The Time Keeper - Mitch Albom

I have not gone through all of Mitch Albom's work, but the few I have read are awesome enough to get into my favorite list (Tuesdays with Morrie, The five people you meet in heaven). The time keeper keeps the reputation intact. This book is simply fabulous.

I have always admired Albom for choosing a simple, well known morale/topic; create some simple magical characters; and portray them with a gripping text. 'Simplicity' with 'depth of understanding' and perspective about time is what I adored in the time keeper as well.

"Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes in the hour. And because of this, man alone suffers the paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of running out of time."

Dor, a man from thousands of years ago is obsessed with measuring time. He has a beautiful wife and three kids. But his obsession leads to his banishment from the kingdom and he almost loses his wife. Later after other unlucky sequence of events, he ends up in a cave for thousand of years, where time never moves for him, but he is forced to listen to the lamenting voices of people of earth complaining about time.

Sarah Lemon, a present day teenage girl with low self esteem is in love with a boy. She thinks he loves her back but ends up being publicly humiliated. She thinks, she does not need anymore time.

Victor Delamonte, a filthy rich business man with a loving wife has everything in the world but doesn't have any time. He is terminally ill and is looking for ways to extend his time.

Dor, now described as father time is released from his imprisonment from the cave.  He meets these two people with entirely different background and perspective, and shows them the real value of time. In the process he understands the secret himself.

I did have trouble connecting to the characters in the initial pages of the book, since the writer was moving from one character to another without properly building the background. (But my history shows, I always had trouble in the beginning pages of the best books of my collection. May it be Potter series or Life of Pi or The god of small things. so I needed a bit of patience in the beginning.) After I got hold of the situation, I enjoyed the book thoroughly. There is nothing uniquely special about the story itself, yet it demands your attention and the end revives your perspective of time and what living in the moment really means.

Do read it. Worth every minute of your time.

My favourite lines

• Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.
• A heart weighs more when it splits in two; it crashes in the chest like a broken plane.
• Knowing something and understanding it were not a same thing.
• And when hope is gone, time is punishment.
• It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.
• Ends are for yesterdays not tomorrows.
• There is a reason god limits our days. Why? To make each one precious. 
• With endless time, nothing is special. With no sacrifice, we can't appreciate what we have. 
• We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes we forget what we have. 
• When we are most alone is when we embrace another's loneliness. 
• But fates are connected in ways we don't understand. 
• But you grab a moment, or you let it pass.