The Bone Clocks

Mitchell can write a snappy sentence, even a compelling paragraph and chapter, but there were long sections of the book that did nothing for me. And in the end the disparate parts didn't come together in a meaningful way.

David Mitchell writes beautiful and complex stories about the human condition and the bone clocks is no exception. However I found this novel inconsistent in it's narrative. Mitchell almost lost me on at one point in this book but the story that erupted on the other side of that was mesmerizing.

The wait is over. David Mitchell is back! Please don't let me spoil it for you, however — I try to be as vague as I can in all that I do but sometimes it's just not enough. Consider this a friendly warning from your friendly neighborhood Anchorite.

Let's start with where I stand. I've read Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and while I respect the two earlier works, it is the last mentioned that ticked all the right boxes for me.

My expectations were, naturally, very high. And, now that I've listened to and read the whole thing, I can attest that for me it's a mixed bag. Closer to Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas than The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, on one hand it's an exuberant and hyperactive narrative ride, a flamboyant explosion of modern cultural reference, a tapestry of metaphysical mystery and larger-than-life climax; on the other, I feel it never achieves the level of the strong gravitational pull The Thousand Autumns has in terms of characterization and actual, pulsating human drama — all this despite the book being actually two books, a story of Holly Sykes' life told from different angles, the extraordinary in the ordinary, and a fantasy novel with a metaphysical war raging behind the scenes, the ordinary in the extraordinary.

What the book turns out to be is an incalculable tease for the first 400 pages, where the fantasy plot, which does take precedence in ”An Horologist's Labyrinth,” is merely referred to and glimpsed at once in every fifty pages or so, just enough to make me remember it's there in the periphery, and wondering why it is. I assume Mitchell's goals might be elsewhere this time, but I found The Thousand Autumns to be perfectly woven, deeply identifiable story, an intimate portrait, also full of mystery, whereas The Bone Clocks and its apparent siblings are harder to care for, rather inviting from me detached admiration.

Where I found the first four parts hard to get into, but it's the aforementioned fifth part that's such a high-intensity display of literary fireworks that it was addictive, finally shifting gear and pushing for the exposition only vaguely hinted at so far.

I wrote of The Thousand Autumns how ”it's a joy to see a contemporary writer most certainly not only improving but showcasing such understanding of narrative and language that his work becomes transcendental in how it transports and rewards.” While it will always take time for first impressions to fully sink in, it feels like I'm going to reserve for The Bone Clocks detached admiration: not that it isn't complex, not that there aren't remarkably beautifully written passages (The Ásbyrgi episodes are bliss, as well as the Koskov backstory), but I just felt like an outsider gazing in, most of the time. Perhaps you'll be able to enjoy it more.

24 October,
2014

David Mitchell returns with a familiar device and many familiar names. In fact, The Bone Clocks should be a very familiar book to those already acquainted with Mitchell's writing. I'd like to say Mitchell does something extraordinary here, but mostly what he does is rehash his success. The Bone Clocks bears much similarity to Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten. The same structure of episodic stories following different characters around the globe and through the years is at play here. The connecting piece in The Bone Clocks is the character of Holly Sykes. The theme of incorporeals migrating from one body to another is used again. Despite the lack of original material—in the world that is David Mitchell—it is fun to once again to visit Mitchell's universe and see it all being put together.

If you've read more than one David Mitchell novel, you probably know that Mitchell likes to tie his stories and novels together. I read an interview with him where he described all of his works coming together to create an über-novel. Some may find the concept a bit too heavy of a ploy, but I love it. It's fun to play the “who's who” game when reading Mitchell. Of all of Mitchell's novels, The Bone Clocks works the hardest to bring all these pieces together. I counted six characters from previous Mitchell novels who made direct appearances (in one form or another). Add to that another five who were mentioned, and other characters who are likely descendents of characters we've met before. (And I'm sure I missed some.) Perhaps it was a bit too much, but it was fun. (Were there any references to number9dream? It was the only novel I couldn't make a connection to.)

What makes The Bone Clocks different from Mitchell's previous novels is the amount of paranormal fantasy. Sure, it's there to some extent in all of Mitchell's work, but he definitely turns it up a couple notches here. I don't think I'm too far from reason when I say that it felt like a collaborative effort with Stephen King. And when the novel was hitting its climax in Part 5, it was straight up Ghostbusters 2—creepy Vigo portrait and all. The action was all over the place and I had trouble following everything that was going on. Personally, I thought this added tension was over the top; I'd have preferred the novel stick with the momentum it had established in the first four sections.

The first two-thirds of The Bone Clocks is great. It really hits its stride by the second story and really moves in the third and fourth. Even though everything that happens in those four stories adds up to the fifth, that fifth almost felt like a completely different novel. And then the sixth—well, it seemed more like an afterthought. I imagine Mitchell sitting back after completing the novel and realizing—with horror—that he didn't include a futuristic scene where our dependence on technology has become our demise (see also Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas, “The Siphoners”). “Wait, everyone, we need all the characters to come back for one final scene.” Sure, it brings together some of the unresolved issues, but it did so with such an inorganic feel. I think this novel would've been better served with a different finale and saving this one for a short story down the line.

I don't know what else to say about this one—perhaps I've already said too much. I know there's been tremendous hype surrounding this one, but I'd personally put it in the bottom half of Mitchell's bibliography. That being said, it's good, even great at times. But with all the connections and callbacks to previous works, I think it's better to make your way through those first, if you haven't already.

ARC received from the publisher through Goodreads' First Reads program in exchange for review.