Time Gifts, truly an apt title for Serbian author Zoran Živković's short novel made up of four interlocking tales that bend time, stretch time and otherwise play with time as if the hours on a clock were Silly Putty. As for the characters in these tales, permanently locked in the present (or so they think), such bending and stretching is most definitely a gift.
As for the writing style one will encounter, think more in terms of light, sprightly Roald Dahl or Neil Gaiman than baroque Jorge Luis Borges Labyrinths or Zoran Živković's fellow countryman Milorad Pavić with his Dictionary of the Khazars. Again, Time Gifts is short, an 80-pager that can be read in a day. A special call-out to translator Alice Copple-Tošić for rendering the original Serbian into clear, fluid English.
Similar to a number of his other books, Time Gifts is an example of what Zoran Živković terms "mosaic novel" - individual chapters sharing one or more common themes, in this case, a mysterious visitor transforming time for a protagonist, and then, in the final chapter, via the storyteller's art, the entire tale gels in surprising ways.
Perhaps because I've always been fascinated by the concept of time, time as a cultural phenomenon - cyclical time (Mayan, Indian) or linear time (Middle Eastern, Western) - and also time explored by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Henri Bergson, I was especially taken by the quartet of stories forming Time Gifts. Recognizing the various dimension of time travel, let's turn to each piece.
1. The Astronomer
Sentenced to be burned at the stake, the royal astronomer knows he must do whatever he can to breakout of this infernal monastery. He runs for his life but falls into a pit at the bottom of the monastery wall filled with disgusting ooze. A silhouette of a naked, bony, nefarious creature appears, squatting at the pit's edge. He curls up in the warm substance as if a fetus in a womb - at last he is safe.
However, this paradise is short lived. He awakens from his dream and is back in his cell. But there’s a change – a new presence, a being he perceives as the tempter sits in the shadows and engages him in conversation about his decision – to renounce his discovery or suffer excruciating torment with flames burning flesh. To aid his decision, the white gloved enigmatic one offers the royal astronomer the gift of travel to a future time where he will be given a glimpse of just how influential his discovery.
The royal astronomer takes the eye-opening time trek and returns to choose. His final decision is left to the imagination of the reader. Also left to the reader’s imagination is where dream ends and reality begins.
2. The Paleolinguist
She sits alone in her dingy basement office, the university’s sole instructor in the neglected field of paleolinguistics. A loud knock on the door wakes her from her catnap. She offers her visitor a seat. Following an exchange of pleasantries and a number of remarks regarding the area of study she’s dedicated her life, she notices the derby, cane and white gloves on the visitor’s lap. How odd.
The conversation proceeds, revolving around her favorite topic, ancient pre-agrarian, hunter-gatherer human ancestors and hits a tender spot where she admits, “The hardest thing for me is that the doubt can never be removed; there is no way to know how close I came to primeval languages.” But then things take a decidedly more serious turn when the dapper stranger offers her an opportunity for firsthand experience, to travel back in time as a non-evasive ghost to observe those tribespeople communicating as they huddle around their fire.
Ah, one can only wonder at all the many scholars who have spent decades examining and documenting ages long past, from Eastern African Australopithecus to cave dwelling artists and the first scribes of cuneiform, how many of those scholars would gladly exchange their golden years for the gift of several hours of direct experience.
3. The Watchmaker
It’s six p.m. and an old, grey-haired watchmaker is about to pack up and call it a day. The watchmaker sighs - all these clocks and watches serve as reminders of the death of his dear Mary many years past. He takes out his pocket watch with the engraving TO J. FROM M.. Yes, six p.m., indeed time to leave. Regrettably, he knows he’s fated to repeat yet another dreary evening with memories of that past tragic event. Even his dreams will offer him no respite.
But then someone, tall, thin, wearing derby and cloak, holding a cane, enters his shop. This stranger, who might even be a magician, opens his white gloved hand to reveal a faintly familiar pocket watch. A conversation ensues, an exchange delving into the nature of time, the possibility of time branching to create two parallel universes wherein a person could live a second life with a different past. The watchmaker is handed the tall stranger’s pocket watch. On the inner side of the lid is the inscription TO J. FROM Z.. What happens next makes for one heart-wrenching tale.
4. The Artist
We have a sparsely furnished artist’s studio with bars on the window, bars painted white. There’s Magdalena, the artist, and a Doctor. There's an old book on a white table and an unfinished painting on an easel. A discussion ensues, a conversation that gets around to the interrelationship of stories, the storyteller and the writer. The conversation moves on to the plight of the royal astronomer, the doubt of the professor of paleolinguistics and the watchmaker's tragedy.
Zoran Živković speaks about the important role Time Gifts occupies in his writing. Firstly, he employed a similar “mosaic novel” structure in nine subsequent short novels (eventually collected as Impossible Stories 1 and Impossible Stories 2). Secondly, having a final chapter that incorporates characters and elements from preceding chapters thus bestowing a completeness on the whole work that’s larger than the sum of its individual parts or chapters. Lastly, making the crossover to facilitate an interplay of two worlds, two realities – the world of author and the world of his book.
All in all, Time Gifts is both an engaging read and a fun read, a short novel to be savored by any lover of literature.
*Note: Time Gifts is available both as a stand-alone book and one of five novellas forming part of Impossible Stories 1 published by Cadmus Press.
In his den, typing as he always types, exclusively with the index finger of his right hand, Serbian author Zoran Živković, born 1948
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