More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, Contemporary Fable Fiction Review

by Leave a Comment

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom is a fable meant to show the value of time, of living in the present and enjoying God’s gifts without fretting about more.

The story alternates between three people, Dor, a young man obsessed with measuring time, Sara Lemon, a teenager infatuated with a boy she feels is far above her touch, and Victor Delamonte, a rich man facing his imminent death by cancer and kidney failure.

Dor begins innocently to count the number of days from moon phase to moon phase, then moves into measuring time by a sundial and water clock. His counting becomes his obsession. He puts measuring ahead of caring for his family. Eventually a former playmate, Nim, sets himself as the king and builds the Tower of Babel. Nim seeks Dor’s help, and when spurned, orders Dor to leave the area. Dor and his beloved wife Alli end up living several miles away from their family. When Alli falls ill, Dor runs to the Tower to climb to heaven and stop time at its source.  When he climbs it the Tower falls.

Dor is the first person to count time and is punished for it by being forced to live in a cave for several thousand years and listen to all the misery that people find for themselves by focusing on time. Dor becomes Father Time.

Sarah is smart and fat. She wants cute Ethan but Ethan rejects her as cruelly as possible.  In despair Sarah decides to end her life.  She doesn’t think past her misery and her desire to hurt Ethan by hurting herself.  She wants less time.

Victor decides to pursue “immortality” by freezing himself just before death. He will not accept death and wants more time.  He knows his wife Grace will not accept this.

The story shows how Dor helps Sarah and Victor recognize the value of their lives as they are given them to live. Dor himself finds his punishment complete and is freed.

The Theme

The Time Keeper is an essay written as a story. Albom’s theme is that “man alone suffers a paralyzing fear…A fear of time running out.”

I agree with his premise – to a point. One of the challenges in my Catholic faith is the balance between planning and trusting in God. Christ himself likened the kingdom to the five wise virgins who brought extra lamp oil and the five foolish ones who came ill-prepared for a long wait.  Yet the lilies of the fields and the creatures of the earth live without planning and God provides.

We as humans are accountable for how we use time, not how we measure it or long for it or hope it runs faster or slower.

The Punishment

It disturbed me that Dor is punished so severely.  His offense was to give the ability to measure time to the world.  Does that truly warrant several thousand years listening to the world’s misery?  Or was his sin more that he prized his measurements above all else, that he focused not on the gift of time, the gift of life, but only measured it.  It reminds me of the people who enjoy sports statistics more than they enjoy watching the game.

Thought Provoking

Overall I found this an enjoyable book that had an interesting concept.  The characters were very well done.  Sarah could have been a cardboard cutout but she felt and acted like a real person.  Victor too was more than the prototypical rich man obsessed with taking it with him.

Albom’s writing style is sparse and fast.  He doesn’t have extra scenes or extra characters or extra words.  Everything fits together beautifully.

The book is very fast reading; I read it in an evening, about two hours.  (I am a fast reader, so it might take two evenings for someone who reads at an average speed.)

The Time Keeper will stay with me. I doubt I will reread it, but the message of treating each moment as the precious gift that it is will stay with me.

Overall I recommend this to anyone. If you don’t care for the religious overtones then read and enjoy it for the story.

4 Stars

Review: The Entitled, A Tale of Modern Baseball, Frank Deford

by Leave a Comment

The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by Frank Deford is an interesting read, even for people like me who aren’t baseball fans.

The main character is Howie Traveler, manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Howie never made it as a player – his short legs, average hitting, lack of power and being right handed – kept him as a top player in the high end minor leagues.  Now he has his one and only chance to make it as a manager.  He knows that if he can crack the big league manager circle he’ll be able to stay in baseball indefinitely.  As he says it, the teams keep recycling managers from one team to another.  But he has to win.

Howie’s team isn’t too bad and has a few really good players. We see one of them, Jay Alcazar, along with Howie as they both deal with disappointments and a rape charge. Jay is especially well crafted character. Deford could have made him a stock superstar or a backdrop for Howie, but his dialogue and his search for his mother in Cuba give him depth.

Jay is accused of rape by a woman who visited him in his hotel room. Did he rape her? Or did they have consensual sex before she decided to get a little revenge and maybe a little pay off?

Howie is the only potential witness and he saw only an ambiguous scene that could be interpreted the way Jay describes, or as the woman describes. Howie faces a moral dilemma: Does he tell the police investigating what he saw or does he keep quiet? Initially he stays silent but his conscience nags at him until he confides in his daughter, Lindsay.

I don’t want to spoil this for you by telling what Lindsay did. It’s worth reading.   The Entitled is short, only 238 pages, and fast enough to read in one evening.

I recommend this but please be aware there is quite a bit of foul language.

Something Missing, Contemporary Fun Fiction by Matthew Dicks

by 1 Comment

Here’s a book I just loved, Something Missing: A Novel.  No, it’s not science fiction, nor fantasy.  It’s not really a mystery either.  And it’s definitely not one of those “oh I’m so miserable and want to make you miserable too” novels (thank heavens).  It’s fun with a great character, Martin.

An Unusual Occupation

Do you know how many rolls of toilet paper or sticks of butter you have?  How about those towels you got as a gift five years ago?  Still there?  Do you have stuff in the back of your closet you would never miss?  I know I do.

So do Martin’s clients.  You see, Martin makes his living by visiting his clients every week or two and taking just things that he knows no one will miss.  That can of soup, wedding gift china, diamond earrings.  Martin is a thief with a most unusual business model.  For one thing he knows what a business model is and has carefully planned his out.  He knows exactly how to enter a home undetected and how to leave.  He knows how determine which items are safe and plans carefully when to acquire them.  He reads clients’ mail and their diaries, knows their vacation plans and upcoming trips to the dentist.

Martin is OCD in spades.  He has a definite schedule and an acquisition plan for each client.  He takes meticulous care to leave no DNA evidence behind and comes and goes at different times and routes.  He also flosses five times a day and avoids doorknobs.

Besides being OCD and fanatical about hygiene, Martin has a wonderful imagination.  He built an entire persona to sell his acquisitions on eBay.  He dreams that the waitress at his favorite breakfast spot likes him and that her “see you tomorrow” is a date.  He uses this imagination to think through risks and plan his day, but his secret dream is to write.   Martin’s cover story for his friends is that he writes instruction manuals, but he really wants to write novels.

The Plot Thickens….

Martin could continue this way forever except he knocks his client’s electric toothbrush into the toilet.  Appalled at the idea of her using it with residual fecal material, Martin runs to the store, buys a replacement, and almost gets caught returning the replacement.

The plot thickens from here.  Martin took the first step to get involved with his clients and his next step takes him further into their lives.  He saves a surprise birthday party and finds a girl to love.  All well and good, and he can still tell himself that his clients are just that, clients, not people.

Then he discovers one client is being stalked by a rapist.  Now what?  Martin follows his heart and saves the day at considerable cost to him.

Wonderful Characters and Dialogue

Martin is priceless, one of the best characters I’ve come across lately.  The dialogue is outstanding – and realize that most dialogue occurs in Martin’s mind.   It is hard to believe that Something Missing is Matthew Dick’s first novel.  It reads like a polished, complete story, with well-done characters and fast pace.

My thanks to Amy Peveto of Bookzilla for recommending Somethihttp://amzn.to/2HnrtGJng Missing.  It was great, thanks Amy!

4 Stars

Amazon links are ads that pay commission to blog owner.