Tours of the Black Clock

Stunning. Having just re-read this a decade on from the first time, I was blown away once again by the visceral reactions that I had to Erickson's prose. His writing is beautiful and sublime and thought-provoking in the very same moments that he is describing horrors and tragedies.

The novel is an intricate and tremendously woven story for which I think the reader must be prepared to be open to. The storytelling is beautiful and there are full pages which I could read over and over for their elegance. There's no reason not to enjoy this novel on its surface... But try to walk into this novel without expectations and allow it to wash over you.

This is a compact book. The contents seem effortlessly written, and read like watching water flowing. There's no hardship in reading this book, apart from the contents; I won't go into details that may spoil this for you, but it's big, and I actually felt as though two books had finished by the time I was 11% into it.

The author's use of language is commendable, as it's easy to read and digest, while the characters and their inner thoughts are less palatable (to me, at least), but are so interesting, that I kept wanting more and more of the book. After half of it, interest waned, but picked up again after circa 70%.

I'll recommend this to all; it's a two-punch book, first for the use of language which I've seldom seen, and second, for the show more contents; the plot twists, turns, churns and is truly imaginative. Shan't say more. Go read. show less

Lives intersect across time and across borders against a backdrop of World War Two. Erickson conjures up a potent mix of alternative history, gritty noirish realism, and hallucinatory dislocation, but his characters frequently seem overmatched by the weightiness of the author’s themes. At times Erickson’s prose combines suspense and a kind of pleasurable derangement, with the reader as a luxuriating frog in the kettle soon-to-boil. At other times it seems as if his intent is too simple for his clever pen.

Petyr’s such an unsettling little worm that the day Kronehelm arrives I’m almost happy to see him slither in with his trunks and crates and immediately pull the curtains even tighter so that the thinnest slice of dank gray show more European light can come through. Kronehelm throws his arms around me and begins to cry with joy; I guess he figured I’d never really show up. After a few more days I know something’s got to give, what with three freaks waddling from one dark room to the next publishing obscene books for the private collections of deformed midgets in Berlin five hundred kilometers away. You just know that kind of enterprise is going to have one or two pressure points somewhere.

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Some brief remarks (not really a review):

http://www.jgoodwin.net/?p=785