Book Review: Clockwork

Philip Pullman’s novella Clockwork, which won a Children’s Choice Award in 1999, is one of four fairytales in the collection Four Tales (for more information on this compilation, read my description here.) This particular story emphasizes in several different ways how situations in life often work together as intricately as the machinery within a time piece, with circumstances driving one another much like the cogs and wheels of a clock. The story is written in the deceptively simplistic language of a fairytale, but as the tale of the village storyteller Fritz, the ambition of the clockmaker’s apprentice Karl, and the kindness of the barmaid Gretl all become linked to the fate of the innocent Prince Florian, readers will come to appreciate the complexity and horror of Pullman’s narrative.

Reviewer Barrie Trinkle writes that Pullman’s “story begins, as all good fairytales do, with someone whose human weakness sets events inescapably in motion,” and the author emphasizes inevitable forward march of both time and tale while also drawing attention to the complexity of the multiple players in his story through the description of the town clock:

The great clock of Glockenheim was the most amazing piece of machinery in the whole of Germany. If you wanted to see all the figures you would have to watch it for a whole year, because the mechanism was so complex that it took twelve months to complete its movement. There were all the Saints, each coming out on their own day; there was Death, with his scythe and hourglass; there were over a hundred figures altogether.

From amongst the many players in the story, there are two morally weak characters who seem to set events in motion – the clockmaker’s apprentice Karl and the two storyteller Fritz, both of whom have failed at their task to produce some form of entertainment for the townspeople. All clockmaker’s apprentices are expected to produce a new figure for the great clock of Glockenheim, and the much- admired storyteller Fritz is expected to produce many more a rousing, chilling ghost tale to satisfy the townspeople’s need for thrills on a cold winter’s night; neither of the young men have managed to create a satisfying product. But although Pullman begins his tale by describing these two, as events unfold, it becomes clear that someone else has set this set of great and complex gears in motion.

While reading his incomplete story to a captivated audience at the White Horse Tavern, Fritz is interrupted by the very villain within his own tale – a horrifying tale of the Prince Otto, who has had his heart cut out and replaced by a piece of clockwork that forced his arm to continue to drive the horses and cart all the way back home to his palace, even though he was dead. After finishing Clockwork, a story with several creepy elements, my husband and I agreed that this was the most horrifying aspect of the whole tale: a dead man who continues to run by clockwork. Thus, there are several interlocking stories within the novel – the gruesome mystery of Prince Otto’s death and the fate of his son Prince Florian; the tale of the powerful storyteller Fritz, who it seems might be able to conjure up characters from his pages and into real life; and that of the clockmaker’s failed and desperate apprentice Karl, whom Fritz’s villain arrives in the flesh to tempt with a devilish offer.

It is Gretl, though, who ties all the elements of these stories together and brings about the end of the tale – she is the heroine of the piece. I am falling in love with Pullman’s consistent choice to portray young girls as a strong and important force against greedy, corrupt men. Pullman’s His Dark Materials focuses on the brazen Lyra, and while Gretl is quite mild and gentle compared to the heroine of that trilogy, she is still central to the happy ending of the tale Clockwork. Though her actions may seem simple, they involve a great deal of bravery – in the end, it is she who climbs the great clock tower and explores the creepy machinations of the Glockenheim clock (at night, no less) in order to save the Prince Florian. While all the men in this story give in to their fear, Gretl boldly does what must be done in order to set things right.

Overall, Clockwork is told with both the familiar tone of fairytale narratives and many new twists and elements that are both truly haunting and gruesome; my husband and I both found this interesting blend of the familiar, the unexpected and the horrifying to be very engrossing and we read this novella together in one sitting. While it wasn’t quite life-changing, I found this story to be not only entertaining, but very thought-provoking. I have a sense, as well, that I have not quite even picked up on the many layers and themes that resonate through this story; as I stated earlier, the language in Clockwork can have the effect of making the tale seem deceptively simple. Underneath the “once upon a time” prose, however, is an intricate set of parts that all work together to propel the reader forward through a sometimes-grisly tale that eventually reveals how Prince Otto ended up with a piece of clockwork sewn into his chest – but still leaves you guessing how the characters from Fritz’s tale might have had the power to come to life in the first place. I’m willing to bet that Pullman’s ability to balance the story on the edge of a knife while juggling these mysterious elements will keep readers engrossed through all 80 pages.

National Children's Book Week

May 1 – 7 2011 is National Children’s Book Week, presented by the Children’s Book Council!

I’m not able to get to any of the book festivals or events, and so to celebrate, I am going to read the fantasy novel Clockwork by Philip Pullman. Pullman’s novel was one of the recipients of the Children’s Choice Book Awards in 1999.

The Children’s Choice Awards are presented as part of National Children’s Book Week, after being vetted by five separate review teams of children across the country. Children’s Choice is the only children-selected literary awards program in the country. If you are interested learning more of the recipients, complete lists of the award-winning novels from 1998 to the present are available at the International Reading Association website.

Will you be doing anything to celebrate Children’s Book Week? Think about joining me in reading a Children’s Choice novel. There are some great books on the list, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (also 1999), The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau and Coraline by Neil Gaiman. But before you decide on one of these novels, check out the lists for yourself!

My review of Clockwork will be posted later on this week or early next week, and in the meantime, I also plan on posting a review of another great children’s novel, The Tale of Despereaux by Kate di Camillo. So check back soon to learn more about these two great fantasy tales, and find a way to celebrate and enjoy Children’s Book Week!

Book Review: Coraline

I must admit that the only other book by Neil Gaiman that I’ve read is The Graveyard Book, but I enjoyed that Newbery-winning novel so much that I wanted to check out some of his other work. Coraline, being his other children’s novel, popped out at me and I ordered a copy.

I have to say that as I read through the first fifty pages or so, I found myself feeling a little disappointed. The story is cute enough, but prose is more sparse and in my opinion, isn’t as clever as The Graveyard Book. One of my favorite aspects of that novel is that Gaiman often cleverly identifies the cemetary residents by their full tombstone inscriptions ("Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish, Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?" for example). It’s little touches like that which help to make The Graveyard Book such an entertaining read. The prose of Coraline lacks that sense of unique whimsy.

The plot itself is quite whimsical, though; I felt at first as though I were reading another version of Alice in Wonderland – there’s even a talking feline, just like the Chesire Cat. Children will love all the strange creatures, as evidenced by the fact that this was a Children's Choice Award-winner in 2003. But while I enjoy Lewis Carroll well enough, a bastardized version of Alice didn’t appeal to my mood too much at the moment that I began reading Coraline. Gaiman’s version begins very similarly as Carroll's – but instead of going down the rabbit hole, Coraline opens a door that supposedly leads from her family’s flat into the empty flat next door and finds that it is a portal to a mirror universe. There, everything is a little distorted and a little bit more fantastic than in Coraline’s real world. This could be a great story concept in theory, but I wasn’t too keen on the performance that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible put on for the horde of dogs, who are eagerly wriggling and impatient to escape from their seats. Everything in that scene seems a little too contrived for my tastes – although it could have been my mood.

Even so, I found other aspects of Gaiman’s mirror universe to be interesting enough to keep reading. When she first walks through the passageway, Coraline discovers her “other mother” and “other father” living in a flat nearly identical to her own home. Nearly identical, but not quite. Coraline’s “other parents” have prepared everything in their flat so that the meals, toys and activities are geared toward pleasing and a entertaining child. Coraline’s other mother and father apparently want to adopt her for their own (there isn’t “an other” Coraline”) and are willing to give Coraline anything she would like that would make her happy. Or at least anything that they think will make her happy – anything that would please an average child.

But apparently Coraline isn’t your average child. She has some spunk, which will please readers – and she buys in to a moral that will please parents as well. She makes a rather tiresome, didactic-sounding speech, informing her other Mother: “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything.” In moments like these, Coraline seems a little bit too cookie-cutter to be a fully satisfying character.

But ultimately, I’m willing to forgive the more trite aspect(s) of her character because once the mirror world is revealed to be essentially a Spider’s web, the story takes a more interesting turn. Welcome to Alice in Wonderland meets The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Coraline discovers that her “other mother” has tried to lure other children into her home before, and ultimately, these poor kids have been locked in the closet until they withered away. All that’s left of them are faint wisps of their souls – but Coraline is determined that she will not meet the same fate. As I said, she’s spunky. With the help of the talking cat, she challenges her other mother in order to try to win her escape and off she goes on a treasure hunt.

Ultimately, while Gaiman’s novel is something of a mish-mash of children’s literature tropes, they are combined in such a way that Coraline is both a cute and creepy novel, entertaining although not quite as absorbing as it could be. It’s an interesting precursor to The Graveyard Book and also stands on its own fairly well, but still isn’t as masterful as Gaiman’s Newbery winner. Even so, it’s enjoyable and worth reading – even more so for children –and now I'm fairly curious to see the movie.

This post participates in the Weekly Geeks Reading Challenge for February 20, 2011.

Book Review: The Willoughbys

The Willoughbys, a novel “nefariously written and ignominiously illustrated” by the Newbery-winning Lois Lowry, is tremendously different than some of her more serious historical fiction and dystopian literature. Even so, this Children's Choice Award-winning story is altogether pleasing and entertaining. It is marketed as “a short novel mocking the conventions of old-fashioned children's books stuffed with orphans, nannies and long-lost heirs,” and the book jacket also informs us that the author was “influenced in her childhood by a mother who insisted on surrounding her with books instead of roller skates and jump ropes… [and so] every morning she opened the front door hoping to find an orphaned infant in a wicker basket. Alas, her hopes were always dashed and her dreams thwarted. She compensates by writing books.”

This autobiographical sketch explains quite a lot about the aplomb with which Lowry parodies the many familiar plots, characters and tropes of classic children’s literature. Being familiar with so many of our childhood favorites, she has borrowed the horrible parents, abandoned babies, kindly nannies, lonely candy-makers—and most importantly, the unbelievably resourceful, clever children—with hilarious results. She has reinvented the plot, though, in order to emphasize the somewhat incredible devices which usually drive the story in children’s fiction: her child protagonists actively want to do away with their parents so that they can become orphans. Meanwhile, their parents are openly trying to ditch their children, so the novel becomes something of a competition to see which group will outlast the other and achieve their own happy ending.

All these elements of parody are presented so directly as tropes of literature that The Willoughbys qualifies as a skillful work of metafiction, a type of writing that self-consciously addresses literary devices and attempts to expose the illusion of fiction. Not all metafictional narration is meant to be humorous, but Lowry creates a self-conscious parody that will entertain both children and adult readers who are familiar with various classics, nodding many times to those in her audience who are well-read:

“I think this would be easier if we were modern children,” Tim said, “but we are old-fashioned. So our choices are limited. Jane?”

“Yes?” Jane asked. She was on the floor, playing with the cat again.

“I think you must develop a lingering disease and waste away, eventually dying a slow and painless death. We will all gather around your deathbed and you can murmur your last words. Like Beth in Little Women.”

Jane scowled. “I don’t want to,” she said.

“Old-fashioned children do not have allergies,” Tim announced. “If you don’t like the running-away-to-the-circus idea, then you can build a raft and sail down the Mississippi like Huckleberry Finn.”

“We can’t swim!” the twins wailed.

“Oh, no, [Nanny] is an old-fashioned person. A spinster of little means,” Tim explained. “Well educated and of good reputation, but forced to go into domestic service because her father died in debt and left her penniless.”

Commander Melanoff sighed. “A familiar story. Like Jane Eyre. Well,” he said, “let us hope that like most old-fashioned stories, this one will have a happy ending.”

And so it is—the four Willoughby children, the abandoned baby in a wicker basket, the kindly nanny, the Swiss postmaster, the lonely old candy-maker and his missing son all find happiness at the end of the story. There is even an epilogue that explains who grew up to be lawyers, businessmen and feminist literature professors. But lest you think that I’ve just ruined the story for you, rest assured that the enjoyment of reading this novel is not to be found in uncovering the story for yourself. When reading The Willoughbys, the chief pleasure is in sharing the joke—understanding the unlikely nature of our own beloved childhood classics and enjoying the way that Lowry has stretched these familiar characters and stories to new and ridiculous proportions. Some have compared Lowry’s novel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I never took to those novels and so while the tone is somewhat similar, I think Lowry’s book is even better than Lemony Snicket’s series. When reading The Willoughbys, I laughed until I had tears in my eyes and I am sure that other readers will find this book utterly hilarious as well.