How to Stop Time - Matt Haig

Date of Reading: 08/05/2020

Author: Matt Haig

Publisher: Canongate Books

Publication Date: July 6, 2017

Rating: 4/5

(This review is part of the #BookReviewBlogChallenge organised by 

Great New Reads

Day 07, Prompt: Time)

About the book:

"The first rule is that you don't fall in love, ' he said... 'There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.'"

A love story across the ages - and for the ages - about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

So Tom moves back to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher--the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behaviour of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness. 

Review:

      I usually make a general conception of the book from the blurb itself. So my thoughts went almost like this: A protagonist who ages slowly, trapped in a hideous society finally finds love, now both of them need to make it out and find a cure to live normally. How very wrong I was. 

      First of all, this is no Dan Brown thriller and there are no thugs chasing our lead character (well, except towards the end). Secondly, living a long life, without any superpowers is not only boring but also highly dangerous. Especially if you are born before Shakespeare at an age when witch-hunting was common. To make the matters worse, you may get memory headaches, a result of loneliness and depression. Yup, I will rather stick to my short mortal life.

       Tom Hazard is required to change his life every eight years. That is a compulsory requirement to be a part of the Albatross Society, a community of people who shares his condition. So this time he chooses to be a history teacher in a London school. With each history lesson he imparts, memories surface and we get to know the story of this centuries-old man. Talk about living and breathing history. The narrative pattern reminds me that of 'Slumdog Millionaire', only instead of quiz questions that take you back to the time, here we have history lessons or something else to trigger the past.

      But the biggest question is have the times changed? We are not superstitious anymore and the difference is celebrated everywhere. But how will you react to the existence of a man who is four hundred and thirty-nine years old? It is for us to find out.

      On the whole, this book has been something out of my comfort zone but I completely loved it. Slow-paced with emotions overloaded, this is perfect for work nights. You definitely will feel to take a breather in between to digest everything. The story of a man who lived with many of my literary idols . . . hmph! that was a lot to take in.

Meet the author:

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield, England in1975. He writes books for both adults and children, often blending the worlds of domestic reality and outright fantasy, with a quirky twist. His bestselling novels are translated into 28 languages. The Guardian has described his writing as 'delightfully weird' and the New York Times has called him 'a novelist of great talent' whose writing is 'funny, riveting and heartbreaking'.

His novels for adults are The Last Family in England, narrated by a labrador and optioned for film by Brad Pitt; The Dead Fathers Club (2006), an update of Hamlet featuring an 11-year-old boy; The Possession of Mr Cave (2008), about a man obsessed with his daughter's safety, and The Radleys (2010) which won Channel 4's TV Book Club public vote and was shortlisted for a Galaxy National Book Award (UK).