Customer Reviews

The Thief of Time

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"And I am not one of these long-living fictional characters who prays for death as a release from the captivity of eternal life; not for me the endless whining and wailing of the undead."

With these words, written on the first few pages of his novel "The Thief of Time," John Boyne pretty much sold me on the central idea of the book: a man who is over 250 years old but looks like a man in his late 40's or early 50's, and who has looked essentially the same for about 200 years.

Matthieu Zela, the long-lived main character, has lived a long time and seen much change in his life. I found the perspective he had on his apparent immortality quite refreshing -- he does not question it and he does not curse it. He simply accepts it as part of his life and lives...really lives. In his time he experiences the French Revolution, the Great Exhibition, the Great Depression, the rise of Hollywood, war, marriage, love, and death. So much death, all around him...but not for him.

The strength of the book comes from its ability to capture uniquely all the different time periods experienced and convince us that they are all seen through the eyes of this one singular character. Bouncing back and forth to different places in the past to modern day and back to the past again, Boyne tells several stories in parallel, and we slowly come to learn about the central events in Matthieu's life that changed him most dramatically, including the loss of the first true love he would ever know. Each thread of story is skillfully handled, coming together at last in a satisfying ending that explains only just enough, and still leaves much up to the imagination of the reader.

"The Thief of Time" is ambitious in its way, depending on the fact that the reader will be interested enough in the story to not question too much the whys and wherefores of it -- that they, as Matthieu himself does, will simply accept it as presented and enjoy it for what it is...an entertaining tale of a life, skillfully told. If there is a lesson to be learned from this book, it is that not everything has to be fully understood to be appreciated. Some experiences are enough in themselves. This book is one of them.

Frenchman Matthieu Zéla may be the only 256-year-old television executive in London. He has been gifted with extraordinary long life minus the nuisance of actually aging, but this supposed blessing comes with a price: Matthieu must bear witness to the destruction of a long line of nephews and grand-nephews, who all die young and violent deaths and are named some variation of Thomas.

THE THIEF OF TIME by John Boyne (author of the recent bestseller THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS and the acclaimed novel CRIPPEN) begins in the French revolution during Matthieu's natural lifespan. After his mother's murder at the hands of his stepfather, Matthieu leaves France for England, his young stepbrother Thomas --- the first of the doomed Thomases --- in tow. The boys soon meet Dominique, another French citizen fleeing Paris. They join forces, finding work as domestics in an English village, and Dominique becomes Matthieu's first love. Their story is told intermittently between Matthieu's adventures over the last 200 years to bring us up to 1990.

Matthieu is a Zelig figure, planning the first Olympics, partying with Charlie Chaplin and watching his first career in television fall victim to McCarthyism. After a dozen or so wives and nearly as many career changes, Matthieu is a TV executive worried over the current Thomas, Tommy DuMarqué, a soap opera star with dangerous habits. One of Tommy's girlfriends is expecting a child; in Matthieu's experience, as soon as a Thomas has ensured the continuance of the line, his luck runs out and tragedy strikes.

It's beginning to get to Matthieu --- all these young men dead while he remains perfectly preserved in his early 50s, almost as if the years his young relatives gave up were transferred to him. He is curiously blasé about his protracted life, expressing very little curiosity concerning how or why he's reached his miraculous age. But he wonders what would happen if, instead of passively standing by as Tommy tries to destroy himself, he tried to save Tommy.

Matthieu spares no effort. After a sensational drug overdose destroys the actor's career, Matthieu gets him a job and arranges drug treatment, ensuring that Tommy DuMarqué is the first of his charges to live to see the birth of their child.

As long as the reader does not ask too many questions --- such as why Matthieu is "the thief of time" when he has no control over his own years and isn't really stealing anything --- this is an entertaining foray through the years, told with style and wit.

--- Reviewed by Colleen Quinn

In 1999, Matthieu Zela turned two hundred and fifty six years old though anyone seeing him would guess he is in his late forties. Matthieu has never understood why he simply stopped aging back in the late eighteenth century, but he has outlived nine generations of descendents of his late younger half-brother Tomas. That is not saying much since they all died in their twenties after siring a male offspring due to either insanity or events out of their control.

Currently he resides in London where he earns a nice living as a satellite TV businessman. He worries about his nephew of the moment Tommy, a soap opera star, because he expects the lad to die soon especially since the youngster is out of control with a nasty heroin habit that makes him this generation's dolt. However, Matthieu vows not this time will his nephew pass on..

This is a fascinating historical fantasy that is fun to follow though the TIME THIEF never decides between a gallop through major Western historical events of the last two and a half centuries like the French Revolution, etc or a current thriller to save the life of the nephew. Matthieu is an absorbing protagonist with his employment over the years being similar but modified to the era while he grieves his losses. However, one strike is that the audience never knows why he is immortal. Still overall this is a fine rapid dash through history.

Harriet Klausner

Immagine living to see your 250th birthday!
For those who enjoy either historical, time travel, litterary, coming of age or even light romance( light enough for us guys-that is) novels, this one's for you.
Beatifully written.
Expertly plotted.
Crisply paced.
Above all entertaining yet infomative.
...And the best last phrase I've read in a novel in years.
Kudos to the author. I look forward to his next tale.

Not exactly what I had expected. Left too many questions unanswered for my liking, but an original and enjoyable read all the same.

Ah, the underlying - and universal - longing that haunts you as you read this novel. It is a seductive story, told sweetly, that draws you in emotionally, intellectually and leaves you with just a pang of jealousy.

Because who wouldn't want to live so long, and so well?

And I could wax lyrical about the characterisations or historical sweep or just the sheer, wonderful competence displayed in communicating the mundane and hundrum of various ages across the 250-odd years that makes up "The Thief of Time".

But why bother?

Let me just say that this is a great book, a novel that you are sad to see the end of, and one that prompts random thoughts and associations long after you have put it down.

It is intelligent, engaging, finely crafted and ultimately well worth reading, no matter what genre you might normally prefer.

This is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it. John Boyne's style of writing transports the reader immediately into the world of Matthieu Zela. Finishing the book is like coming back from a wonderful vacation..one you would definitely take again.

I had loved the boy in the striped pajamas, however I am somewhat disappointed by this Boyne novel.
As entertaining as it might be to some, it gave me a very quick and shallow sum-up of the history of Europe in the last three hundred years more than follow a clear storyline. Some chapters were totally irrelevant to the main plot and the two phases of his life, its beginning and end, on which the author puts most weight, were quiet honestly, boring.
I had bought it along "Mutiny on Bounty" and hope that the second book won't disappoint me like this one did.