By: Lucy Bartholomew

As the title suggests, there will be spoilers for the novel The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley in the following review. If you plan on reading this novel, which I highly suggest you do, I’d recommend returning once you’ve done so. If you already have, or care very little about knowing certain plot aspects before going in, then enjoy!

It takes a lot of blind dedication on the author’s part to write a novel wherein the narrator isn’t named. Though it might sound like a simple enough task, there is a certain adroitness to maintaining such anonymity. I also adore that twisted feeling of hankering after more; you enjoyed this book, but how much do you really know about the characters? In the case of The Ministry of Time, it took me until the end of the story to realise that we’d never actually been told the name of our anecdotist – and I think that’s when I fell in love.

I picked up the book in my local Waterstones primarily because the free fabric badge that accompanied it caught my eye: “My secret crush is a polar explorer”. That statement would ring very true after the fact; I’m still trying to find a tote bag worthy of adhering it to. After reading over the character bookmark that also came with it (I was already intrigued by the interest in flute-playing) I caved and bought the hardback. With my iron-on patch and bookmark in-hand, I finished the whole thing in two days flat. Had I not had other priorities, the total time would’ve likely sat at around a few hours.

The story follows Commander Graham Gore, a naval officer who died on the Franklin expedition in the late 1840’s, as he navigates life in the 21st century. Pulled into the future just before his death as part of a government programme, he must now live alongside his “bridge” – our British-Cambodian female narrator who must help him to adapt and is exceptionally enamoured by him. Graham is one of five of these cases, “expats” from the past who must now adapt to the modern world. Some undertake this task better than others. Maggie Kemble, for example, a character who is so vividly written that I couldn’t help but absolutely cherish, is swift to take to the clubs and explore her sexuality. I think these characterisations are where Bradley excels with her attention to detail; the quirks of each expat, including their individual senses of humour, all equate to how realistic they each are – the novel tackles some heavy subjects including racism and gender disparities, each of which are viewed differently by expats from different time periods. In other words, they remain as true-to-life as we’d imagine them to be, and Bradley handles each personality with witty elegance.

The narrative itself is incredibly unique, though it remains one of very few novels where my interest hasn’t dwindled enough from the unfolding romance between our main characters that I could focus wholly on it. Perhaps that’s why the plot twist took me aback as much as it did. It’s genius; Bradley has us focusing so much on the past stepping into the present that we forget about the concept functioning the other way around, namely the way around we see in so many works of this genre. Adela, a principle figure in the programme who is all too easy to loathe in the beginning, turns out to be a version of our narrator from the future. She becomes her own hero, teaming up with our characters through death and misfortune in a truly stunning climax. We watch as things go south, and at such a point I was hoping an praying that things would untangle in the few remaining chapters.

I’d been so invested in these characters that I physically felt my heart sink as it drew to its conclusion. Inevitably, Graham succumbs to the feeling of being regulated and utilised by the programme, despite his relative composure throughout. Though we’re given a hint at the end through his letter to the narrator that they do indeed meet again, or at least intend to, it’s hard to say whether the future the narrator’s older self experienced will run its course to the happy ending.

Overall, the novel is purely scintillating. I’ve reread it on three occasions at the time of writing this review, an effort to relive the colourful narrative again and again. It’s a spot-the-object in text form, and takes the clique of “you find something new each time you reread it” to a whole new level. Bradley successfully pulls the story across so many different genres, and does so effortlessly without leaving the audience wondering why it’s trying to be so many things at once – The Ministry of Time is so utterly necessary in its diversity. The only thing that would sit as equally necessary, if not more so, would be a sequel.