Tinkers (edition 2009)

Tinkers, by Paul Harding, is a novel that projects from the mind of George Washington Crosby, a dying man. The events of his harried life are replayed, as he lay dying on a hospital bed in his living room, surrounded by various family members.

His one wish, before dying, is to be able to recollect memories of his epileptic father, to be able to “see” him one last time. Within the flashbacks to George’s childhood, events are told with the precision of a clock, as George is a clock maker and repairer. In fact, the walls of his house are lined with clocks, and time is ticking away for him. Memories arise and fade, and the clocks tick the seconds away and chime away the hours.

Within his own memories, whether accurate or due to his unstable and hallucinatory mind, as his life is ending, characters weave in and out of his life, and the reader is given privy to their thoughts and feelings. Howard Aaron Crosby, George’s father is a salesman driving a cart out into the rural areas to sell wares. He disappeared, after having a Gran Mal seizure. His mother feels trapped in her role and feels life has given her a bad turn. Her four children cause her problems, and feels that ending her life would solve them. Both of George’s parents are trapped within their mental state. Familial dynamics are an integral part of the whole, within the pages.

The novel looks at life and death, love and loss, and the events in between that cause one to formulate their own lives. George has never quite gotten over the loss of his father, and in his last days and hours focuses on him. His dreams and hallucinations are disjointed at times, and are often difficult to follow. That does not diminish Harding’s writing style or story line, in my opinion. George’s transcendence to death is filled with disconnected thoughts and visions. I would imagine that is a normal process for those in the throes of their last moments.

Harding definitely has a way with evoking vivid images. At times the grammar and the grammatical style and structure are not consistent, but for me, it reinforces the state of mind of the dying. His word-paintings are so alive with descriptions and emotions. His prose is masterful and often verges on poetic loveliness.

Paul Harding captivated me from the first page, and I read Tinkers straight through. Tinkers is a unique novel, in the sense of what defines a family and what defines a tinker. A tinker can also be one who plays and replays moments in time, within the framework of his/her mind, tinkering with the past so to speak. ( )

Although "Tinkers" won the Pulitzer Prize, it is not surprising that it received mixed reviews. Like Faulkner’s acclaimed "The Sound and the Fury", "Tinkers" is heavy on mood, light on plot, shrouded in gloom, partially told through the eyes of someone mentally challenged, was the author’s first published novel, and takes a lot of introspection to absorb.

"Tinkers" is the story of an elderly man - George Washington Crosby - lying on his death bed with only eight days to live. While family members take turns sitting by his bedside sharing moments of clarity, George fades In and out of consciousness, recalling tidbits of his past. “George Crosby remembered many things as he died, but in an order he could not control. To look at his life, to take the stock he always imagined a man would at his end, was to witness a shifting mass, the tiles of a mosaic spinning, swirling, re-portraying, always in recognizable swaths of colors, familiar elements, molecular units, intimate currents, but also independent now of his will, showing him a different self every time he tried to make an assessment.” (Pg. 18)

During his bedside vigil, George transcends time and within his memory appears the story of his father and vague references to his grandfather. All three were so different from each other. While George was pragmatic and lived his life in a mechanical, practical manner, his grandfather had been religious - a minister. And George’s father, although he suffered from epilepsy, was truly a wise man. Paul Harding intertwines these three men spiritually, moving back and forth in time, painting abstract visuals of temporal scenes, throwing in some Latin subtitles to designate fragments of imagery experienced by the epileptic father, and an occasional excerpt on the making of clocks, and the passing of time.

Therein lies the problem. One could conclude that "Tinkers" is a jumbled mess of a novel, and Paul Harding was self indulgent, blindly spewing out poetic prose whether it had a logical place in the novel - or not - simply because he has a gift for linguistic eloquence. "Tinkers" is basically 185 pages of mood creation with a few anecdotes.

I really don’t know if this clever writing style helped or hindered the popularity of the book, but it certainly emphasized the eternity of time and space and generated philosophical moments. Interestingly, George’s final thoughts on his death bed were not of those loved ones still alive and in his presence physically, but of his father, long gone... a final good-by, or was it perhaps the onset of a renewed spiritual connection?

(Please excuse my reference to epilepsy as “mentally challenged”. George’s father’s memories were largely in the 1920’s when no treatment was available and that was definitely a challenge).

I appreciate Paul Hardings talent, and I did enjoy reading "Tinkers". Worthy of the Pulitzer? That’s questionable. The prior year’s winner "Olive Kitteridge" was mediocre as well... a compilation of short stories tied into a somewhat disconnected rough novel. Seems the Pulitzer Prize standards have been lowered in recent years. How do you interpret that? Is there simply a lack of qualified participants... or is it a lack of qualified judges? ( )

What a gorgeous book! Don't expect a gripping plot; this novel reads more like lyrical poetry than most fiction. But once you sink into the lush, slow language and the quirky psyches of the three generations of men Harding traces, you feel you've inhabited another era, one more given to lingering contemplation of the natural world. This book, while full of broken relationships, is also packed with tremendous joy and sustaining love--another rarity in contemporary fiction. Definitely worthy of the Pulitzer. ( )

A hauntingly beautiful book because of its moving descriptions of the emotional and physical environments of George Crosby's life and passing. The story is unusual because it flows from Crosby's reminiscents of his life while dying in a hospital bed in his living room. Crosby was an horologist, so there is a continual reference to clock mechanisms, repair and "tinkering". It is also the story of his father Howard, who was a real New England tinker( peddling pans, soap, clothes, etc. in the countryside from a homemade wagon), who had bitten George during an epileptic seizure and then abandoned his family to start a new life with a new name and new family in Philadelphia. ( )

Not a bad little story at all. And short. Short is good. ( )