Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (1990), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 208 pages
Description
Set in Georgia on the eve of court-ordered integration, Clock Without Hands contains McCullers's most poignant statement on race, class, and justice. A small-town druggist dying of leukemia calls himself and his community to account in this tale of change and changelessness, of death and the death-in-life that is hate. It is a tale, as McCullers herself wrote, of "response and responsibility--of man toward his own livingness."
User reviews
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
Death is always the same, but each man dies in his own way. For J.T. Malone it began in such a simple ordinary way that for a time he confused the end of his life with the beginning of a new season.
The opening sentences set the stage for Carson McCullers' fifth and final novel, which is set in the
Death is an ever present theme and metaphor for this novel, along with personal choice and responsibility, on an individual basis and for the Southern way of life in the face of increasing pressure from the federal government for fair treatment of the region's black citizens. The black population in Milan is chronically oppressed by segregated housing and schools, low wages that keep them in deep poverty, and threats of injury or death if they showed up at polling centers to vote or even expressed a willingness to do so. Meanwhile, the whites live mainly in fear of their black neighbors, particularly the older residents, and they strike back with vicious fury whenever any of them steps out of line.
Each of the main characters experiences his own personal crisis and mortality, as their intertwined yet intensely lonely lives in the tense and steamy town suffocate them like mice caught in a small box that is slowly filling with water. A fateful decision by one character ultimately leads to his downfall, as the others are left to suffer their own failures and miseries.
Clock Without Hands is a powerful and beautifully written novel about the Deep South in the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow era, with well drawn and unforgettable main characters in a richly portrayed background. The novel ended in a rather abrupt and unsatisfying fashion for this reader, especially in comparison to her brilliant debut novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to everyone.
The opening sentences set the stage for Carson McCullers' fifth and final novel, which is set in the
Show More
small town of Milan in south Georgia in the mid 1950s, as the civil rights movement is in its infancy. The story revolves around the lives of four men: J.T. Malone, a respected pharmacist whose comfortable but unsatisfying life is shattered by the death sentence he receives; Judge Fox Clane, a former US Congressman and local judge whose corpulence is outweighed only by his massive ego and staunch desire to see the old Confederate states return to their antebellum glory; his grandson Jester Clane, a sensitive and misunderstood teenager who benefits from but is heavily weighed down by white privilege and his deep sense of equality toward the blacks in town and across the country; and Sherman Pew, a cocky but insecure and wounded young black man with blue eyes and an uncertain background, who works for the judge as a personal secretary and has a troubled and acrimonious relationship with Jester, who attempts repeatedly to befriend Sherman but is often met with the most acerbic comments in return. In addition to these four men, the judge's son Johnny, Jester's father, is a ghost whose premature death affects his father and son deeply.Death is an ever present theme and metaphor for this novel, along with personal choice and responsibility, on an individual basis and for the Southern way of life in the face of increasing pressure from the federal government for fair treatment of the region's black citizens. The black population in Milan is chronically oppressed by segregated housing and schools, low wages that keep them in deep poverty, and threats of injury or death if they showed up at polling centers to vote or even expressed a willingness to do so. Meanwhile, the whites live mainly in fear of their black neighbors, particularly the older residents, and they strike back with vicious fury whenever any of them steps out of line.
Each of the main characters experiences his own personal crisis and mortality, as their intertwined yet intensely lonely lives in the tense and steamy town suffocate them like mice caught in a small box that is slowly filling with water. A fateful decision by one character ultimately leads to his downfall, as the others are left to suffer their own failures and miseries.
Clock Without Hands is a powerful and beautifully written novel about the Deep South in the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow era, with well drawn and unforgettable main characters in a richly portrayed background. The novel ended in a rather abrupt and unsatisfying fashion for this reader, especially in comparison to her brilliant debut novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to everyone.
Show Less
LibraryThing member starbox
Utterly beautiful and heart-rending work, set in the Deep South, where segregation is still a way of life. The novel opens and closes with pharmacist JT Malone discovering he is terminally ill:
"He would examine a green-leaved elm tree with morbid attention as he picked a flake of sooty bark. The
His tale is punctuated by those of three other men: his friend, Judge Clane, an elderly conservative, struggling with the side-effects of a stroke and his son's suicide, and yearning to return to the days of slavery; Clane's teenage grandson, Jester, with very different ideas of equality. And Sherman, the blue-eyed Negro youth, whom Clane inexplicably takes into his house as a sort of secretary...
McCullers draws each of the characters so that they are completely believable - I loved the prickly relationship between the two youths; Sherman's efforts to look important and put down the privileged Jester:
"What other music do you like? Personally I adore music, passionately, I mean. Last winter I learned the 'Winter Wind' etude. "
"I bet you didn't", Sherman said, unwilling to share his musical laurels with another.
"Do you think I would sit here and tell you a lie about the 'Winter Wind' etude?" said Jester who never lied under any circumstances.
"How would I know?" answered Sherman, who was one of the world's worst liars.
Brilliant portrayal of teenagers talking, put me in mind of JD Salinger. But also of the bumptious, self-important Judge and of the meek pharmacist wondering if this life was all there was. Fantastic.
"He would examine a green-leaved elm tree with morbid attention as he picked a flake of sooty bark. The
Show More
lamp post, the wall, the tree would exist when he was dead and the thought was loathsome to Malone...he was unable to acknowledge the reality of approaching death, and the conflict led to a sense of ubiquitous unreality."His tale is punctuated by those of three other men: his friend, Judge Clane, an elderly conservative, struggling with the side-effects of a stroke and his son's suicide, and yearning to return to the days of slavery; Clane's teenage grandson, Jester, with very different ideas of equality. And Sherman, the blue-eyed Negro youth, whom Clane inexplicably takes into his house as a sort of secretary...
McCullers draws each of the characters so that they are completely believable - I loved the prickly relationship between the two youths; Sherman's efforts to look important and put down the privileged Jester:
"What other music do you like? Personally I adore music, passionately, I mean. Last winter I learned the 'Winter Wind' etude. "
"I bet you didn't", Sherman said, unwilling to share his musical laurels with another.
"Do you think I would sit here and tell you a lie about the 'Winter Wind' etude?" said Jester who never lied under any circumstances.
"How would I know?" answered Sherman, who was one of the world's worst liars.
Brilliant portrayal of teenagers talking, put me in mind of JD Salinger. But also of the bumptious, self-important Judge and of the meek pharmacist wondering if this life was all there was. Fantastic.
Show Less
LibraryThing member gbill
As always, McCullers is honest, and brutally honest. She’s unflinching in dropping the f-bomb and recognizing truths uncomfortable to many in 1953 – homosexual urges, statutory rape, incontinence, and perhaps most taboo of all to the South, racial injustice. The novel was written about 100
Show More
years after the Civil War ended, but its outcome had not been accepted by the South, and McCullers calls them on it, touching on police brutality, the denial of voting rights, rigged courtrooms, and Klan violence to enforce segregation. The central story is of an aging Southern judge and ex-Congressman who wishes to uphold the ways of the past (as well get reparations for old Confederate currency!), but sees his own son take more enlightened positions, and defend an African-American accused of murder. McCullers interlocks this with the story of a middle-aged druggist who has been diagnosed with leukemia, I think to subtly remind of us our mortality and to put the main story in perspective. I love the metaphor of the druggist being a man “watching a clock without hands” until the end, when he realizes “he was not a man dying … nobody died, everybody died.” Published 7 years before ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘Clock Without Hands’ is every bit as good, and in some ways, better, feeling less tidy and more honest about life, death, and racism. Show Less
LibraryThing member KLmesoftly
This novel is absolutely incredible. I usually describe McCullers' writing as "To Kill a Mockingbird, if Scout was 13 and engaging in awkward sexual experimentation with the neighbor boy" and this novel was no disappointment there - in fact, I would say it directly riffs on TKAM at times, with its
Clock Without Hands doesn't offer any solutions, though - it recognizes problems: racial injustice, sexism, even homophobia, but no neatly-packaged lessons are being presented here, only damage. I found the novel all the more moving for it.
Show More
critique of racial injustice in the legal system. Clock Without Hands doesn't offer any solutions, though - it recognizes problems: racial injustice, sexism, even homophobia, but no neatly-packaged lessons are being presented here, only damage. I found the novel all the more moving for it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member IonaS
At first, I thought the book was just about a pharmacist, Malone, dying of leukemia. He didn’t really understand or accept the diagnosis and kept consulting new doctors only to receive the same verdict.
Though the book is indeed about Malone and his situation, it also has an even deeper
Carson lived in the Southern USA in the first half of the 20th Century and she was very aware of the disparity in the treatment and situation of blacks and whites and the injustice of this.
One of the main characters in the story is an elderly judge, or rather Judge, a former Congressman, who has an exceedingly high regard for himself and excessive sense of his own importance. His wife, Miss Missy, has recently died and his son, Johnny, is also dead: his grandson, Jester, lives with him.
The Judge takes on a black houseboy who acts as his “amanuensis” (he writes letters for the Judge); he is an orphan with remarkable blue eyes and is called Sherman Pew.
Sherman is intent on solving the mystery of his parentage; the Judge is involved in it and reveals that he is responsible for the boy being an orphan.
Jester has special feelings for Sherman, but doesn’t dare express them
The Judge believes that civilization was founded on slavery, which offends Sherman’s sensibilities.
The main theme of the book thus turns out to be the relationship between blacks and whites, and their inequality. Though the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution had guaranteed the blacks the right to vote, no black Sherman had known or heard tell of had ever voted. “Yes, the American Constitution itself was a fraud.”
Finally, the truth is revealed about the Judge, Johnny and Sherman. When Sherman betters his situation, matters escalate and a dramatic and tragic incident occurs.
I found the author’s prose magnificent, and the portrayal of both the Judge, Sherman, and Malone in his predicament very convincing and realistic. In fact, Carson brilliantly conveys the whole noxious atmosphere of this Southern town, noxious at least as regards interracial relations.
To my mind, this is one of the author’s best works.
Though the book is indeed about Malone and his situation, it also has an even deeper
Show More
theme.Carson lived in the Southern USA in the first half of the 20th Century and she was very aware of the disparity in the treatment and situation of blacks and whites and the injustice of this.
One of the main characters in the story is an elderly judge, or rather Judge, a former Congressman, who has an exceedingly high regard for himself and excessive sense of his own importance. His wife, Miss Missy, has recently died and his son, Johnny, is also dead: his grandson, Jester, lives with him.
The Judge takes on a black houseboy who acts as his “amanuensis” (he writes letters for the Judge); he is an orphan with remarkable blue eyes and is called Sherman Pew.
Sherman is intent on solving the mystery of his parentage; the Judge is involved in it and reveals that he is responsible for the boy being an orphan.
Jester has special feelings for Sherman, but doesn’t dare express them
The Judge believes that civilization was founded on slavery, which offends Sherman’s sensibilities.
The main theme of the book thus turns out to be the relationship between blacks and whites, and their inequality. Though the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution had guaranteed the blacks the right to vote, no black Sherman had known or heard tell of had ever voted. “Yes, the American Constitution itself was a fraud.”
Finally, the truth is revealed about the Judge, Johnny and Sherman. When Sherman betters his situation, matters escalate and a dramatic and tragic incident occurs.
I found the author’s prose magnificent, and the portrayal of both the Judge, Sherman, and Malone in his predicament very convincing and realistic. In fact, Carson brilliantly conveys the whole noxious atmosphere of this Southern town, noxious at least as regards interracial relations.
To my mind, this is one of the author’s best works.
Show Less
LibraryThing member boredgames
I found this less brilliant and engaging than Reflections or Heart. the ending scenes are incredible and breathtakingly sad- and i thought of mcculler's own illness at the time and how mortality, which is one of the novel's key themes, must have very much been on her mind.
LibraryThing member Smokler
Saves itself at the end. McCullers does lonely and unfulfilled promises better than anyone but here it comes perilously close to tipping over into ennui, a forgotten trombone v. a trombone solo at a jazz funeral. She rescues the ship in the last 30 pages but not before forgetting to bring strong
Worst of the 3 I've read but still McCullers, the genius. Will press on and read "Golden Eye" and "Sad Cafe."
Show More
characters and a vivid setting on board. Worst of the 3 I've read but still McCullers, the genius. Will press on and read "Golden Eye" and "Sad Cafe."
Show Less
LibraryThing member Ghost_Boy
Carson McCullers' last book she wrote. I thought it was better than the one I just read, but still not as good as Lonely Hunter. I believe I've read all of her fiction now. Maybe missing some short stories and essays.
If you care to read this book keep in mind it's reads a little slow I think. The
After reading so many of her works, she is still one of my favorite authors. I feel like I'm a character within her books.
If you care to read this book keep in mind it's reads a little slow I think. The
Show More
subject matter in this book is heavy. Maybe some of her heaviest yet. It goes into racism, depression, and rape. I was kind of shocked to see her throw in the word "fuck" a few times at the end. This also makes this book one of her more interesting tales.After reading so many of her works, she is still one of my favorite authors. I feel like I'm a character within her books.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1961
Physical description
208 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
0140181318 / 9780140181319