Dave's Book Blog: "The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell

In this typical David Mitchell, the forces of good and evil fight a supernatural battle which impinges repeatedly on the life of an Englishwoman.

It is divided into six parts in each of which the protagonist, Holly Sykes appears.

Narrated by Holly, A Hot Spell is set in northern Kent in 1984. The teenage Holly runs away from home, has strange visions and encounters savage murder.
Narrated by Hugo Lamb, Myrrh is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume is set around Christmas 1991. Hugo meets a weird woman, exploits his friends and lovers, commits theft and goes on a skiing holiday.
The Wedding Bash is set on the south coast of England in 2004. Ed, Holly's partner, has to choose between caring for his daughter and returning to war-torn Iraq where he is a journalist.
Narrated by Crispin himself, Crispin Hershey's Lonely Planet is the once-best-selling author's a five-year Odyssey around the world from 2015 until 2020.
An Horologist's Labyrinth set in 2025 is when the fantasy element of the book is given full throttle with a war between different types of immortals. It is narrated by one of them.
Holly as an old woman returns to narrates Sheep's Head, set on the coast of Ireland in 2043 after the social order has broken down in Europe.

David Mitchell's strength is writing wonderful characters. Holly Sykes is first encounter as a delightfully stroppy teenager running away from home after a bust-up with her mum but she is just as real as a grandmother. Hugo Lamb is cultured and charismatic but amoral almost to the point of psychopathy; he reminded me of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. Ed Brubeck is addicted to danger. Crispin Hershey is a glorious creation: a spiteful, disillusioned, frequently drunken novelist sliding down the best-seller charts. Each of these is as real as the person you are standing next to.

I'm not a fan of fantasy. The 'Horologist's Labyrinth' was my least favourite part of the book. It reminded me of watching a horror film which is excruciatingly tense up until the moment that you see the monster, at which point you realise that it is an actor dressed up and the spell is broken.

But the real-world parts of this novel were magnificent. Following Holly's journey from Gravesend to the Isle of Sheppey was as real as anything I have read for a long time; not only was I thoroughly immersed in the story, and convinced of Holly's reality, but I could see the jeopardy she was in at every step of the way. It needed no supernatural element. It was as tense as anything. And it was followed by Hugo Lamb, the most charming and debonair outright villain I have encountered for ages. As for Crispin: he was superbly Rabelaisian. Add these characters to superb writing (just look at the selected quotes below!) and you have another Mitchell masterpiece.

It's just as good as the 2004 Booker shortlisted Cloud Atlas and nearly as good as the superb Utopia Avenue.

Selected Quotes:

“Mam was right. I loved Vinny like he was a part of me, and he loved me like a stick of gum. He’d spat me out when the flavour went, unwrapped another and stuffed it in.” (A Hot Spell, 30th June)
“The wind unravels clouds from the chimneys of the Blue Circle factory, like streams of hankies out of a conjuror’s pocket.” (A Hot Spell, 30th June)
“I drink until the sun's a pale glow through the thin bottom of the plastic.” (A Hot Spell, 30th June)
“The sea-breeze and bike-breeze slip up my sleeves and stroke my front like a pervy Mr Tickle.” (A Hot Spell, 30th June)
“Love’s pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at lone-shark prices.” (A Hot Spell, 1st July)
“It's a black sea, utterly black-black, like darkness in a box in a cave a mile underground.” ((A Hot Spell, 1st July)
“His pupils have morphed into lovehearts and, for the nth time squared I wonder what loves feels like on the inside because externally it turns you into the King of Tit Mountain.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 13th December)
“I rescue the condom before its gluey viscera stains her purple sheets, and wrap it in a tissue shroud. Coupling is frenzy: decoupling is farce.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 20th December)
“He sighs through hairy nostrils.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 23rd December)
“A terminally ill bus hauls itself up Charing Cross Road.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 23rd December)
“Penhaligon hears his future, and it sounds like a bottle-bank heaved off the roof of a multi-story car park.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 13th December)
“Human beings ... are walking bundles of cravings. cravings for food, water, shelter, warmth; sex and companionship; status, a tribe to belong to; kicks, control, purpose; and so on, all the way down to chocolate-brown bathroom suites. Love is one way to satisfy some of these cravings. But love’s not just the drug: it's also the dealer. Love wants love in return ... Like drugs, the highs look divine, and I envy the users. But when the side effects kick in - jealousy, the rages, grief - I think, Count me out. Elizabethans equated romantic love with insanity. Buddhists view it as a brat throwing a tantrum at the picnic of the calm mind.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 29th December)
“I emerge from the cubicle like the Son of God rolling away the stone.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 31st December)
“Empires die, like all of us dance in the strobe lit. See how the light needs shadows. Look: wrinkles spread like mildew over our peachy sheen; beat-by-beat-by-beat-by-beat-by-beat-by-beat, varicose veins worm through plucked calves; torsos and breasts fatten and sag.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, 31st December)
“While the wealthy are no more likely to be born stupid than the poor, a wealthy upbringing compounds stupidity while a hard-scrabble childhood dilutes it, if only for Darwinian reasons. This is why the elite need a prophylactic barrier of shitty state schools.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, New Year’s Day 1992)
“I left my old accommodation a la Spiderman. And landed a la sack-of-Spudsman. My scout pack did the Leaping from Buildings to Escape Violent Pimps badge the week I was away.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, New Year’s Day 1992)
“Lust wants, does the obvious, and pads back into the forest. love is greedier.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, New Year’s Day 1992)
“Half of me wants to hit you with something metal ... So does the other half.” (Myrrh Is Mine, Its Bitter Perfume, New Year’s Day 1992)
“The Great Envoy couldn't cook his own testes in a Jacuzzi of lava.” (The Wedding Bash, 17th April)
“To dub Echo Must Die ‘infantile, flatulent, ghastly drivel’ would be an insult to infants, to flatulence, and to ghasts alike.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 1st May 2015)
“Men marry women hoping they'll never change. Women marry men hoping they will. Both parties are disappointed.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 11th March 2016)
“As the Arabic proverb has it, not even God can change the past.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 14 March 2016)
“Whither humanity sans youth? Whither language sans neologisms?” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 14th March 2016)
“A torch-through-a-sheet sun.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 20th September 2019
“ A poet inhabits a poetic tradition to write within, but no poet can singlehandedly create that tradition. Even if a poet sets out to invent a new poetics, he or she can only react against what's already there.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 23rd September 2019)
“Adverbs are cholesterol in the veins of prose. Halve your adverbs and your prose pumps twice as well ... and beware of the verb ‘seem’: it's a textual mumble. And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below ... if you can't decide ... it's only a three.” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 23rd September 2019)
“Your characters potted life histories. Whom or what your characters love and despise. Details on education, employment, finances, political affiliations, social class. fears. Skeletons in cupboards. Addictions. Biggest regret; believer, agnostic or atheist. How afraid of dying are they? ... Have they ever seen a corpse? A ghost? Sexuality. Glass half empty, glass half full, glass too small? Snazzy or scruffy dressers? .... Foul mouthed or profanity averse? ... When did they last cry? can they see another person's point of view?” (Crispin Hershey’s Lonely Planet, 23rd September 2019)
“ Heresy is fissiparous.” (An Horologist’s Labyrinth, 5th April)
“Titles, titles, they drag behind one like Marley's chains, Jacob’s not Bob’s.” (An Horologist’s Labyrinth, 7th April)
“If you could reason with religious people there wouldn't be any religious people.” (Sheep’s Head, 27th October)
“She could think of three laws of physics that Marinus had apparently broken but, given time, she was confident of coming up with a few more.” (Sheep’s Head, 27th October)
“For one voyage to begin, another voyage must come to an end, sort of.” (Sheep’s Head, 27th October; final sentence)