My dad happened to pick this book up at The Book Table. He read it in a few days (it’s only 191 pages) and raved about it. He especially liked the way Paul Harding used language in this book and that intrigued me.
You’ve probably figured out by now that I love stories, but I also love the way they’re told. One of my favorite things about Salman Rushdie is his incredible command of the English language. I have only the utmost admiration for writers who can make prose sound like poetry.
Harding is one of those writers. There’s really not much of a plot in this book (I’m not even sure I would call it a novel), but there is beautiful language. The book revolves around George Crosby who, at the age of eighty, is dying from a combination of Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cancer. His friends and family have all gathered around in his living room to say good-bye and George finds himself reflecting on his father, Howard.
Howard was a salesman who wasn’t particularly successful. He also suffered from epilepsy, a fact Howard and his wife tried to hide from their children. The day they failed to keep that secret was the day George’s life changed forever. He finally understood all the secrecy, and he was injured when his father bit through the spoon handle George had shoved in his mouth on his mother’s orders. Howard started to swallow the rest of the spoon, George tried to retrieve it, and Howard bit down on George’s hand.
After that, Howard’s wife decided her husband needed more help than she could give him. She talked to their local doctor who recommended a facility. George found the brochure and ran away from home. He didn’t get far and Howard retrieved him. Then Howard found the brochure and he ran away from home. He went off to Philadelphia where he changed his name and remarried.
Howard never lost track of his first family, though. He kept tabs on them all over New England, and one Christmas day, he showed up on George’s doorstep. That was the moment George was thinking of when he died.
The book gets its title from the fact that, after he retired, George started fixing clocks to fill his time and make some money. The imagery of clocks and their workings are used throughout the book. I don’t think I could have come up with a more boring subject, but Harding really does make it beautiful (and relevant) through his incredible command of the English language.
Harding’s writing is not difficult to understand, though. Unlike Rushdie, Harding uses mostly colloquial words (I only had to look up a few, whereas when I read Rushdie, I need to keep a dictionary on hand). It’s the way Harding uses and arranges those simple words that makes it so impressive.
If anything about the book is difficult to understand, it’s the total lack of a linear plot. Harding jumps around from things that are happening, to things that happened decades ago, to things that are happening only in George’s mind as he lays dying. Harding uses stream-of-consciousness extensively (although not exclusively). It takes some getting used to, but once you get into the rhythm of his writing, it really takes you for a ride.