Our unnamed main character is a biracial woman, the daughter of a Cambodian refugee and a white man. She's having an unremarkable career in job translating in the Ministry of Defense when she's hired as a "bridge" to a time-traveling naval officer, Commander Graham Gore, who was pulled from a mission in the Arctic in 1847. What follows is a romance? A time travel escapade? A critique of modern life as seen through the lens of our ancestors? A workplace drama? Hmmm....it's a genre mishmash!
The first half of the book was hilarious. I laughed so much at our snarky main character and Gore's observations about modern life. I laughed at how the author decided that she would have people time travel and then just hole up in flats in London doing nothing. And then the action started towards the end of the book and it took a serious tone that was unexpected, but not unwelcomed.
I don't know if I've sold you on this book, but I loved it a lot. 5/5 stars
Lines of note:
I slid quietly to the floor and leaned my head against the wall. I wasn't going to see a Ministry therapist. I knew I should, and I knew I wouldn't. (page 119)
I feel like this was a sign from the universe that I should talk to someone, but I know I'm not going to.
"He is a pizzle-headed doorknob," said Margaret. (page 122)
Pizzle-headed!! Lovely. Let's bring back old-time insults.
It was a moment among moments, but everyone was held in it, captured in a small and easy joy. I return again and again to this memory. It's proof, you see. Not everything I did was wrong. (page 186)
I have had this thought a lot in recent weeks. My life is what it is because of a series of choice, but surely I haven't done everything wrong.
I thought I might have the energy to perform every action required to make a cup of tea, but I was surprised to remember how many there were: kettle boiling, mug fetching, milk sniffing, tea bag choosing, teaspoon handling. (page 195)
Sometimes I wonder how I even make it to work, let alone actually do work.
But the stars aren't eternal. Most were already dead, and I was looking at ghosts. At some point in our planet's future, the skyscape will change. There might not be people left by then...These stars were a temporary, beautiful gift of our era - the era that we all shared, a human era. I'd die one day, just like everyone else, so I had better try to live. (page 329)
I thought this was beautiful. The universe is fleeting.
Things I looked up (in which you learn that I know nothing about Cambodian life or culture):
Éclat (page 8) - Ostentatious display : publicity; dazzling; brilliance
Polonaise (page 13) - a slow dance of Polish origin in triple time, consisting chiefly of an intricate march or procession
Voight - Kampff (page 54) - was a fictional test used by the LAPD's Blade Runners to assist in determining whether or not an individual was a replicant - a fictional interpretation of the Turing test
gelid (page 103, and then again and again) - icy; extremely cold
rhotacism (page 124) - a speech disorder characterized by difficulty articulating the "r" sound, also known as r-deletion, r-substitution, or lallation
borbor (page 149) - Cambodian rice soup or porridge
doolally (page 168) - temporarily deranged or feebleminded
stupa (page 177) - a dome-shaped structure erected as a Buddhist shrine
Gary Glitter (page 177) - Paul Francis Gadd (born 8 May 1944), better known by his stage name Gary Glitter, is an English former singer who achieved fame and success during the 1970s and 1980s. His career ended after he was convicted of downloading child pornography in 1999. He was also convicted of child sexual abuse in 2006 and a series of sexual offences (including attempted rape) in 2015.
Angkor Wat (page 177) - a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia
Tuol Sleng (page 177) - The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or simply Tuol Sleng, is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979.
Saloth Sor (page 177) - YOU GUYS. This is Pol Pot's real name. Why didn't I know this? Honestly. What sort of education do I have?
The Marne (page 200) - A river in France; the site of a 1914 battle of World War I
Kindertransport (page 207) - an organized rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of World War II. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. [The line in the book is "We frame the Kindertransport as an act of heroism, a coherent example of Britain's intrinsic charity and anti-fascism. It's not all untrue - those orphans were grateful, often, thrived, sometimes." It's critical, though, of the refusal to take these children's parents.]
Deleuze (page 215) - Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art.
Rupert Brooke (page 328) - an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier"
Siegfried Sassoon (page 328) - was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War.
"You could make a lovely hat." (page 57)
"Did the fashionable still wear hats?" (page 64)
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