'Banished for centuries, as punishment for trying to measure time, the inventor of the world's first clock is finally granted his freedom, along with a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two people the true meaning of time.
'He returns to our world and embarks on a journey with two unlikely partners: a teenage girl who is about to give up on life and a wealthy, ageing businessman who wants to live for ever. To save himself, he must save them both.'
The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom tells the story of Dor, a man who became obsessed with measuring time. Beginning with simply counting in his head, before moving on to measuring the path of the sun and creating devices that would let him know when the sun would rise, Dor became the first human in existence to try and quantify time itself.
When his wife dies tragically Dor wants more time with her, desperate to be with the woman he loves, and tries to race up the tower of Babylon to challenge the gods themselves. Instead of finding a pantheon of gods to challenge he is cast into a dark cave, where he's confronted by a mysterious old man who punishes him for his measuring of time by making him live forever in that cave, listening to the pleas of every person who wants more time; becoming Father Time. Living for thousands of years, Dor is finally freed from his cave by God and sent out to help two people understand the value of time.
Sarah Lemon is a teenage girl living with her single mother, whose love for a boy is rejected, causing her to feel alone and humiliated, pushing her to taking her own life. Victor Delamonte is an ageing millionaire businessman with terminal cancer, who is prepared to go to any lengths it takes to keep on living. Dor must seek out both of them, and help them realise that they are wrong about their courses of action.
The Time Keeper is a strange book, with a narrative that jumps between the three main characters at a quick pace, giving a handful of pages over to each before the next chapter begins. As such, it feels like a very short book. Whilst at first I found this to be something of an annoyance, and I didn't feel like I was being given a chance to get to know any of them. This was something that frustrated me until I found myself being drawn into the journeys more than the characters themselves.
This was something that made more sense to me as the story progressed and I realised that the characters of Sarah and Victor weren't really important, it was their journeys that were. This isn't just a story about people learning to overcome their demons and their fears, but about accepting time. It's a story that warns about the dangers of being so desperate for something that you let it consume your life. Victor is willing to hurt the woman he loves, to shut her out of his plans and betray her trust just for a few more years in his already long life because he believes he deserves longer. Sarah is willing to throw away her future, to hurt her family because she can't see an existence without the boy she has a crush on because she can't imagine ever loving anyone else that way.
The Time Keeper is a story about obsession and it's dangers, about how sometimes the heart can blind the brain and make a person believe that there is only one course of action open to them, even if it's an incredibly dangerous and destructive one.
Whilst it may have a slow beginning The Time Keeper has depths that come as something as a surprise and prove to be more moving than I was expecting. This was my first experience with a Mitch Albom book, and I wasn't disappointed.
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