Get Your Hands On How To Stop Time Illustrated By Matt Haig Available Through Document

To Stop Time is a beautiful work of fiction you know I read a lot of books this is actually bookfor me ofand I dont think I have ever read an author that just grasps and conveys the vagaries of human nature quite like Matt Haig does in a way that makes you feel like he is writing just for you.
The emotional sense of his writing is enduring and never anything less than compelling no matter the story being told or the premise that starts it.


So there is that and How To Stop Time falls firmly under page turner, with a dash of passionate prose, a smattering of emotional trauma and a big hit of poignant insightful commentary on the human race.
Pretty much what this author does in a nutshell,

Tom is one of those characters that will stay with you long after you have finished reading his story and what a story it is.
He is old, plagued or blessed maybe that will be subjective with a condition that means he ages at a much slower rate.
Not immortal but feeling that way, he is part of history and an observer of it we see him over time, at his best and his worst, this is a love story with a touch of mystery and is hugely gripping from the very first page until the tear inducing poignant finale.


I wont give away much, this is one of those books that everyone will come to in their own way and will take from it different things but Matt Haig manages to bring history alive on the page here through Tom and what he experiences, it almost feels as if you are living it with him.
The characters he and we meet along the way all come with their own peculiarities and sense of self, the story weaves somewhat of a magic spell on the reader, or it did on me at least I was totally immersed into this one all the way.


The thing about stories is that they transport you to other places, make you think about other things, When you have a master storyteller at work it becomes so much less about construction and literary merit and all of those bookish things that as a reviewer Im supposed to be perhaps commenting on and just becomes about you, as a reader, in those few short moments of time you are living in that other world.
Matt Haig is simply, when you remove the white noise, a master storyteller,

I loved this book, Just that.

Highly Recommended.

Im captivated by a good time travel story and while this is not a time travel story in the strictest sense, I was reminded of a few favorites Jack Finneys Time and Again , Stephen Kingsand Audrey Niffeneggers The Time Travelers Wife.
I couldnt help but think of all three of these at the very beginning of the story : “The first rule is that you dont fall in love”, he said.
There are other rules too, but that is the main one, No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. ” Of course, the main character in each of these books falls in love, Our protagonist Tom Hazard takes us back and forth across centuries from the now through flashbacks to his past not just years ago, but centuries ago.
No hes not time traveling, Hes just very old, due to his affliction which causes him to age at a much slower rate than normal and in Toms case he ages in appearance a year for every fifteen years so now he is overyears old.
So it is his memory that takes us back to the time when he fell in love with Rose inand when their daughter was born

If I havent lost you already, Ill try to make the case for this story.
What I said in my review of Jack Finneys book Time and Again held true for me here: When I read a time travel story, I try not to dwell on how the character got to this other time and place.
It just doesn't pay because then I start asking questions for which there is no realistic answer, So for me it has to be about the destination, what I find there, what happens there, what it means for the character in his or her present day.
What we find in Toms past is a lonely, sad life with moments of joy that he has to run from in order to keep his loved ones safe.
All of this connected to his desire to lead a normal life and find his daughter as we find him in the now teaching history in a London school.


There are also moments where I found sheer enjoyment from when he works at the Globe Theater for Shakespeare to when he plays the piano at Ciros in Paris and meets F.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, among others, I also loved the appearance of the famous Dakota apartment building in New York City in thes as it is also in Jack Finneys book.
The story has an ominous side to it as well in the character of Hendrich, head of the society claiming to protect those with the affliction.


This was lovely way to spend a snowy weekend taking a trip down Tom Hazards memory lane allyears of it.
Amid the fear and loss and loneliness there is a lot of love in this creative and captivating story as well as some things to think about for sure what it means to live ones life, what are the important things, the things to hold precious.
To those who just dont think they can accept the premise of the story I say the same thing I said about Finneys book: Imagine you are in another time, in another place with people you don't yet know.
It doesnt have to be a story about time travel it could be a fantasy, a mystery, a story that takes place in history or in the future because isnt this what we as readers of any fiction are ultimately summoned to do when we begin that first page of any story.


I received an advanced copy of this book from Viking through Edelweiss, "When I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I dont expect, I feel civilisation has become a little safer.
"

We are the invisible threads of history,

"It may seem strange, falling in love with someone because of a gesture, but sometimes you can read an entire person in a single moment.
The way you can study a grain of sand and understand the universe, Love at first sight might or might not be a thing, but love in a single moment is, "

"You spend so much time waiting for something a person, a feeling, a piece of information that you can't quite absorb it when it is in front of you.
The hole is so used to being a hole it doesn't know how to close itself, " I am giving this five because I enjoyed it enormously and I finished it in one day! I love time travel and although this was not that really, it had the same effect and was just as pleasing.


Tom Hazard has a condition which means he ages very slowly indeed and in this story he is well over four centuries old.
sitelinkHow to Stop Time alternates chapters from the present with others from his extensive past, When I was reading the past I had to keep reminding myself he was living it at that time and not visiting it from the present.
It was intriguing.

I was pleased that the present chapters and the past were equally interesting, Tom's experiences teaching and his relationship with Camille were able to compete with him meeting Shakespeare and Charlie Chaplin, The ending was satisfactory and even optimistic, I closed the book with a smile on my face and went straight to Amazon and bought sitelinkThe Humans

It is strange how close the past is, even when you imagine it to be so far away.
Strange how it can just jump out of a sentence and hit you, Strange how every object or word can house a ghost, The past is not one separate place, It is many, many places, and they are always ready to rise into the present, One minute it is thes, the next it is thes, And it is all related, It is all the accumulation of time, It builds up and builds up and can catch you violently off guard at any moment, The past resides inside the present, repeating, hiccupping, reminding you of all the stuff that no longer is, It bleeds out from road signs and plaques on park benches and songs and surnames and faces and the covers of books, Sometimes just the sight of a tree or a sunset can smack you with the power of every tree or sunset you have ever seen and there is no way to protect yourself.

This begins with a personal bit of meandering, Please feel free to skip the next few paragraphs, I have noted below where the actual review begins,

Summer,, I was looking for a Porch Read, I had recently discovered the joys of sitting on the back porch in the wee hours, reading from my phone a book I had no intention of reviewing.
I do most of my reading at my desk, entering notes as I proceed, My second reading spot is bed, before ging to sleep, armed with a laptop, My goal is to get inpps a night there, also entering notes, researching the unfamiliar, and copying quotable passages into the Word file I keep for every book I read.


I have not used the Apple Books app much, having read maybe a handful of items that way over the years.
But my wife has acquired a fair number of ebooks and I can access them, So, a quick trip to the available familyshare elibrary provided a decent selection, Haigs seemed like the sort of pleasant fantasy I was looking for, So off we went, knocking off maybephone pages a night, of a bit over, An entertainment, not one of my beloved literary fiction books, But still, I found myself highlighting a few passages here and there, And when I got back to my desk the day after I finished reading it, I thought, well, Ill just make a note on GR that I had read it, but the urge to make a file for it was too strong.
I mean, ok. I dont have to write anything, really, just record keeping, I surely dont have to post anything, As I had not taken notes while reading that would be a bit of a challenge anyway, But, it turns out that one can upload highlighted items, Couldnt hurt, right Just filling in the QUOTES section of my Word file, But a part of the ebook is an interview with Haig about the book, and, of course, that is like free crack to a base head.
I wrote a line, or two, summary stuff, and the reviewer that I had chained in the basement for this book was screaming to be let loose.
So I began writing something soon after I finished reading, It was not a complete thing, just a start, really, and remained in a digital drawer, spotty, and unfinished, for rather a while.
Good thing too.

It happens sometimes that I get stuck in a book, whether for reasons having to do with the book itself, or due to external forces, demands on my time, acts of nature.
I was reading two novels at the same time, the norm for me, I was quite enjoying both, but September,has been a time of increased requirements, Not to mention a bout of Covid, My downstairs reading time was decimated by the need to get up early to drive here and there for various reasons, Out of the house I was unable to do much daytime reading, And by the time I went to bed I was only able to remain awake for an embarrassingly small number of pages, The result was that my wellcrafted reading schedule was shredded, and I needed to dig into the archives for a read book that I had somehow managed not to review, if I were to keep alive my string of consecutive weeks posting a review, a thing of absolutely no significance to anyone but myself.
months at present It is not quite a form of cheating, I did read the book, I did write a review, There is usually only a small gap between when I read the book and when I finish writing about it, So, not my usual review of an upcoming or recent release this week, Hope to be back in the saddle next week Lungfish, The loss of a week does mean that books in my very full reviewing schedule will be pushed back a week from the dates on which I had hoped to post my reviews of them, which is never a happy thing.


ACTUAL REVIEW BEGINS HERE

Tom Hazard has been around a while, a very, very long while, Born in the lateth century, he caught a winning ticket in the Methuselah Lottery, a condition called anageria, which causes him to age at a glacial rate.
one year for every fifteen of ours, kicking in at about ageLocals of any era might get just a wee bit suspicious of someone taking so long to reach the usual life stages.
And sitelinkwe can expect the more superstitious, ignorant, and meanspirited among them to assign dark forces to anything they do not understand.
The more scientifically inclined might see a prized lab rat, Thus, the need for some protection,

I often think of what Hendrich said to me, over a century ago, in his New York apartment, “The first rule unlike the sitelinkfirst rule of Fight Club, is that you dont fall in love, he said, “There are other rules, too, but that is the main one, no falling in love, No staying in love, no daydreaming of love, If you stick to this you will just about be ok,

The Albatross Society was how Tom, Hendrich, and others like them stayed alive in the fastaging world, They called themselves “albas” while referring to those stuck with more usual lifespans as “mayflies, ”


Matt Haig image from The Guardian by Sarah Lee

But there is more than just the love thing.
In return for services and protection from the Society, every member must agree to uproot every eight years, new location, new name, new backstory, and they must do some task assigned by Hendrich.
Which has sitelinka familiar sound to it,

Well, you can see straight off how at least a part of this is gonna go, Dont fall in love Oopsy, Too late. Tom struggles with this nearimmortality situation, as most literary longlifers tend to do, Think vampires. And is life really worth living if there is no love in it So, we have Toms journey through time, and his struggle.
He has a purpose, providing motivation for his actions, but I will not spoil that for you,

The other element here is Matt Haig touristing through several time periods of interest,

I used the novel as my own personal time machine, traveling to places I would be interested in visiting, I debated whether to include famous characters in the novel, Especially Shakespeare. That seemed a huge risk, for obvious reasons, But I knew that if I actually traveled back to Elizabethan England the thing I would want to do most is meet Shakespeare.
And after all, a lot of real human beings did actually meet Shakespeare, and he was quite an accessible figure at the time, especially as London was a far smaller place than it is today.
I wanted to give a true sense of the weight of time and the idea that the past was never really lived as the past.
It was always just another present, from a Conversation with Matt Haig in the Appendix

The Shakespearean play performance is particularly rowdy and fun, He rides with Captain Cook, who commits outrages against indigenous

people in Australia, plays piano with F, Scott Fitzgerald, visits a lawlessArizona, Hollywood of that era, London and New York of the lateth century, Australia, Tahiti and more, touching on each of the centuries in which Tom has lived.
While he does look at political subjects, such as rabblerousing around witchcraft and bigotry, whether via superstition or a desire for economic or political gain, and Cooks crimes they are not a primary focus of the book.

Just as Tom does for his pupils, Matt Haig brings History to life, Matt told us that he chose teaching as an occupation for Tom because he “thought itd be fun to have a history teacher who himself IS history”.
Matts mum was a teacher for fortyfive years and he wanted “to take this character who has lived for centuries, who has realised there is no more important or wonderful life than that of a teacher.
” from the W. H. Smith interview

How to Stop Time is a bit of an exaggeration, as it would have been more accurate to have titled the novel How to Slow Down Time.
It is not a time travel novel, per se, as the character lives in a linear chronology, His steps among several places and time periods are via memory, not magical transport, In a less longlived mode, the “Observerthroughtime” format has a character looking back over personally experienced history, This has been used quite nicely over the years, usually maxxing out at about one hundred years, Jack Crabb of Little Big Man pops to mind, as does Forrest Gump, sitelink The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, by M, Glenn Taylor, is another. Tom Hazard has a longer history to recall,

For quite a while I had wanted to tell the story of someone unfathomably old, I felt like it would be an interesting way to look at history by making it personal, I also think the best way at looking at human life is often to have a narrator who is a little bit beyond human.
Its like taking a step back from a painting to get a better view of it, I thought, for instance, it would help explore some very human things, such as how to cope with grief, If you live for centuries you are going to know about loss, from a Conversation with Matt Haig in the Appendix

Tom, by nature of his peculiar genetics, is doomed to feel like, and be an outsider.
This lines up with Haigs prior work, both fictional and non, about depression, including his own, He has a knowing voice on the subject, How to Stop Time was Haigs sixth adult novel, He had written five nonfictiOn books, including the wildly successful Reasons to Stay Alive,

So, bottom line is that How to Stop Time is a warm, engaging read, offering a lead relatable by being stricken with issues common to us all, regardless of our longevity, finding and holding on to love, keeping his secrets, and trying to live an honorable life.
The visits to diverse times and places, and to some familiar historical figures, are delightful, and help keep the book chugging along, Makes you wonder who would be on your short list of historical figures youd like to meet, which places you would want to see and when you would like to see them.
You can get an early start by taking on Matt Haigs particular list, It is a quick read, so you will not have to stop time to get through it,

what is the point of living when you have no one to live for

posted October,

Publication date June,Viking First published in


sitelink sitelink sitelink sitelink

This review has been, or soon will be crossposted on my site, sitelinkCoots s.
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EXTRA STUFF

Links to the authors sitelinkpersonal, sitelinkFB, and sitelinkTwitter pages

Interviews
Festivalettertura sitelinkStopping Time with.
Matt Haig

Rather than coming from a place of superior knowledge, he writes instead as an explorer, seeking especially to come to terms with depression and other mental health issues.
How to Stop Time is a metaphor for the secret burden of mental health, and the profound, alienating, loneliness that it can bring.
In this sense, it is a continuation of Haigs previous novel, How to Stay Alive,

R. H. Herron sitelink Ep.: Matt Haig on Literally Writing the Multiverse

s of other work by the author
sitelinkThe Midnight Library

Items of Interest
Penguin Random House sitelink How to Stop Time Readers Guide
sitelink Book Club Questions for How to Stop Time by Matt Haig by Heather Caliendo
Monty Python sitelinkThe Albatross sketch.

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