and singing la la la at the gathering darkness, as if the gathering darkness cared that I couldn’t see it.”
“I was filled with happiness, so enormous and terrifying it was as if I’d committed a crime to get it. No one had given me permission to feel this way, and I thought I might not be allowed it... I was frightened with happiness, harrowed by it. There was no way that anyone could feel this much without also knowing they were going to lose it.”
Theme 3: Bystanders of History
“But what could I have said? That the Holocaust was one of the most appalling, most shameful stains on the history of humanity, and it could have been prevented? Everything that has ever been could have been prevented, and none of it was. The only thing you can mend is the future.”
My Review
I really enjoyed this one in the beginning. I love witty banter and this book has it, which I appreciate. But, by the end the story was feeling to me a bit tedious. It dipped into the idea of the butterfly effect, how even small decisions can shape the course of the future in unknowable ways, but there was potential to go deeper there. Instead it seemed more about… greed? Selfishness? That can make a fine story. It just didn’t quite do it for me this time. I give The Ministry of Time 3 stars.