I see the "clock without hands" metaphor raging through, and see various characters and situations in allegorical terms and the symbolism present, but, to me, the whole novel just wasn't as solid as some of her other works. I thought it was a bit too overdone in many ways (the Judge stands out as an example). It seems at various points that McCullers is trying to underscore a particular theme of human struggle, but the methods by which she attempts to do this don’t work as well as many of her other works. At points, it almost seems like she is trying to hard to push the race, death, isolation and time elements and themes into our face.
I really enjoyed McCullers' short stories immensely, especially ones in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, much better than this one. "Wunderkind" was quite a story, probably my favorite of the bunch, and to anyone who is reading McCullers for the first time, I would suggest this story or some of her other shorter works. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is also a very solid work from this author, and thought it handled the theme of isolation/death a bit better than she does in Clock Without Hands.
That being said, I see how McCullers tries to tie everything together in some ways in symbolic form at the end. It's much of the way characters and situations are presented that are ineffective.
McCullers has a strong sense of understanding and empathizing with the human condition, which she presents quite often in her writing, and this is also evident in Clock Without Hands. There is something that is very personal in much of her characters, who often struggle against some element of life. It just didn’t work as well here in her final novel, in my opinion.
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