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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Literary Twilight Zone, July 30, 2001
This review is from: Time Gifts (Writings from an Unbound Europe) (Hardcover)
Time is both gift and curse to three people -- a church astronomer persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition, a forgotten scholar of dead, ancient language, and a reticent watchmaker -- courtesy of an enigmatic, literally obscure stranger. He travels through time to visit people carrying years of secret pain, then leaves each with an oppurtunity for their own time journey. These episodes form the first three stories of the book; the fourth story links the previous tales and reveals the stranger's identity. This book's style is clean and clear, with few of the fumblings one might expect for a translated work. The glaring problem is shifting in diction. It isn't appropriate to write a sentence as casually poetic as "He stepped outside to meet the stars, but his foot did not alight on solid ground as it should have," and then follow it with the colloquial "It landed on something soft and squishy." And at other times, the narrator seems to confuse a Derby hat with a top hat. But in a book as otherwise formal and pristine as this one, these are minor quibbles. To convey the effect of time travel, Zivkovic adheres rigidly to Aristotle's unities of time and space, until the moment when each character receives their "gift"; then violently stretches each perspective to reflect disorientation. The travellers are left both grateful and unnerved by the journeys. Each tale ends in an ironic twist which will no doubt remind many of the Twilight Zone television series. But these tales lack the moral force of Serling's vision. Neither are they tales of the wonders held by the future, or exercises in alternate history. They are about the comfort of illusions and the shock of truth. If they feel slight, it's because of Zivkovic avoiding sensationalism, prefering instead to goad the reader into philosophic reflection.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
sci-fi for the postmodern, May 4, 2005
In this Serbian, postmodern, science fiction novel (yeah, you read that right) a mysterious stranger appears in three different times to three different people. He talks to them each about certain aspects of the nature of time and then gives each a "time gift," a visit to another time which will have special significance for him or her. In the book's fourth and final section, the mystery of the stranger and his visits is solved in the most unexpected way while questions of time-theory give way to a unique aesthetic statement.
Not too much can be said about the organizing concept or the ending of this book without ruining its effect on the reader. Like most postmodern writers, Zivkovic depends heavily on the surprise created by the way he unexpectedly warps the traditional structure of a narrative. Postmodern writers generally violate at least one of the big, assumed "laws" of storytelling (good pop culture examples of this are the films of Charlie Kaufman--"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," etc.). This is not to say that Zivkovic's work is a hollow stylistic exercise, however. The final section of "Time Gifts" offers the reader one or two truly substantive problems to ponder over. Zivkovic's prose, also, is often a treat. As an example, here is a priceless image from the novel, which comes as Zivkovic describes the modest amenities in the office belonging to an aging academic, a woman addicted to tea: "Several used tea bags were lying on the newspaper like tropical fish that had died of asphyxiation." A precious little gem, that.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
time travel as redemption, January 2, 2003
By A Customer
What makes Zivkovic's take on time travel unique is the setting in which each frustrated individual ultimately chosen for the journey lives. The mechanism by which they vault their present condition is one part quiet desperation and many, many parts imagination of a very high order. Reading these tales will leave you pondering them for days.
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