The Bone Clocks

The Bone Clocks
David Mitchell
Random House
New York, New York
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6567-7
2014
$ 30.00
624 pages

"The world wasn't made of stone, but sand. I'm afraid. One bad storm is all it will take."

Unfortunately this is the reality of life. Our lives are simply blown into sand with the wind constantly changing directions, reshaping our priorities. We like to think our lives are carved in stone. Perhaps that is why we are so resistant to change. Think of how much less stress each of us would feel, if we would simply shift with the sand.

Horology is the study of the measurement of time with the skill and art of making time pieces. Is time consistent everywhere or is it relative? Do we change through time? Is time the cause or the effect?

Holly Sykes seems like the typical teenager. She argues with her mother about anything and everything. She does have an unusual gift. She is able to talk to beings that are not present for most of us. Who does she talk with?

As a child she connected with "the radio people". She has a psychic sense but has yet to discover if this is a gift or a curse. Can it be both or neither?

The Bone Clock feels like multiple unconnected events and people for much of the book. Once the reader starts understanding the connections, this evolves into a page turner.

The author, David Mitchell has had two of his novels on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize and The Bone Clock was on the 2014 long list. He is the author of Ghostwritten, Number9Dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. He lives in Ireland with his family.

The book is composed of six novellas featuring different characters explaining things from their perspective. Holly is the focus of the first novella but makes appearances in others. At first the six stories which progress into the future in ten years progressions seem unconnected and at times rambling. However their significance does eventually appear into a single conclusion.

The characterizations are phenomenal with the reader easily visualizing each character with their flaws and natural gifts.

The pacing with each of the novellas is unevenly bothersome. The first story regarding Holly flows quickly and evenly. Then the pace dramatically slows. This can easily cause a reader to lose interest but this book is definitely worth reading as the pace picks-up.

The Bone Clocks is fantasy dealing with possession and psychic gifts and warring psychological factions.