Throughout this novel, I kept having panicky "How on earth am I going to review this book?" thoughts. Since David Mitchell is British, I hope this American reviewer can get by with saying that it is bloody brilliant. This is my second of Mitchell's works, the first being Cloud Atlas, which was unfortunately a bit of a slog for me. This has a similar sense of style, but I enjoyed the story quite a bit more. I also was fortunate enough to read this with some Booktube buddies on a Voxer app, sharing thoughts back and forth, which greatly enhanced my enjoyment.
The Bone Clocks will require me to simplify extremely. Basically, the reader follows Holly Sykes, a girl from Gravesend, England, throughout the course of her extraordinary life. We meet her at age 15 in 1984, travel to the present, and eventually the future to her mid-eighties. Having certain gifts, she unwittingly becomes a pawn between two warring factions. While difficult, I feel Mitchell's work is best described as a kaleidoscope, with elements of the story blending together, shifting, and often times feeling out of focus.
Mitchell exposes the reader to a myriad of locations, so you really feel you're traveling the world with these characters. It's evident he does extensive travel and research. The insight into journalism, and the state of Iraq from the character of Brubeck was really engaging. I also liked how Mitchell explored literary criticism. His mind is so intense and philosophical in places, as evidenced by a conversation between two people on the nature of power and the possibility of deferring death into perpetuity. Similar to Cloud Atlas, this work tackles political climates of nations, and our environmental future if we continue to consume at this rate.
The writing is superb, but the difficulty emerges when you become immersed in the current narrative and the story switches perspective (and usually time), so it feels like you're starting from scratch. I'm here to tell you that you can trust Mitchell to explain and connect in due time! Patience does pay off.
If you enjoy magical realism and get on well with short stories, I think this would be a good book for you. Some of the book seems to defy explanation, other parts I'm still chewing on, and explaining the rest of the difficult bits would be too spoiler-y. Even though this read took me awhile and parts of it seemed over the top in terms of magical realism (for my taste preferences), I can't detract from the star rating for these reasons because this read is just too memorable.
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