Title: The Time Keeper Author: Mitch Albom Text type: Novel I recommend The Time Keeper for a Year 12 reading list for many reasons. The The Time Keeper is interesting to read because it teaches us to make the best use of time we have which everyone should consider. It inspires us to reconsider our own notions of time, how to spend it, and how precious it is. As of today, there are lots of distractions for the teenagers to do their school works, and it is because of too much time spending on Facebook rather than spending on their homework.
It also discovers what people would change if we could control time.It is true that we wish time could speed up, slow down or stop it which depends on circumstances. As the text says, “man alone measures time. ” This is true that only humans measure time; we are the only living thing on earth that knows the time, the month, the year. I enjoyed how Albom constructed three different characters with different views of time.
One who wanted to stop time, “one who wants too little time,” and “one who wants too much time. ” I find it interesting how he uses the technique of bolding the first sentences on every chapter which could mean the highlight of the paragraph or chapter.I also became curious about time history and the cryonics; so I made a research about it and about immortality as Victor, “one who wants too much time” to have more time living here on Earth. Though, it was challenging at times that the story changes from going back and forth and changing point-of-views between the three characters. It is through the character of Victor that we learn no matter how much money one has, it is impossible to beat time. Billionaires have the same 24 hours in a day that those ordinary people have.
Victor was claimed as the “fourteenth-richest man in the world. ” Unfortunately, after a successful life he knew that he could only live for a few more months because of his cancer. He is even willing to stop dialysis and be frozen in a Cryonics lab where he could return back to his life. He wants to have “another lifetime. ” But he couldn’t have it.
Even though he has the money he could never buy what he wants, an eternal life. Sarah Lemon is a smart student, “a biology whiz. ” But she gets really anxious about her physical appearance. She was a total outcast in school.Her father does not talk to her after her parents got divorced. She also got used by her crush.
She thought that her crush, Ethan, likes her too but he isn’t. He even humiliated Sarah on Facebook. Due to her life’s circumstances, she struggles to manage it so she wanted to make her time end by killing herself. But as Dor, Father Time, make her realize that there are so much good thing to happen to her and many people will get to miss her.
In the ending of the text, Sarah became a doctor and “found a cure for the most dreaded disease of our time. From Sarah I could relate myself to her as I also became anxious to my physical appearance and that I’m not popular at school. Also through Sarah’s life, it teaches us that bad things happen but still life goes on. It is just how we handle our problems.
We must always know and learn how to solve it in a good and possible way and not committing suicide. “Try to imagine imagine a life without timekeeping. ” It is in the culture of human being “to know the month, the year, the day of the week…have a schedule, a calendar. ” We probably can’t imagine a world being timeless.
This book also teaches us to stop keeping time at some point. If we keep measuring time, we are destroying the beauty of the moment because all things happen “when it is supposed to be, never too late or too soon;” and once began to chime the hour “we lost the ability to be satisfied. ” What everyone in our society today should do is to make the best use of time we have. We don’t have the power to speed it up or slow it down but we can do the best we can in the time we have. We should use it wisely, cherish it and be grateful; it is because “there is a reason God limits our days…to make each one precious.
”
