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Book Review
Jan. 7th, 2012 10:23 pmTinkers
by Paul Harding
This novel is beautiful and melancholy. It is a poetic journey through the thoughts and dreams of George Washington Crosby as he lays dying of old age and illness in a hospital bed in his house. He is surrounded by his family, but it is mainly of his impoverished childhood in rural Maine that he thinks of. He is occupied especially with memories and imaginings of his father Howard, who worked as a peddler and tinker in the backwoods, and who left the family when George was about 12.
Harding's writing is gorgeous, with beautiful descriptions of the natural world and carefully subtle evocations of the relationships between people. Tinkers is suffused with loss, death, and the effects of time. Yet it is gently mournful rather than depressing or tragic. Its mood lingers on long after I've turned the last page.
by Paul Harding
This novel is beautiful and melancholy. It is a poetic journey through the thoughts and dreams of George Washington Crosby as he lays dying of old age and illness in a hospital bed in his house. He is surrounded by his family, but it is mainly of his impoverished childhood in rural Maine that he thinks of. He is occupied especially with memories and imaginings of his father Howard, who worked as a peddler and tinker in the backwoods, and who left the family when George was about 12.
Harding's writing is gorgeous, with beautiful descriptions of the natural world and carefully subtle evocations of the relationships between people. Tinkers is suffused with loss, death, and the effects of time. Yet it is gently mournful rather than depressing or tragic. Its mood lingers on long after I've turned the last page.
