by Kaliane Bradley ★★★☆☆
The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley's debut novel, is built around the premise that in a near-future society the British government has just discovered a way to transport people through time. Given the nascent nature of the technology, they decide to pull a few select "expats" from the past and monitor them to see if time travel is safe, both physiologically and mentally for those involved. As part of this experiment, for the expats are essentially lab rats, they are paired with a "bridge", a government worker who cohabitates with them and acts as their guide to the modern world.
The book was marketed as a spy thriller with bits of time travel, romance and humor, and I agree with some of that, but those components are in relatively short supply. Instead, Bradley uses the arrival of the expats to delve into an abundance of social commentary. The primary expat we focus on is Graham Gore, a polar explorer transported from 1847 just before his expedition perished after being trapped in the Arctic. Gore questions some of the absurdity of modern society, which does add some moments of levity, but more often his questions are used as a prompt for Bradley and her unnamed narrator to flog society over sins of the past.
Gore's confusion on certain topics lead to the narrator's uncomfortable explanations, or apologies, or topic avoidance. British colonialism is at the forefront; climate change, Cambodian genocide, race, sexuality, gender, and the Holocaust all make an appearance as well. If there's something that carries with it some historical shame, it will almost certainly be worked into conversations with the expats. The narrator is a woman of Cambodian and British heritage, and one passage from her is particularly illustrative of what seems to be a good amount of frustration or anger with a wide swath of topics:
"When I first joined the Ministry and they'd pressed me through HR, a woman ran her finger down the column with my family history.
'What was it like growing up with that?' she asked.
She meant it all: Pol Pot Noodle jokes on first dates, my aunt's crying jags, a stupa with no ashes, Gary Glitter, Agent Orange, we loved Angkor Wat, regime change, not knowing where the bodies were, Princess Diana, landmines, the passport in my mother's drawer, my mother's nightmares, fucking chink, you don't look it, dragon ladies, fucking paki, Tuol Sleng was a school, Saloth Sar was a teacher, my grandfather's medals, the firing squad, my uncle's trembling hands, it's on my bucket list, Brother Number One, I've got a thing for Latinas, the killing fields, The Killing Fields (1984), Angelina Jolie, do you mean Cameroonian? do you mean Vietnamese? will you say your name again for me?
I considered. 'I don't know,' I said. 'What was it like growing up without it?'"
That's a lot, and the heavier moments like those above are far more common than the fish-out-of-water moments of levity.
The pacing is slow, especially for the first 50-60% of the novel. Once the basic premise of the novel is established, it's primarily focused on Gore acclimating to modern society, and very little happens in terms of plot development. It's a vehicle for commentary above anything else, which made me consistently think of Stranger in a Strange Land as I was reading it. At one point in the novel, Gore even references that phrase ("There is no one left in the world who has known me for longer than a few months. I am a stranger in a strange land."). The pace does accelerate during the final third, and there are some interesting plot choices that I appreciated, but by that point I was mostly ready to be finished with the story.
I will also say this: on the heels of reading The Book of Doors, which suffered from leaving too many loopholes open regarding time travel, Bradley does a clean job of handling the potential pitfalls. Beyond that, she cheekily (via the narrator) tells the reader not to get hung up on it:
"Anyone who has ever watched a film with time-travel, or read a book with time-travel...will know that the moment you start to think about the physics of it, you are in a crock of shit. How does it work? How can it work?...I'm here to tell you: don't worry about it. All you need to know is that in your near future, the British government developed the means to travel through time but had not yet experimented with doing it."
There were components of The Ministry of Time that I appreciated: it's thoughtful, it's a somewhat-fresh take on a well-trod theme, and it does marry several different elements (social commentary, humor, some bits of sci-fi / mystery, some romance) without losing its overall tone or sense of self. But it certainly dragged for me in the middle third, and I expected something that would be more plot-driven than what was essentially a letter of apology on behalf of the last 200+ years. Approaching with those eyes wide open and clear expectations of what lies ahead will hopefully increase one's enjoyment, but for me it was just so-so.