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Six connected novellas: sound familiar? It was what David Mitchell did in CLOUD ATLAS, and what (for a while at least) it looks like he is doing here. In the earlier book, he gave us the first part of six different stories, ranging from the nineteenth century to the post-apocalyptic future, then reversed the process to give us the six conclusions in the opposite order. There were titillating connections between the stories, but each stood largely on its own, with different characters and exemplifying different genres. Whatever else Mitchell may be, he is a superb storyteller, and the hundred-page length seems ideal for him. I am not sure that the book entirely worked as a whole, but it was a fascinating reading experience.
His latest novel, though, DOES work. It seems to have been constructed on much the same principles. Once again, there are six 100-page sections, moving forward in time, each apparently with a different protagonist. The first, in 1984, introduces us to Holly Skyes, a 15-year-old runaway, leaving her home in North Kent after a row with her mother and a betrayal by her boyfriend. Holly is a plucky character with a marvelous voice; we have her in our hearts as she discovers the difficulties of life on the run as well as surprising acts of kindness. The second part, in 1991, has another protagonist, Hugo Lamb, a Cambridge undergraduate with a shady secret life, but the charm to carry it off. Holly reappears as a minor character at the end of his story too. Indeed, she will return in the next part, featuring an award-winning Iraq War journalist in 2004, and the one after that, in 2015, whose dubious hero is an egocentric once-famous novelist.Read more ›
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With David Mitchell, it's never a case of will he be good enough to deliver, it's a case of will his talent get in his delivery's way. Meaning: Sometimes, when you are so effortlessly fluent and creative and imaginative, you can get lulled by your own writerly voice and go off on these long Huck Finn-like raft trips down tributaries of the Narrative Mississippi.
Does this happen with THE BONE CLOCKS, Mitchell's latest foray into fantasy? To an extent, yes. And do we forgive him his excesses like we would a favorite yet incorrigible son's? To an even greater extent, yes again. The book's first section, "A Hot Spell," leaps out of the starting blocks with an irresistibly beguiling lead, one Holly Sykes, and after the first 100 pages you feel like Holly's adventures with "the Radio People" and her brushes with paranormal beings will be the fastest read you've picked up in many a year.
Not quite. From here, in typical Mitchell fashion, we meet different lead characters in different sections marching forward in time -- sections where Holly surfaces to various degrees of importance -- and the new characters are not always as intriguing as Holly. Mitchell also finds side-narratives, like an extended one into Iraq where he can share his opinions about that war, George Bush, Tony Blair, etc., irresistible. Meanwhile, a fantasy is trying to be born and experiencing a prolonged labor. Will the baby be blue when it's finally delivered? That is the question as Mitchell stretches out the tease so deftly set during the fast start and the reader keeps saying, "Yes! I love the idea of a battle to the finish between two groups of warring paranormal beings with Holly in the middle, so take me there! Quickly! Let's go!"
Having received an advance copy of this new book, I was actually quite surprised when I read all the rave reviews from critics. I am a huge David Mitchell fan, especially of Cloud Atlas, which I believe will be read 50 years from now the way James Joyce is read at present.
This book is no Cloud Atlas. The first section has a wonderful voice in the protagonist of Holly, and the last section has an amazing narrative of a post climate change future. In between, Mitchell creates a cosmology of warring psychological factions possessing hosts, and a struggling writer doing something or not doing something as his career ages, that each lack real coherence or meaning for me. Also, while the final future setting is intriguing, the steps leading up to it demonstrate no subtleties of science fiction.
As a writer, my feeling is this book suffered mightily from a lack of an editor who could speak truth to a powerful literary voice, because middle portions of this book failed to deliver the goods.
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While compulsively readable with moments of brilliance, "The Bone Clocks" is ultimately done in by the author's weak plotting. The book starts out strong with the two best sections of the book: teen-aged Holly and university-aged Hugo. I'd encourage people to read these 200-odd pages and then throw the rest of the book away. The Iraq war correspondent's section reads like someone read "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" and banged out a plausible story with no surprises or anything new to say. (Mitchell does indeed credit "Imperial Life" in his acknowledgments.) The dreaded author character gets an extended time on stage, reminding us what happens when authors become too famous and stuck on the festival circuit and have to draw their fiction from their newly circumscribed life experiences.
The fantasy elements simply don't work. There are no rules, just sentences about psychodumdum bullets and psychic violence. Ooo-kay. Psychobattles are not very interesting to read about when the villains have no depth and the action is taking place in an invisible dimension.
And finally, Mitchell appends his own "Scouring of the Shire"-type final section, in which he completely destroys all the moral stakes that had propelled the first 500 pages along. We have suspended our disbelief and joined the heroes on a costly quest to save four innocent children per year who would otherwise be murdered. Yet, in the final 100 pages we learn that society has collapsed and millions or billions have already or will soon join those precious four victims in the next world. It kind of makes you wonder why we bothered. Mitchell cheekily calls his ending a Deus ex Machina and then gives it to us. Sadly, by then the charm had long worn out.
Make no mistake, Mitchell is often brilliant, but he is ill-served by the fantasy superstructure of this novel.
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