Customer Reviews

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (Borzoi Books)

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The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, according to the back flap, is the "basis for an album that [Mathias] Malzieu wrote." I'd like to hear the album, because to be honest, I'm thinking his source material may have been better served in that medium. The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart isn't a bad book, but even for a novella there isn't much there and too much of it is either implied, assumed, or not earned; all of which wouldn't matter in an album but is disappointing in a book.
The main character, Jack, is given his odd heart at birth in 1874, when his freezes on the coldest day ever in Edinburgh. Dr. Madeline is the mid-wife who gives him the heart to keep him alive and who takes him from his mother, who gives him up to be adopted. Dr. Madeline warns Jack as he grows that his heart is too fragile for strong emotion and he should, therefore, never fall in love. Of course, that is just what Jack does, with a diminutive singer named Miss Accacia. His rival for her affection is the school bully and after a horrible fight, Jack is forced to flee Edinburgh, though it dovetails nicely with his intent to find Miss Accacia who has already left the city. Along the way he picks up a magician friend, finds work in an odd little amusement/fair area, and learns both the joys and the pains of loving with a heart, whether flesh or wood.
There is a nice sense of whimsy through especially the start of the book, a bit of Pinocchio, a bit of Tim Burton, and a strong sense of emotion at the start with his relationships with Dr. Madeline and several of her patients--an alcoholic named Arthur and a pair of prostitutes. And the inevitable love that the reader knows is coming weights heavy on the mind. But when it's introduced, in the form of Miss Accacia, it just never feels real. We're told repeatedly Jack is in love, but the reader never feels it. Beyond the direct dialogue, there just isn't any conveyance of the strength/depth necessary for us to care not just about the love but its impact. The bully compounds the problem as he allegedly turns against Jack because he too loves Miss Accacia, but once more, we neither see nor feel it. The rest of the book is hampered by that simple problem, and so while we dutifully follow Jack on his trek to find her again, and watch as he does and see how their relationship begins or ends, we honestly just don't care much. The reintroduction of the bully at the end makes matters even worse.
Stylistically, there are some wonderfully inventive images in the novella, though it suffers from an overuse of simile/metaphor that on occasion pile one atop the other and become a distraction, especially when they don't neatly work together, as is sometimes the case. This is especially true early on; Malzieu's restraint later in the book makes the good ones shine all the better.
In the end, the core image--the boy with a cuckoo-clock heart--is a wonderfully inventive and compelling one, while the underlying suspense of when will strike and what it's impact will be is equally so. But the execution of story beyond image and premise falls short of their promise. Though I still plan to check out the music--I can see Malzieu's imagery and impressionistic sense working much better in song/music, stripped of the need for straight narrative.

The Boy With The Cuckoo-Clock Heart is one of those literary fairytale keepsakes that comes along only once in a life time. Brilliant, clever, ingenuity at it's best, truly a masterpiece destined to become a classic for many years to come. It is also a very difficult book to describe and doing it justice in a written book review is challenging, because the story is quite a simple one and an age old tale we've seen performed a thousand times before in books, poems, movies, and plays. The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a love story. Gene Kelly Singing In The Rain kind of joyous love, mixed with Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca style tragic sad affair. A boy, a girl, their passion, their joys, their trials and tribulations, their heartaches and loss that end up in a chest of memories in someone's dusty attic. So, the basic story is nothing new. It's how Mathias Malzieu tells this soulful tale that makes the story come alive with magic and wonder, laughter and tears, and with all the ingredients that make our hearts thump. This precious little fairytale is made of pixie dust and moonbeams, shimmering snowflakes, the freshness of spring and walking in the rain. It's a drama, it's a comedy, it's a musical, and a fantasy steam punk romance based on what the human heart can conjure up in the midst of unconditional love. What a glorious opulent opera this would make!

Dr. Madeline is a midwife to fallen women who can't afford to keep their bastard children. On the coldest night of the year, in a tiny Edinburgh village, she adopts a baby boy with a faulty heart and replaces it with a cuckoo-clock. Little Jack's heart beats with an odd tick and strange tock, and is raised to believe his heart will not withstand the shaky tumult that falling in love can cause. Dr. Madeline warns him over and over, to stay away from love, to avoid matters of the heart, for his little wooden clock is much to frail to bear the excitement of love and the hurt it eventually brings to those who fall prey to cupid's darts. Ignoring her wisdom, and as Jack becomes a young man, he ventures out into the world to one day meet a beautiful singing girl in the town square. Her angelic voice beckons, his heart thumps wildly, and Jack must have this sexy siren called Miss Acacia. From here to the end of this twinkling little book that shines like a beacon in the night, a glorious love story unfolds that will have Jack traversing across Europe through London, Paris and the mountains of Spain, as he follows his wooden heart and experiences the ups and downs of love and lust as Miss Acacia leads him on a merry chase. The whirlwind treasure trove of mixed up emotions that cause earthquakes in Little Jack's soul, and tremors to his mechanical cuckoo-clock heart, will have readers cheering him on as he learns the ways of courtship and love from a ragtag band of unlikely friends and foes.

Due to the flavor and sexual content, this is not a children's fairytale. It is for adults only and one that would make a wonderful Valentine's Day gift or any gift of the heart from one lover to another, or for any hopeless romantic. My only wish would have been to see the book published with illustrations for additional enhancement. This book is optioned for a film and one can find a very creative and entertaining video trailer of the story online that is worth seeing. Sparks of Edward Scissorhands and tidbits of The Corpse Bride come to mind when reading this book, and for certain it does have that Tim Burton flair to it.

Mathias Malzieu's premier debut knocked my socks off. His talent for story telling and ability to weave passages of beautiful words were akin to the creation of a fine oriental carpet. Full of vivid life and spirit, this book is one of those gems that will sparkle and stay on people's book shelves forever never to be parted with. Bravo, Bravo, Bravo...Don't miss this folks!!! Don't even think about missing out on this literary experience!

The Boy With the Cuckoo Clock Heart first caught my attention when I discovered Dionysus's (who the author of this book sings in) album, "La Mechanique du Coeur" (French.) I enjoyed the album enough to purchase the book, used instead of new. I'm glad I did.

Though the concept of the book is very intriguing -- a boy born with a frozen heart -- it is also hard to swallow, even for a fairytale. I found no justification for Jack the Ripper, and the constant stream of love lost and love gained got stale real fast. The cutsy sexual inuendos made me chuckle, at the most. I had a hard time accepting the idea of two kids, about the age of twelve, making love. The plot moves fast (so fast you almost miss some major plotholes), making this a very easy read. At least all is summed up in the end.

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart is rather a hard book to describe. It is part fantasy, part romance, but not really either one. It is an allegory, a fairy story, and a bildungsroman all rolled into one. It feels like an old story even though it based on a rock album.

The story begins on the coldest day of the world in Edinburgh, Scotland. A midwife named Doctor Madeleine has just delivered a baby named Jack. It is so cold when he is born, that his heart freezes. To save him, Madeleine, who is a bit of mad-scientist, grafts a cuckoo-clock to Jack's heart to start it beating. This move ultimately saves his life.

Jack has an idyllic, if somewhat isolated, childhood in the home of Madeleine. He is brought up by the good doctor and a colorful cast of characters, including Ana and Luna, two of the city's downtrodden ladies, and Arthur, a former cop with a musical spine who sings "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In" everywhere he goes. Jack grows up aware of his handicap: Madeleine constantly admonishes him not to fall in love, as the strong emotion could damage his weak heart. It's only when Jack meets the young Andalucian singer Miss Acacia does he realize how true this might be.

Spurred by his love, Jack attempts to find "the little singer" at the local school, only to find that she has moved back to Grenada. While there, he makes an enemy of Joe, the meanest, toughest kid in the school, who also harbors an unending love for Miss Acacia. Following a violent fight, Jack steals away from Edinburgh in the middle of the night on a dangerous and exciting journey to find his one true love.

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart attempts to show us how fragile our emotions can be, especially when we are young. It is ultimately a story of letting go and following heart, no matter how damaged it may be.

In 1874 in Edinburgh, newborn Jack is near death from a frozen heart when his teenage mother abandons him. Midwife Dr. Madeleine attaches a cuckoo clock to his heart to get it started. Her desperate effort saves Jack's life and she raises him as her son while tending to the needs of her prostitute clients.

However as he grows up, Madeleine constantly reminds him to never fall in love as his heart will fail him. When Jack sees Miss Acacia, a street singer who is as tiny as he is, he falls in love. This stimulates his heart to a point where if it does not ease off it will kill him. At school, Joe warns Jack to back away from Miss Acacia as she is his. They brawl until Joe loses an eye forcing Jack to flee to Paris. There he meets magician-clockmaker Georges Melies who tells him to ignore his man-made heart-clock and use his God-made heart to find his Miss Acacia.

With a nod to Oz, The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a wonderful whimsical historical fantasy with an underlying message of a person must follow their heart which leads to the road to happiness. The story line is fast-paced though a late spin involving the return of Joe detracts from the lyrical romantic tale. Still fans will enjoy this fine fantasy as Mathias Malzieu and Sarah Ardizzone provide a warm story of love.

Harriet Klausner

This short novel, a translation from the French, follows a young man who was born with a frozen heart on the coldest night on earth. The midwife, a childless woman who tinkers with mechanics as well as with human flesh, installs a cuckoo-clock in the boy's chest as a sort of gear driven pace maker. She warns him that his heart is too fragile for him to have much of a life; he must avoid strong emotion and certainly never fall in love. Which of course he does, with a young singer/dancer. But love isn't the only strong emotion he has to deal with; there is a bully at school who teaches him all about anger. When he strikes back at the bully, the town's anger at him gives him a perfect excuse to do what he really wants: to follow the little singer to Spain. There follows his adventures and misadventures as he attempts to win her love.

It's an odd novel; part fairy tale, part coming of age tale. The author seems in love with playing with symbolism, to the extent that it ends up taking away from rather than adding to the story. The characters, even the main one, are less than cardboard; they are more tissue paper.

I can easily see this story, as others have said, as an animated movie by Tim Burton a la `The Corpse Bride'. It has that same dark, rather flat, feel to it. The difference is, in Burton's movies I end up caring about the characters; here, I could not. They bored me. Perhaps the writing was magical in French and it didn't survive in translation. I was, frankly, happy that the book was so short.

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a whimsical, though fatalistic, novella about a boy with a clockwork heart and the pain and suffering of love. In some ways it's sort of a fairy tale, though a dark one written for adults. Jack, the main character, is born on the coldest day ever recorded with a heart that is frozen, so Dr. Madeleine connects a cuckoo-clock to his heart to keep it going. The story follows Jack through his love for a little singer named Miss Acacia and the journey he undertakes, both geographically and emotionally, to be with his love, going against all of Dr. Madeleine's warnings that his cuckoo-clock heart could not survive love. The writing is beautiful and the story is well-told. I couldn't help but think the whole time that I was reading it that it would make a perfect Tim Burton movie.

Sickly Jack is born on the coldest day of the year and is abandoned by his mother to the care of the midwife. Dr. Madeleine replaces his defective heart with a cuckoo clock, instructing him with its care when he is old enough to understand: Firstly: never touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. Secondly: master your anger. Thirdly: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hands will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.

Jack grows up in Dr. Madeleine's protective care, with a motley group of friends: Arthur who has an actual musical spine, and a pair of colorful and motherly prostitutes, Anna and Luna. Sheltered Jack, however, soon outgrows home when he first sets eyes on Miss Acacia, a near-blind singing beauty. Despite Dr. Madeleine's warnings, Jack falls in love and decides to brave the world in order to win Miss Acacia's heart.

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu is an unusual, little fairy tale-like novella (172 pages) full of surreal imagery and lyrical prose. Although the story is full of whimsy, it is not light. Sorrow and loss haunt brave Jack throughout his exploits.

I was touched by Jack's tragedies, yet left strangely hollow, as if the story itself had a mechanical heart at its core, exquisitely manufactured, but not quite real.

"All love's pleasures and joys are paid for one day with suffering." Such is the daunting message conveyed in The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu. The deceptively whimsical book tells the story of a naïve and starry-eyed boy whose obsession with love breaks his already damaged heart. Rich prose, eccentric characters, and fantasy elements create a stunning presentation for a relatively simple plot. Though the author dazzles the senses with his lush storytelling, a gloomy message lies at the heart of the story.

Nonetheless, the author's creativity and poetic style are enjoyable to read, and the emotion clearly shines through the words. A tragic ending may not have readers in tears for the main character, but the contrast between the enchanting story and heartbreaking moral will strike a chord with anyone who has experienced the tumult of love.

Jack, the first-person narrator of Mathias Malzieu's most recent novel, is born in Edinburgh on an uncommonly cold day in April 1874. A clever midwife saves the newborn from certain death by surgically implanting a cuckoo clock in his chest to regulate his weak heart. Abandoned by his mother and sporting a loudly ticking clock for a heart, Jack is destined to be an outsider. Nevertheless, he falls in love with a beautiful girl and, while still a teenager, embarks on a cross-continental journey to follow his love to Andalusia, where she's originally from.

The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart is an adult fairy tale. As is typical with such tales, many of the characters are thinly developed and highly stylized. Fantastical events and complicated metaphors abound. The novel's primary message appears to be that our self-imposed limitations are the only obstacles to achieving what we desire. Unfortunately, this rather hopeful message is diluted in the final pages with a jarring and confusing plot reversal, making for an unsatisfying ending.

Malzieu's unique prose is the greatest strength of The Boy with the Cuckoo Heart Clock. It's an elegant combination of fairy-tale whimsy and Dickensian realism. Malzieu excels at combining opposite concepts in startling ways, like this example of the juxtaposition of death and birth: "It is so cold that birds freeze in mid-flight before crashing to the ground. The noise as they drop out of the sky is uncannily soft for a corpse. This is the coldest day on earth, and I'm getting ready to be born." The Boy with a Cuckoo Heart Clock offers an unsatisfactory story packaged in beautiful and unusual prose.