Customer Reviews

Clock Winder

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anne Tyler's range of characters, locations and plots is very limited. She appears to have been rehashing the same few characters and crazy plots for thirty years. I can't think of any relationships in any of the books that was wholly convincing and I have been irritated by the start or end of virtually all the books, yet ...for some inexplicable reason I adore her novels. From any other writer I'd be annoyed by the lack of variety from book to book, but with Tyler I just sit there reading with a grin on my face, thrilled and delighted by this brave, brilliant novelist. I can't think of a better North American writer working today. The Clock Winder has the usual collection of improbable plot twists and oddball people - another large dysfunctional family shaken up by an outsider, in this case the divine Elizabeth (one of my favourite Tyler characters). Reading the first few pages transported me quickly back to Tylerland which is both a geographical region stretching from Maryland to North Carolina (capital city: Baltimore) and a region of the mind. This is one of the most enjoyable of Anne Tyler's many books.

The Clock Winder is one of Anne Tyler's funniest and most deeply felt novels. It is like an intricate puzzle that twists and turns you around - you never know where the characters will end up next. Definitely one of Tyler's best. A very satisfying read if you like her previous works or if you are just looking for a book that keeps the reader going.

As with all Tyler novels, The Clock Winder is full of quirky, odd and lovable characters. While there is not much action in her stories, the writing is so well done and the characters so fully developed, by the end of her novels, you always feel like a part of the family. Such is the case with The Clock Winder.

When the novel opens, Mrs. Emerson is a recent widow, who seems to aimlessly go about her days, always keeping up her image and trying to stay in tune with her grown children's lives. Never meaning harm, Mrs. Emerson seems to stress her children out, and doesn't seem to understand how she is affecting them. When she fires her lifelong handyman, she stumbles by chance upon young Elizabeth and before she knows it, Elizabeth is tangled up in the lives of the Emerson family.

The rest of the novel details how Elizabeth is affected by the family, and they by her. Tyler's writing is so poignant, while not much is really happening, so much is actually happening. This is a book that Tyler fans won't be disappointed in~

The Clock Winder, is one of Anne Tyler's best. I have fallen in love with all the quirky characters who inhabit her books.

I am particularly moved by Elizabeth Abbot, in this story, who enters as a stranger on the periphery and is metamorphosed into the essential core of the Emerson family.

Though each of the characters displays an array of idiosyncracies, some charming and others downright sinister, Elizabeth the "Handyman" reveals the beauty of simply being the best version of yourself on the planet!

This is lovely, rich material and a delight to read. Be warned: Ms. Tyler is addictive, you will never be able to read just one of her novels!

Anne Tyler seems to have one book in her consciousness. However, she's published it now under several different titles. It's hard to find many significant differences in either plot or location between her latest (A Patchwork Planet) and this one but somehow, that's okay. Why? It's hard to say except that it might just be because that she's one of the finest writers publishing today. Reading her is pure pleasure and because it is, you tend to forgive the repetitiveness of her novels. Everytime I encounter another of her stock characters I want to despise the novel but quickly I'm drawn into it and am sorry when it all finally (and predictably) ends. Perhaps this is the greatest compliment one can give a writer.

Set in Baltimore, a well off widow (Pamela Evans)lives alone in an elegant old mansion full of clocks. Her husband used to wind them, keeping them all going. Now that he has died, she has no idea how she is going to keep them all wound.

She fires her lifelong handyman, for some misdeed (unclear if its real, or if she imagined it), and in waltzes Elizabeth, a 20 year old college student, taking a year off to earn money. Elizabeth shows she is able to fix a broken chair, Pamela hires her, and Elizabeth moves in.

Elizabeth becomes much more than the new maintenance person. She digs into (or is sucked, depending on one's perspective) the entire family--all the kids are grown, and moved on--and at the same time become's Pamela's only real friend and confidant.

As the story develops, we learn more and more about the relationship between Pamela and her children (very dysfunctional), but Elizabeth remains a mystery.

After the suicide of one of the brothers Elizabeth has been "dating", she leaves, and we follow her back to the South. She has a disastrous engagement to her long time highschool boyfriend, and calls off the wedding literally at the alter.

She then returns to the Evans household, where her relationship is now entirely different..she is now the glue that holds the family together.

Interestingly, both Pamela and Elizabeth are the "clock winders" of the title. Elizabeth waltzes into one life after another, never becoming attached, and creating an interesting combination of order and chaos. That is, she winds other characters up, and then leaves. On the other hand, it is clear that Pamela is the one who winds up her entire family, They may have moved out, but all of the kids still wait for mom's call, and when it comes, it disrupts their entire lives. So again, Pamela is the one who, without meaning to do so (or does she? its not clear) winds people up, and then walks away, going on with her own life.

Good exploration of the relationship between one's own actions/sense of self, and the impact you have on others.

The weakness here is that by the end of the book, we really don't understand what motivates either Elizabeth of Pamela. What made them so focused on self that they did not grasp what effect their actions had on others? Or is Tyler saying that we are all like that?

Anne Tyler's "The Clock Winder" is the story of Elizabeth Abbott, a sort of aimless 20-year old girl taking a year off from college. When Elizabeth wanders into the lives of the Emerson family, she becomes, as Mrs. Emerson so tellingly describes things early in the book, "the center of the asterisk."

Elizabeth is trying to earn money to go back to college for her senior year--even though "my grades were rotten"--and on her way to interview for a long-term babysitting job, she ends up helping Pamela Emerson move some porch furniture. Mrs. Emerson asks her to stay on as a handyman, to replace the one she fired that morning, and Elizabeth cheerfully agrees as long as she can "live in." This innocent beginning to the story belies the complexities and emotional connections that are made and broken in the rest of the book.

Without giving away too much of the plot to those who've never had the pleasure of reading it, it's safe to say that Elizabeth's presence has an emotional impact on several of Mrs. Emerson's sons--one of whom feels strongly enough about her that he does something terrible. This is the event which finally completes Elizabeth's long metamorphosis from determinedly carefree, irresponsible girl to full-grown woman--a woman who understands, finally, the effect that one person can have on another without even meaning to.

The writing is superb and the plot develops organically, fully, and with a resolution which makes perfect sense. Anne Tyler was in full control of her considerable gifts back in 1972 when she wrote this, and aren't we lucky that she was!

Elizabeth is perhaps Anne Tyler's most fascintating and aggravating characters. Just when you think she is going to do one thing, she does another. The Emerson family involves her in their lives in a way that makes one almost afraid to put the book down for fear of missing something. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

Reading an Anne Tyler novel is like settling into an easy chair to listen to an old friend. Though I've never been to Roland Park I feel like I know its old houses and narrow lanes. Mrs. Emerson, who dresses each day as if expecting ladies over for tea, is familiar too. And daffy though she is, you admire her strength in carrying on day by day.

Few writers have as much appreciation of their characters as Anne Tyler. She seems to see the good in each one of them. She pairs them together like a teacher who wants her students to learn and grow from each other. So the irritable, elderly Mrs. Emerson is naturally drawn to easy-going, young Elizabeth. Elizabeth the "handyman," that is -- a quiet woman who enjoys being a competent fixer of loose doorknobs and broken chairs.

Elizabeth wants to glide through life without affecting anyone. She won't take care of children, she says, because she does not want to have such an influence on anyone. She wants to be completely open to whatever comes along. "I accept all invitations," she says. But she finds that there are, inevitably, choices that have to be made and consequences of those choices.

As with all Anne Tyler novels, the writing is admirable, beautifully crafted. The characters are woven together to form a story that is satisfying and complete.

Anne Tyler has said she wouldn't like to claim her first four books, which include "The Clock Winder." Reading that caused me to go back and reevaluate this novel, which has long been one of my favorites by her. Ms. Tyler has high standards, as befits an excellent writer. In retrospect, "The Clock Winder" doesn't measure up to her later work. Some of the characters are poorly defined (I've always had a hard time keeping all the Emerson siblings straight) and the plot turns to melodrama when she needs to jog the story along. Still, there's an underlying sweetnesss that shines through despite the structural defects. I'd still recommend this gem of a novel.