Tolog Review: The Time Keeper

The Time Keeper
by Mitch Albom
reviewed by Morgan Sarno

Try to imagine a time in history when there was no time. That very word, “time”, did not exist during Dor’s childhood. The concept of time was an unknown variable. There was no logical understanding of how long something took or why the day turned to night. People of Dor’s time accepted the fact that the gods controlled the light and dark. Dor, however, did not succumb so easily to this idea. He was the first person to measure time, and by doing so, Dor created a domino effect that eventually lead up to our world now: a world where everything is measured exactly to the millisecond and people either want time to pass more quickly or do not have enough time. 

When Dor’s wife, Alli, who contracted a horrible disease, is in her final hour, Dor becomes outraged with the gods for taking Alli away before her time. He climbs what we know now as the Tower of Babble to reach the gods so that they could give him his wife back. As he climbs into the clouds, Dor is blinded by a light. When he awakes, he finds himself in a cave with a man in a white robe. The man castigates Dor for measuring time and condemns him to an eternity in the cave with the curse of hearing everybody’s pleas for time. The only way for Dor to escape his cacophonous cave and reach the end of his life to be with Alli is to find two people, one who wants more time and one who wants less, and convert them to value their one precious lifetime and respect the time when they must leave earth. 

Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper makes the reader examine the way that humans treat time and deeply ponder the idea of wanting what is out of human control. Furthermore, it brings to attention the concept of appreciating the gifts that we are given and accepting death at its appropriate time. Albom is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie. His other novels include The First Phone Call from Heaven, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, Have a Little Faith, and more.