Critique: The Time Keeper (Mitch Albom)

This book came highly recommended and, because I’ve enjoyed Mitch Albom titles in the past, I was more than ready to give this one a go. It’s about Father Time (Dor), a human from the ancient past who first measured time, combined with the stories of dying Victor and young Sarah.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

There were two main premises. Not only are they individually nonsense but the second one can’t co-exist with the first.

One: there wasn’t a concept of time until Dor measured it. But you can’t measure something unless you know what you’re measuring. Also, people instinctively know about the passing of time because they remember the past, live in the present, and can accurately predict aspects, and make plans for, the future.

Two: as soon as people could measure time, they didn’t value it. This attitude was just stated like it was obvious fact. But it was never demonstrated. It was never justified. Also, why would measuring something be the thing that makes it non-valuable? When measuring sticks were invented, nobody said, “Distance doesn’t matter anymore.” Surely measuring something inherently means it’s valued, otherwise why make the effort to devise a way to measure it?

The premises can’t coexist. To value something, someone needs the concept of what that something is. People didn’t value time once it was measured (two) but they didn’t have the concept of time until it was measured (one). So people couldn’t value time until it was measured. Yet time being measured was when time was no longer valued.

The application of the second premise is also problematic. Victor wants to stay alive whilst Sarah wants to die. Victor wants to increase his time and Sarah wants to reduce hers. Both of them stop living their lives to the fullest in pursuit of their goals. So maybe it could be argued they don’t value the time they have left to live. Though it’s portrayed that they don’t value time itself: being the wrong premise, it makes the whole plot and message shaky.

 

The length of the chapters was problematic.

They were overly short. A few of these short chapters would have been fine. But for all of them to be so minimal sort of felt like I kept on stopping and starting, like a stalling car.

Each chapter jumped between viewpoints. This isn’t ordinarily advisable because it breaks the flow and can confuse the reader (especially if they’re a bit sleepy). But considering how short the chapters were, this only compounded the issues of the jumpy perspective: there wasn’t enough time to settle into the new perspective.

 

Dor, Father Time, has been kept alive for thousands of years for Victor and Sarah.

We know this because he literally couldn’t help anyone before them. But plenty of people wanted cryogenics (like Victor) and plenty of people wanted suicide (like Sarah).

Neither Victor nor Sarah was particularly special. Then why was Dor kept alive for six thousand years to help them specifically? One would think there’d be a justification for such an action.

 

The start of the book was like the start of the race. There isn’t much going on but you expect something exciting to happen soon. Well, expect anything to happen soon. But this story never got off the starting line. I spent the whole book waiting which was frustrating.

 

I think it’s clear that my final verdict is negative. Reading this was disappointing. So I’m glad the book was as short as it was: I didn’t have to waste so much time on it.