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#45154 in Audible 2008-12-29Format: UnabridgedOriginal language:EnglishRunning time: 295 minutes | File size: 49.Mb

Paul Harding : Tinkers before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Tinkers:

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Richly descriptive. A beautiful novel.By Mike W.Tinkers is a beautifully crafted, brief novel about three generations of New England fathers, the Crosbys. But don't let its brevity fool you, it is packed with powerful,explicative and textured writing that is to be savored.A tinker is a mender, and each of these fathers was a tinker of one kind or another. The eldest, a minister who was always writing and re-writing sermons. The next, Howard, a peddler who sold pots, pans and other goods, constantly assembling and mending and finds some of his joy in working with these items. Finally, George, who we learn in the book's first sentence, is 8 days from death and surrounded by family and friends. George repaired clocks, and the clock is a nice metaphor for his life and life in general.Tinkers moves through 3 different narratives. George's last week of life as he hallucinates in and out of consciousness, and then snippets from the lives of his father and grandfather. I personally found Howard's narrative the most poignant but all were beautifully and skillfully written. You will quickly learn that the book is driven less by plot and more by its sentences. There is a rich, descriptive text that let's you feel these moments and know these men in a relatively brief span of pages. This is a book to be read and re-read, its sentences to be enjoyed and admired for their power of description.I also did a little reading about the author, Paul Harding and found his own story fascinating. He was told by agents and publishers for 3 years that Tinkers was too slow and contemplative for them to take a risk on. When he finally got it published, it basically arose out of "nowhere" to win the 2010 Pulitzer. The NY Times hadn't even reviewed the book! Tinkers is certainly a worthy winner, and is well worth your money and time.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Only 191 pages but with more depth than novels 3 or 4 times as long...also, excellent book club choiceBy KcornThis novel focuses primarily on George Washington Crosby and his father and the recollection of their experiences. As the book opens, George is dying but the narrative alternates between his life and that of his father, a man who had epileptic fits. Although the events described may seem to be relatively minor, not major episodes in history, the details makes this book a standout. Because of the relatively short length, it would be a perfect choice for the type of book club which focuses on novels which aren't light and easy. It is well worth discussing.It is important to keep up with the varying episodes which jump through time, going back and forth, not always in chronological order. But don't worry. This isn't as confusing as you might think. You're likely to be struck by the rich characterizations - particularly those of George and Howard Crosby (Howard is the tinker in the family, repairing tin and copper pots and more). But you're also apt to be drawn into the portrayals of minor characters as well, from the local doctor to the father of George's friend, Ray Morrell. Then there is George's mother, a woman noted as having "a contrary heart."I'd urge you to take time to savor the way the descriptions of the natural world in Tinkers. They make up so much of the novel and I was taken by how the beginning of the book focused partly on George's sense of losing himself in the "blue of the sky" and the stars, "the ornaments of heaven shaken loose." The transitions from day into night - and vice versa- are told in lush and lovely prose. Don't rush over these sections. This is a worthy addition to the list of Pulitzer prize winners, primarily for the way Howard and George Crosy - and those around them - capture the imagination and leave behind a sense of a world entire, beautifully written, with no spare words.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Boring book wins major award.By jim landurethReaders tend to love it or hate it but most really wonder why the author won a major award his first time out. Must have been like Obama winning the Nobel. Short book that could (should) have been much shorter if the author had not rambled. The author was too full of himself and ran on and on with sentences. Should have been more periods. Boring, hard not to put down and not open again.

An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure. A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost seven decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring. Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation to the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.

From Publishers WeeklyStarred . Harding's outstanding debut unfurls the history and final thoughts of a dying grandfather surrounded by his family in his New England home. George Washington Crosby repairs clocks for a living and on his deathbed revisits his turbulent childhood as the oldest son of an epileptic smalltime traveling salesman. The descriptions of the father's epilepsy and the cold halo of chemical electricity that encircled him immediately before he was struck by a full seizure are stunning, and the household's sadness permeates the narrative as George returns to more melancholy scenes. The real star is Harding's language, which dazzles whether he's describing the workings of clocks, sensory images of nature, the many engaging side characters who populate the book, or even a short passage on how to build a bird nest. This is an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.From Booklist*Starred * A tinker is a mender, and in Harding’s spellbinding debut, he imagines the old, mendable horse-and-carriage world. The objects of the past were more readily repaired than our electronics, but the living world was a mystery, as it still is, as it always will be. And so in this rhapsodic novel of impending death, Harding considers humankind’s contrary desires to conquer the “imps of disorder” and to be one with life, fully meshed within the great glimmering web. In the present, George lies on his death bed in the Massachusetts house he built himself, surrounded by family and the antique clocks he restores. George loves the precision of fine timepieces, but now he is at the mercy of chaotic forces and seems to be channeling his late father, Howard, a tinker and a mystic whose epileptic seizures strike like lightning. Howard, in turn, remembers his “strange and gentle” minister father. Each man is extraordinarily porous to nature and prone to becoming “unhitched” from everyday human existence and entering a state of ecstasy, even transcendence. Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense. --Donna Seaman Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeWinner of the PEN / Robert W. Bingham PrizeNew York Times BestsellerAn American Library Association Notable Book, American Booksellers Association Indie Choice Honor Award recipient, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award longlist selection, Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum First Fiction Award Finalist, and Center For Fiction Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize FinalistNamed one of the best books of the year by the New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, Irish Times, Granta, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Barnes Noble, .com, and National Public RadioPRAISE FOR Tinkers“A powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.” —Pulitzer Prize citation“An exquisite novel, at once fresh and hauntingly familiar, simple and profound, told with a voice so keen and beautiful as to leave the reader in a state of excitement produced only by literature, and the best literature at that.” —HANNAH TINTI, OSCAR HIJUELOS, and CRAIG NOVA, PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize judges“There are few perfect debut American novels. . . . To this list ought to be added Paul Harding’s devastating first book, Tinkers. . . . Harding has written a masterpiece.” —JOHN FREEMAN, National Public Radio“A complex reflection on memory, consciousness, and the meaning of life.” —DIANE REHM, Diane Rehm Show “Readers’ ” Book Club“A novel that you’ll want to savor. . . . I found reading it to be an incredibly moving experience. . . . This book begs to be read aloud.” —NANCY PEARL, KUOW.org “Alive with gorgeous sentences.” —LISA SHEA, Elle magazine “[An] astonishing novel.” —SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS, Los Angeles Times“In Paul Harding’s stunning first novel, we find what readers, writers and reviewers live for.” —JOAN FRANK, San Francisco Chronicle “Tinkers is a poignant exploration of where we may journey when the clock has barely a tick or two left and we really can’t go anywhere at all.” —CHRIS BOHJALIAN, Boston Globe “The life and death questions Paul Harding raises in Tinkers, as well as the richness of his writing, keep a reader coming back to it. . . . Like Faulkner, he never shies away from describing what seems impossible to put into words.” —ANNE MORRIS, Dallas Morning News “A novel with an old-fashioned meditative quality so perfectly done that it is refreshing to read in a world filled with noises and false excitements. . . . It brings the reader to a closer understanding of his own life than he could have imagined before taking the journey.” —YIYUN LI, Granta.com Best Books of the Year “A luminous novel . . . that is not about death but instead an investigation into what life is all about. . . . The precipice is what Harding is so concentrated on, as though he were holding a magnifying glass up under bright sunlight and setting fire to the page.” —MICHELE FILGATE, Quarterly Conversation “Quiet, moving, breathtakingly crafted.” —BARBARA HOFFERT, Library Journal Best Books of the Year“Writing with breathtaking lyricism and tenderness, Harding has created a rare and beautiful novel of spiritual inheritance and acute psychological and metaphysical suspense.” —DONNA SEAMAN, Booklist (starred review) “Outstanding . . . The real star is Harding’s language, which dazzles whether he’s describing the workings of clocks, sensory images of nature, the many engaging side characters who populate the book, or even a short passage on how to build a bird nest. This is an especially gorgeous example of novelistic craftsmanship.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Filled with lovely Whitmanesque descriptions of the natural world, this slim novel gives shape to the extraordinary variety in the thoughts of otherwise ordinary men.” —Kirkus s “Paul Harding’s Tinkers is not just a novel—though it is a brilliant novel. It’s an instruction manual on how to look at nearly everything. Harding takes the back off to show you the miraculous ticking of the natural world, the world of clocks, generations of family, an epileptic brain, the human soul. In astounding language sometimes seemingly struck by lightning, sometimes as tight and complicated as clockwork, Harding shows how enormous fiction can be, and how economical. Read this book and marvel.” —ELIZABETH McCRACKEN, author of Niagara Falls All Over Again“Tinkers is truly remarkable. It achieves and sustains a unique fusion of language and perception. Its fine touch plays over the textured richnesses of very modest lives, evoking again and again a frisson of deep recognition, a sense of primal encounter with the brilliant, elusive world of the senses. It confers on the reader the best privilege fiction can afford, the illusion of ghostly proximity to other human souls.” —MARILYNNE ROBINSON, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Home, Gilead, and Housekeeping“A work of great power and originality. There is a striking freedom of style here, which allows the author to move without any sense of strain or loss of balance from the visionary and ecstatic to the exquisitely precise. The novel is compelling to read, sometimes horrific, and deeply moving because it is woven together into the single quilt of our humanity.” —BARRY UNSWORTH, Booker Prize-winning author of The Ruby in Her Navel

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