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A review by one_womanarmy
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The Bone Clocks hits lots of hot buttons, from the horrors of the Iraq war to the Eternal Battle of Good and Evil to the near-future downfall of our civilization under society's inevitable collapse under a climate change-ravaged future. Cunningly, it also invites a metafiction's romp through an equally dizzying set of internal landscapes ranging from 15 year old heartbroken girl to mind-controlled horror, the sickening descent of a young man's mind from selfishness to tyranny, and the perspective of transgender vampires who walk across 1,000s of years.
In its pursuit of the many, The Bone Clocks fails to find the whole. Mitchell’s novel is an indigestible stew of incompatible elements, and its binding agent is a gratingly superficial, overly “voicey” set of first-person monologues. Somehow both *yawn* and eye-roll. With allowances made for differences in class and dialect, the whole novel is written in this tediously over-the-top style, which cannot convey much subtle or genuine feeling. Add to that Mitchell’s excessive reliance on dialogue for exposition, narration, and characterization, so much so that pages at a time feel like a prolix screenplay, and you have a glaring failure from such an accomplished writer. It felt like a novel without silence; shouting at me unrelentingly.
My favorite passage is that of Holly's final years under a climate-ravaged future. The surprising turn to eco-sci-fi was touching, sincere, and apocalyptic in a way where the crumbling world's.... inevitably?, added gravitas to a life and story arc marked by the struggle of a good few to push back the evil of the system.
In its pursuit of the many, The Bone Clocks fails to find the whole. Mitchell’s novel is an indigestible stew of incompatible elements, and its binding agent is a gratingly superficial, overly “voicey” set of first-person monologues. Somehow both *yawn* and eye-roll. With allowances made for differences in class and dialect, the whole novel is written in this tediously over-the-top style, which cannot convey much subtle or genuine feeling. Add to that Mitchell’s excessive reliance on dialogue for exposition, narration, and characterization, so much so that pages at a time feel like a prolix screenplay, and you have a glaring failure from such an accomplished writer. It felt like a novel without silence; shouting at me unrelentingly.
My favorite passage is that of Holly's final years under a climate-ravaged future. The surprising turn to eco-sci-fi was touching, sincere, and apocalyptic in a way where the crumbling world's.... inevitably?, added gravitas to a life and story arc marked by the struggle of a good few to push back the evil of the system.