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Clockwork (novel)
Encyclopedia
Clockwork is an illustrated
short children's novel
by Philip Pullman
, first published in the United Kingdom
in 1996 by Doubleday. It was first published in the United States
by Arthur A. Levine Books
in 1998. The Doubleday edition was illustrated by Peter Bailey and the Arthur A. Levine Books edition was illustrated by Leonid Gore. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award
and for a Carnegie Medal
in 1997.
Pullman has stated that the novel was inspired by an old clock in London
's Science Museum
. Inspired by the movement of the clock's gear
s, he wrote the story with elements that move in opposite directions.
in "the old days". It has three main characters: Karl, an apprentice
clockmaker
who has failed to make a figure for the town clock; Gretl, the brave and kind daughter of the local innkeeper; and Fritz, a local writer whose unfinished story sets the gears of Clockwork turning.
The townspeople gather in the White Horse Tavern the evening before a new figure for their town clock made by Karl is to be unveiled. Karl, however, has not made the figure and he is the first apprentice in hundreds of years to fail to do so. The people in the tavern listen to Fritz read from his latest story about a local aristocrat
, Prince Otto, and his young son, Prince Florian. Prince Otto dies while on a hunting trip. His heart is replaced with a clockwork mechanism which enables him to drive his son home in their sledge. Fritz wrote down the story after having a dream, but he has not thought of an ending for it, and hopes that he will be able to think up one on the spot: "He was just going to wind up the story, set it going, and make up the end when he got there."
The story begins to come true when the evil Dr. Kalmeneius comes to the door of the tavern. Fritz flees in terror. Dr. Kalmeneius offers Karl a clockwork figure called Sir Ironsoul, which Karl accepts. Karl's acceptance of the gift sets in motion a chain of interlocking stories. A price must be paid for this gift, as Sir Ironsoul is a mechanical knight that comes alive and kills anyone who says the word "Devil". Only the song The Flowers of Lapland can stop him.
The narrative shifts back and forwards through time. It is revealed that Prince Florian was made from clockwork by Dr. Kalmeneius on the wishes of his father. His mechanical heart will soon wind down. Gretl is the only person who can restore true life to him. All the stories come together as one. Karl places Prince Florian in the clock's tower as his apprentice piece. Karl is killed by Sir Ironsoul. Gretl finishes the story by bringing Prince Florian to life by her unselfish love.
written in an ironic and amusing style. It has a strong moral
message. Pullman uses the literary technique
of parallel authorial commentary, similar to Rudyard Kipling
in Just So Stories
. He uses the idea of clockwork as a metafictive
device, comparing the interrelated plot elements to the elements of a clock's mechanism.
Pullman provides a moral critique of contemporary Western culture
in Clockwork. It is a metaphor for the idea that humanity
has been sacrificed as society has become more mechanised. Prince Otto's clockwork heart is a direct allusion to the famous quotation from Thomas Carlyle
's 19th century essay "Signs of the Times": "Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand". The essay was a warning to Victorian
society about the dangers of industrialisation
and capitalism
. Pullman's novel has a similar warning.
The author also takes the moral position that fulfilment cannot come solely from dreams, and needs dedicated hard work allied with inspiration to be achieved. Karl makes a Faustian bargain
with Dr. Kalmeneius because he wants an easy way to fulfil his ambition. The Faustian allusions are made clear when Sir Ironsoul becomes murderous when the word devil is mentioned and can only be stopped by a special song.
The novel also has allusions to Mary Shelley
's Frankenstein
. Fritz's story comes to him in a dream, similar to how Shelley experienced the writing of her novel. Dr. Kalmeneius can be compared to Dr. Frankenstein as he seeks the secret of life and is prepared to make a monster to do this.
into an opera
for children.
A version with music by composer
Stephen McNeff and libretto
by playwright
David Wood toured the United Kingdom
before playing in the Linbury Studio Theatre at London's Royal Opera House
in March 2004. The production's orchestra
was formed from musicians from the Philharmonia Orchestra
and Martin Music Scholarship Fund Award Scheme.
A second opera adaption was created in a co-production between Visible Fictions and Scottish Opera
in March 2011, with music by David Trouton, and featuring puppetry, live action, music and song. The opera will be performed at a variety of venues across Scotland from April to June 2011.
The Clockwork Moth adapted it into a shadow-play
for adults and children, in 2010. The show contained 239 shadow-puppets, and was performed by six puppeteers
and three live musicians.
It was adapted
into a play by Mutabilitie Productions, who previously performed an adaptation of "I Was a Rat". The play was performed at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge
, UK in January 2010.
The Theatre Alchemists created a stage adaptation, for the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter
, in May 2010.
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
short children's novel
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
by Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL is an English writer from Norwich. He is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and his fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ...
, first published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1996 by Doubleday. It was first published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by Arthur A. Levine Books
Arthur A. Levine Books
Arthur A. Levine Books is an imprint of Scholastic Corporation which specializes in fiction and non-fiction books for young readers. The imprint was founded in 1996 by Arthur Levine in New York City. The first book published by Arthur A. Levine Books was "When She Was Good" by Norma Fox Mazer in...
in 1998. The Doubleday edition was illustrated by Peter Bailey and the Arthur A. Levine Books edition was illustrated by Leonid Gore. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award
Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....
and for a Carnegie Medal
Carnegie Medal
The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
in 1997.
Pullman has stated that the novel was inspired by an old clock in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Science Museum
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....
. Inspired by the movement of the clock's gear
Gear
A gear is a rotating machine part having cut teeth, or cogs, which mesh with another toothed part in order to transmit torque. Two or more gears working in tandem are called a transmission and can produce a mechanical advantage through a gear ratio and thus may be considered a simple machine....
s, he wrote the story with elements that move in opposite directions.
Plot summary
Clockwork is set in the town of Glockenheim in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in "the old days". It has three main characters: Karl, an apprentice
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
clockmaker
Clockmaker
A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to repairing clocks and watches...
who has failed to make a figure for the town clock; Gretl, the brave and kind daughter of the local innkeeper; and Fritz, a local writer whose unfinished story sets the gears of Clockwork turning.
The townspeople gather in the White Horse Tavern the evening before a new figure for their town clock made by Karl is to be unveiled. Karl, however, has not made the figure and he is the first apprentice in hundreds of years to fail to do so. The people in the tavern listen to Fritz read from his latest story about a local aristocrat
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
, Prince Otto, and his young son, Prince Florian. Prince Otto dies while on a hunting trip. His heart is replaced with a clockwork mechanism which enables him to drive his son home in their sledge. Fritz wrote down the story after having a dream, but he has not thought of an ending for it, and hopes that he will be able to think up one on the spot: "He was just going to wind up the story, set it going, and make up the end when he got there."
The story begins to come true when the evil Dr. Kalmeneius comes to the door of the tavern. Fritz flees in terror. Dr. Kalmeneius offers Karl a clockwork figure called Sir Ironsoul, which Karl accepts. Karl's acceptance of the gift sets in motion a chain of interlocking stories. A price must be paid for this gift, as Sir Ironsoul is a mechanical knight that comes alive and kills anyone who says the word "Devil". Only the song The Flowers of Lapland can stop him.
The narrative shifts back and forwards through time. It is revealed that Prince Florian was made from clockwork by Dr. Kalmeneius on the wishes of his father. His mechanical heart will soon wind down. Gretl is the only person who can restore true life to him. All the stories come together as one. Karl places Prince Florian in the clock's tower as his apprentice piece. Karl is killed by Sir Ironsoul. Gretl finishes the story by bringing Prince Florian to life by her unselfish love.
Major themes
Clockwork is an exciting, suspenseful fairy taleFairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
written in an ironic and amusing style. It has a strong moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
message. Pullman uses the literary technique
Literary technique
A literary technique is any element or the entirety of elements a writer intentionally uses in the structure of their work...
of parallel authorial commentary, similar to Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
in Just So Stories
Just So Stories
The Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are highly fantasised origin stories and are among Kipling's best known works.-Description:...
. He uses the idea of clockwork as a metafictive
Metafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
device, comparing the interrelated plot elements to the elements of a clock's mechanism.
Pullman provides a moral critique of contemporary Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
in Clockwork. It is a metaphor for the idea that humanity
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
has been sacrificed as society has become more mechanised. Prince Otto's clockwork heart is a direct allusion to the famous quotation from Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
's 19th century essay "Signs of the Times": "Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand". The essay was a warning to Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
society about the dangers of industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. Pullman's novel has a similar warning.
The author also takes the moral position that fulfilment cannot come solely from dreams, and needs dedicated hard work allied with inspiration to be achieved. Karl makes a Faustian bargain
Deal with the Devil
Deal With The Devil is the fifth studio album by the American heavy metal band Lizzy Borden released in 2000 .A return to form, featuring a cover by Todd McFarlane.2 covers were recorded...
with Dr. Kalmeneius because he wants an easy way to fulfil his ambition. The Faustian allusions are made clear when Sir Ironsoul becomes murderous when the word devil is mentioned and can only be stopped by a special song.
The novel also has allusions to Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
. Fritz's story comes to him in a dream, similar to how Shelley experienced the writing of her novel. Dr. Kalmeneius can be compared to Dr. Frankenstein as he seeks the secret of life and is prepared to make a monster to do this.
Adaptation
Clockwork has twice been adaptedLiterary adaptation
Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source to another genre or medium, such as a film, a stage play, or even ace video game...
into an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
for children.
A version with music by composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Stephen McNeff and libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
David Wood toured the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
before playing in the Linbury Studio Theatre at London's Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in March 2004. The production's orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
was formed from musicians from the Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra
The Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
and Martin Music Scholarship Fund Award Scheme.
A second opera adaption was created in a co-production between Visible Fictions and Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
in March 2011, with music by David Trouton, and featuring puppetry, live action, music and song. The opera will be performed at a variety of venues across Scotland from April to June 2011.
The Clockwork Moth adapted it into a shadow-play
Shadow play
Shadow play or shadow puppetry Shadow puppets have a long history in China, India, Turkey and Java, and as a popular form of entertainment for both children and adults in many countries around the world. A shadow puppet is a cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen...
for adults and children, in 2010. The show contained 239 shadow-puppets, and was performed by six puppeteers
Puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...
and three live musicians.
It was adapted
Literary adaptation
Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source to another genre or medium, such as a film, a stage play, or even ace video game...
into a play by Mutabilitie Productions, who previously performed an adaptation of "I Was a Rat". The play was performed at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, UK in January 2010.
The Theatre Alchemists created a stage adaptation, for the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, in May 2010.