Review: THE MINISTRY OF TIME (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: The Ministry of Time by Kalianne Bradley

Book Beginnings quote:

 Perhaps he'll die this time.

Friday56 quote:

He came through the front door while I was gazing blankly at the kettle.

    "Good morning."

    "Morning. Have you been out for a walk?"

    "No. To church."

    I felt strangely embarrassed, as if he had just told me that he spent his Sunday mornings at a soft play center.

    He smiled at me and said, "I have noted the dreadful secularism of this age. You may assume a less guilty expression."

Summary:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future. (Publisher)

Review: The Ministry of Time was one of Barack Obama's favorite reads of this past summer, making his end-of-season list. I was aware of it before that time since so many bloggers were chattering about it but I decided to read it after seeing it on his list. It has been described as a "A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all." It is a new take on time travel, that is for sure, since the ministry goes back in time and snags people on the cusp of their death (plague, freezing in the Arctic, war) and brings them without consent into the present. Later the reader finds out the same thing is happening from the future. But that gets really mind-blowingly confusing so forget I said anything about it. The spy thriller bits were my favorite but the action and excitement were usually not sustained for very long and were fairly brief. The budding romance was a little nuanced at first and then quite steamy. Could the book have survived without them? I think yes, but it did add an interesting plot wrinkle.

After I completed the audiobook version of The Ministry of Time, I learned of the controversy surrounding the book. According to A.I. (oh no, not AI!) there is/was a Spanish TV series called "El Ministerio del Tiempo" which translates to, you guessed it, "The Ministry of Time." Both the book and the Spanish series feature a government agency that takes people from different historical periods to become time travelers. And they both address how these travelers could/do mess up timelines. Claims of plagiarism really heated up when the BBC decided to make a series based on the book, using the same title as the book and the translated title from the Spanish series. I have no idea what will happen with this.

My husband and I listened to the book together and both of us found it fairly compelling, asking us to think about the ethics of time travel, as if it could really happen. The Friday56 quote brings to mind another issue. As our society has evolved, some of our habits and practices really are dreadful, like Commander Gore pointed out when his bridge acts shocked that he went to church.

My rating: 4 stars. 

  

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-Anne