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100 Books, #29: Clockwork
Jul. 21st, 2013 02:49 pmClockwork! Much as I love The Golden Compass, Clockwork is probably my favorite of Philip Pullman’s work: it is not spoiled by later books that go off the rails, but is complete and satisfying in itself.
This, even though its a very short book: barely more than a hundred pages, with wide-spaced type interspersed with wonderful, shadowy illustrations. But all its pieces fit together perfectly, exactly like clockwork: each cog in the plot turning and ticking inexorably toward the end, which is - despite the sense of inevitability - a surprise when it comes.
And clockwork is not only the perfect metaphor for the way the disparate pieces of the story come together, but also at the center of the story itself. It is set in a German town that centers on a clock tower, near the beginning of the 19th century; one imagines it occurring even as the Brothers Grimm are out collecting, because the story is a melange of fairy tale and clockwork and Doctor Faustus.
Clockwork often seems to be folded into the general steampunk aesthetic (let’s throw some cogs on it!) - and I think, actually, that this is one of the reasons why steampunk often seems to work better as a clothing aesthetic than as a backdrop to stories: you can throw all the cool things together and make something snazzy out of it for a costume, but stories need the pieces of a setting to fit together.
It’s not that clockwork is not Victorian - the Victorians were after all obsessed with time keeping; Around the World in Eighty Days is basically a thriller about railway timetables. But it’s not the clocks they were obsessed with: clocks were old hat by then. The first great clocks were late medieval, and they came into their own in the Renaissance and Reformation. Clockwork is not propelled by electricity or steam but seems to go of itself. It is the technology of fairy tales.
The railway timetables are exciting because they reflected the all-conquering power of steam: steam power that made transportation run to human specification, rather than at the whim of the elements. Steam seems to conquer time and chance, to bend nature to our will; clockwork only counts, remorselessly, and reminds us that time and chance happen to us all.
This, even though its a very short book: barely more than a hundred pages, with wide-spaced type interspersed with wonderful, shadowy illustrations. But all its pieces fit together perfectly, exactly like clockwork: each cog in the plot turning and ticking inexorably toward the end, which is - despite the sense of inevitability - a surprise when it comes.
And clockwork is not only the perfect metaphor for the way the disparate pieces of the story come together, but also at the center of the story itself. It is set in a German town that centers on a clock tower, near the beginning of the 19th century; one imagines it occurring even as the Brothers Grimm are out collecting, because the story is a melange of fairy tale and clockwork and Doctor Faustus.
Clockwork often seems to be folded into the general steampunk aesthetic (let’s throw some cogs on it!) - and I think, actually, that this is one of the reasons why steampunk often seems to work better as a clothing aesthetic than as a backdrop to stories: you can throw all the cool things together and make something snazzy out of it for a costume, but stories need the pieces of a setting to fit together.
It’s not that clockwork is not Victorian - the Victorians were after all obsessed with time keeping; Around the World in Eighty Days is basically a thriller about railway timetables. But it’s not the clocks they were obsessed with: clocks were old hat by then. The first great clocks were late medieval, and they came into their own in the Renaissance and Reformation. Clockwork is not propelled by electricity or steam but seems to go of itself. It is the technology of fairy tales.
The railway timetables are exciting because they reflected the all-conquering power of steam: steam power that made transportation run to human specification, rather than at the whim of the elements. Steam seems to conquer time and chance, to bend nature to our will; clockwork only counts, remorselessly, and reminds us that time and chance happen to us all.
