Clockwork by Philip Pullman

ISBN: 0590129988
128 pages
published in 1996.

I was browsing through the children/YA section of my university library to find a few books to read as a reward for finishing this grueling paper I had to write for my Modern Brit Lit class last week. The cover to this book intrigued me so I took it off the shelf and read the first few pages. The book is very, very short. The description and simplicity of the book was engaging enough to make me check it out. I finished it in about an hour once I got back to my dorm.

The story itself is very fairy-tale like. It’s very obviously based off of that, and it’s actually this trait that makes both the good and bad points of this little novella (I simply won’t call it a novel). It aids it in the sense that it gives it a very familiar, bedtime-story like quality that, as the bedtime-stories of your childhood did, entice you to keep reading/listening until the end.

The story centers around (surprise coming) clocks, and the nature of clockwork itself — as well as storytelling and some “horror”-esque qualities. It takes place in a small German town, in which a young apprentice clock maker should be preparing for his big day, in which his training ends and he displays a new figure of his own work into the town clock, but because he was intimidated by the project, he’s put it off until last minute and has nothing to show for it. Understandably, he’s horrified and embarrassed — as this is a large event for the town where he lives. So, he is basically drowning his sorrows when the town’s storyteller comes into the pub and begins a new story about some evil man who steals people’s souls or whatever. Anyway, this all centers around clocks, and is actually quite creepy — however, this leads to the downfall of the style of writing Pullman uses.

It’s too simplistic to actually gain anything of substance from the story other than just a brief period of entertainment. That’s not to say that it’s necessarily a POOR book, but it does seem almost like a lazy book, and considering the originality of the idea — even in the traditional style — it’s somewhat disappointing.

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