The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Mr Epic Immortals War
Story ☆★★★★
I am not a fan of generation-spanning fiction, as a general rule. If I had seen that as a description before picking the book up, I wouldn't have read it. But, I would have been wrong. The anthology way the book is written doesn't make it feel like a long family saga, and the characters that narrate each chapter are so tenuously linked that each chapter really tells its own story.
The characters are engaging and different. When I read the first couple of paragraphs, narrated by a teenage Holly Sykes, I said, "Oh, that feels good!" And the small adolescent drama that opens the book does feel good and, conveniently, just as it begins to grate we get a new narrator. My one complaint would be that the book spans forward into the future, but you don't get a sense of change in the way that you do as he moves through the 80s to the naughties. Mitchell's future seems like an extension of the present.
Chapters do tend to follow a bit of a template: a regular person who isn't particularly likeable becomes, in most cases, slightly more likeable; then some weird supernatural stuff happens and the chapter finishes without explanations. I had been warned by a friend that Mitchell doesn't like giving the reader all the answers, and I was concerned that the whole book would carry on like this without any explanation. Quite the contrary! There are a few awkward pages of very dense exposition, but swallow it down like a dry pill and suddenly you understand at least 75% of what's going on.
About a hundred pages from the end, the pace really picks up and everything starts motoring. The climax is satisfying, as is the final chapter which ties up most loose ends. There was one character whose fate I would have liked to learn, but you can't have everything. The last pages left me with tears in my eyes, which I hadn't expected. It turns out I had grown very attached to the central character without even realising it!
Style ☆★★★★
Part of the, "Oh that feels good!" that was my initial reaction to The Bone Clocks was the writing style. Mitchell is very good at switching his style to suit the narrator of the chapter. It really helps not only to get a sense of who that character is, but to really feel it when the character changes over time. It also means that, for a long book, it goes by relatively smoothly, without being jarred by the repetitive tricks and turns of phrase that can become apparent over a longer book.
Mitchell's style is accessible, though I wouldn't say I raced through the book particularly quickly. Where I would normally get through around 70 pages in my average reading day, The Bone Clocks worked out as more like 50.
There is a lot of what I would term 'Mitchell jargon' sprinkled through the main bulk of the book, which isn't explained properly until the big exposition pill. This can mean that you go for several pages not really knowing what the characters are talking about, often sharing your confusion with the narrator of the chapter. I quite enjoyed this. I don't like for everything to be laid out for me, and it meant I spent a good quantity of the book theorising what was happening in the background, ruminating on the mysteries without the over arching plot being spoon fed.
There is a lot of what I would term 'Mitchell jargon' sprinkled through the main bulk of the book, which isn't explained properly until the big exposition pill. This can mean that you go for several pages not really knowing what the characters are talking about, often sharing your confusion with the narrator of the chapter. I quite enjoyed this. I don't like for everything to be laid out for me, and it meant I spent a good quantity of the book theorising what was happening in the background, ruminating on the mysteries without the over arching plot being spoon fed.
Substance ☆☆★★★
I spent around two thirds of this novel with the distinct suspicion that Mitchell might be a bit of a misogynist. It can often be difficult to separate author from narrator with this sort of thing, and it's something that definitely causes me discomfort, particularly in a scene that makes some interesting comments about a 'post-post-feminist' scholar, her body and her gender. I've come out on the side that this was character based rather than a commentary from the author, but the aforementioned scene definitely gave me pause and, had it occurred earlier in the book, I probably would have stopped reading.
Towards the end of the book there is a brief discussion about race. Mitchell is known to write globe-trotting fiction, and The bone Clocks certainly has a diverse range of settings, although usually experienced by a white European narrator. One of the more interesting narratives involves Australian aborigines.
Towards the end of the book there is a brief discussion about race. Mitchell is known to write globe-trotting fiction, and The bone Clocks certainly has a diverse range of settings, although usually experienced by a white European narrator. One of the more interesting narratives involves Australian aborigines.
Aside from that, The Bone Clocks isn't what I'd call a frothy read, but it hasn't sparked the literary interest and critique of some of my other recent reads. It's been a nice little cleanser for the mind!
The Verdict
From the blurb, The Bone Clocks is a book I would avoid like the plague. Globe trotting, lengthy time-span fantasy? No thank you. But it's actually a really enjoyable read, with engaging and sometimes frustrating characters, a story that really builds towards the end and delivers a satisfying conclusion. I would recommend, even for fantasy-phobes!
☆★★★★
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