Silver lives with her cruel aunt in her family's ancestral home, Tanglewreck. Forced to clean and never having enough to eat, Silver only has the house for company. But one day her aunt takes her to London to visit Abel Darkwater, a man Silver doesn't trust, a man who wants very badly for Silver to find for him a clock called the Timekeeper that her father owned. With the help of Gabriel, a boy who lives underground, Silver embarks on a journey to escape Abel Darkwater, find the Timekeeper, and discover the other side of the universe.Gabriel is the highlight of the book, for me. I love his big ears, his short statue, and his archaic speech. He's the perfect companion for Silver; he always looks out for her, despite knowing even less than she does about how the world works, and the little things he does show how much he cares about her. Micah, similarly, steps in as a father-figure for both Gabriel and Silver, and his strength and quiet wisdom are just as important as Silver's power or Gabriel's skill.Several things annoyed me about the book. Although it is a good introduction to the principles of quantum physics, the book completely forgets what little story it had in order to introduce these principles. Each chapter, particularly in the latter half of the book, has a title warning the reader what it will be introducing next: The Einstein Line, A Black Hole, Spooky Action at a Distance. If the book had picked one or two concepts (such as, for instance, what was probably the original concept of the Timekeeper) and stuck with it, all the physics wouldn't feel so random. As it was, for the amount of time spent introducing issues such as Schrodinger's cat, most of them had very little relevance to the rest of the story. And the physics isn't even introduced until the latter part of the book. To get there, the story meanders through a halfhearted sympathy-grab by describing Silver's horrible living conditions. Orphaned child raised by horrible relatives? It's not a new idea by any means, and Tanglewreck lacks even the basic grounding that would make it believable within the context of the story. Silver never really thinks over her situation or how she feels about it, and the best time to remember it, near the end of the book, only brings a vague mention of her trouble.I also had a great deal of trouble accepting the book's conclusion. It merrily discounts such things as God because that's not science, then proceeds to have love conquer gravity, honor conquer self-preservation, and good conquer evil. That's not science either. Also it made absolutely no sense how something like the Timekeeper, which was nothing more than a clock built by human hands in the thirteenth century, could somehow regulate the lifespan of the universe (and where was this when the universe began?) and could not be destroyed by any means. By all means, have a clock that regulates some critical function of the world as part of the story---but don't expect me to believe said clock was built by mere mortals in the middle of human history. By all means, build the clock---but everything made can be unmade. Parts break, paper rots, diamond collapses into graphite. Perhaps there is a nonphysical structure that the clock only represents, but this is never said, and can only be construed as an attempt to understand the gaping holes in the book's logic.Finally, my personal pet peeve was that Tanglewreck, the amazing, nearly sentient house from which the book takes its name, hardly features at all in the story. It felt like there was so much more to tell about the house and the family that lived there, but the book ignored it in favor of a poorly-disguised physics lesson.Overall, I've read many better books introducing facets of quantum physics, and even more books that manage to pull off a cohesive storyline. Silver is a very flat protagonist that doesn't have much of a personality, especially when set against Gabriel, who does have the emotions and quirks that make him human. I rate this book Not Recommended.
This book was sometimes hard to read and in a book of this size (400 pages, but with large-ish print and small-ish pages) there's really no excuse for that.It's hard for me to pin down what made it somewhat difficult for me. For one thing there's an awful lot of stuff packed into those pages. There's a magic clock and alternate universes and a prophecy and lots of people who've lived hundreds and hundred of years and a wooly mammoth and a magical rabbit and a black hole and people who communicate through their minds and . . . It's all a bit too much.I think the fact that all of this action was going on alongside a plot in which the reader discovers that everything is subjective because all of us are just particles existing in time and everything is illusion and blah blah blah just ruined all of the suspense for me.It didn't help that Silver was a surpringly colourless little kid. Ha ha, bad pun there. But this seems to result from the fact that everything happens to her and she just muddles through from second to second never knowing what the heck is going on. I found it very difficult to believe the power of her love was able to do anything for Gabriel.All of the author's ideas were great, don't get me wrong. I mean, who could not love an evil rabbit named Bigamist who somehow has the power to communicate a small child's wrongdoings to his mistress, but when you mash all of your splendid ideas together they all start to lose their splendidness, like if you were forced to eat forty or fifty really wonderful ice cream sundaes in a few hours.Still, you could do much worse than to read this one. Like I said, it's got lots of fun ideas, stretches your imagination a lot and the writing is well-done.
What do You think about Tanglewreck (2006)?
I've read several of Jeanette Winterson's books for adults, but while I love the language and find magic in them, I'm not exactly a fan of hers. I wasn't sure what to expect from a children's book by her, or YA, or whatever age group it's meant to be aimed at. But actually, I did enjoy it quite a lot: it's recognisably her work, with the structure and the use of language and other idiosyncrasies of hers, but it's also much easier to relax into. The plot is more linear, the narration less whimsical.It reminded me of a lot of other books. Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom. Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Inheritance and quest narratives. It's not as original and different as Winterson's work for adults, I guess, but that didn't strike me as a good thing.I loved the Dickensian names, as someone else observed. They were pretty perfect. And I loved the characters of Micah and Gabriel, in their quiet faith and steadfastness. And Goliath the Mammoth! And Tanglewreck itself, about which I would have loved to know more.It's not one of my favourite reads of the year or anything, but I'm glad I got it, and glad to find a book by Winterson I can unequivocally say I enjoyed.
—Nikki
Eleven year old orphan, Silver Rivers, and her uncaring Aunt, Mrs Rokabye, live at Tanglewreck a run down country house that once belonged to Silver's father. In nearby London time tornadoes are sweeping the city, dragging people into the past and throwing the past into the present. Only one thing can stop the disintegration of time: the Timekeeper, an ancient broken clock that was once owned by Silver's father. Silver must find the clock and repair it before it is discovered by the villainous Abel Darkwater and Regalia Mason who plan to steal the clock and control time itself.I had mixed feelings about this first children's novel by Jeanette Winterson but if I was a child I think I would love it. It starts off nicely with the Dickensian Mrs Rokabye giving Silver the Cinderella treatment. Mrs Rokabye is a character Jeanette knows well, another version of the legendary Mrs Winterson. Abel Darkwater is also an intriguing villain. He owns a watch shop in Spitalfields (probably right next door to Jeanette's own shop!) and Silver visits him there and is hypnotised. The first half of the book also introduces a group of underground mole-like people and a lot of intriguing story ideas around the time tornadoes ( ideas that are sadly never returned to).In the second half of the book the fantasy and sci-fi landscapes and tropes really kick in and the relentless fast pace and the lack of descriptions of anything, particularly the sci-fi world, started to annoy me. Contrasting this, there is quite a lot of talk about quantum physics, time travel, and the real Schrodinger's Cat - Dinger - even puts in an appearance! All this and a bunch of Popes in space (how do those things go together?) made it come across like a mixture of His Dark Materials, Neverwhere, and a Doctor Who episode.
—Peter
Nancy Pearl suggested this on NPR. Noticed it in the Greenpt Library and after putting back all the other books, except for the one I had reserved, because I have enough reading at home and dont need any more books. I grabbed it on my way out. Obvious elements of the Golden Compass (precocious young orphan child with a desirable magical toy that only she can operate, her daemon is her house, Tanglewreck, traveling through space and time, evil parental figures, male BFF she has to rescue...) + Neverwhere (underground world and adventures) + A Series of Unfortunate Events (orphan with a mean aunt). Is everything a Pulman knock-off? It's the most like the Golden Compass--they call Silver "the child with the golden face," a clock is like a compass (time and space being the same thing), beautiful maternal villain who's trying to take over the world... and at the end her male BFF and she get to stay in one world together cuz they love each other even though they've barely hit puberty, love conquers all, blah blah blah... What would Levi-Strauss say? (comp-lit shoutout!)Winterson's pretty gutsy to delve into parallel universes and quantum physics with a YA book... Schrodinger's cat that dies and comes back to life in an alternate universe, particles that can exist in 2 places at once, that kind of stuff will entertain grownup-nerds but probably annoy the 10 year olds. Or not, I probably dont give them enough credit; maybe they'll read this and go straight to Stephen Hawking. Or just Stephen King. That's not very funny. Winterson's blog says she's hoping to write more YA books because they're so fun... but is it possible to write an original YA book that isn't all Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary (or J.K. Rowling/ Philip Pullman)? Well?
—Marley
