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Book Review
Jun. 3rd, 2018 08:46 pmThe Chemistry of Tears
by Peter Carey
The Chemistry of Tears gives us two related stories. In the primary narrative, Catherine Gehrig, horologist at a London museum, grieving the sudden death of her lover and co-worker Matthew, she is given a new project - to restore a 19th century mechanical bird. The boxes that contain the bird parts also hold a series of notebooks that contain the diary of Henry Brindling, who commissioned the automaton as a gift for his consumptive young son. As Catherine works on the bird, she also reads Henry's journal, becoming as caught up in his story as she is in the automaton he commissioned.
I've read and loved four of Carey's other novels, so this one was a bit of a disappointment in that it was just okay. Carey's writing is as wonderful as ever, but the story, it's themes, and the characters never quite hung together as well as they could have. Catherine was both sympathetic and frustrating in a way that I thought was very true to the experience of profound grief, and I found the bird automaton itself really interesting. There did seem to be a thread or theme regarding people becoming unhinged due to emotion or obsession, but like so much else in the book, it never really came into focus.
by Peter Carey
The Chemistry of Tears gives us two related stories. In the primary narrative, Catherine Gehrig, horologist at a London museum, grieving the sudden death of her lover and co-worker Matthew, she is given a new project - to restore a 19th century mechanical bird. The boxes that contain the bird parts also hold a series of notebooks that contain the diary of Henry Brindling, who commissioned the automaton as a gift for his consumptive young son. As Catherine works on the bird, she also reads Henry's journal, becoming as caught up in his story as she is in the automaton he commissioned.
I've read and loved four of Carey's other novels, so this one was a bit of a disappointment in that it was just okay. Carey's writing is as wonderful as ever, but the story, it's themes, and the characters never quite hung together as well as they could have. Catherine was both sympathetic and frustrating in a way that I thought was very true to the experience of profound grief, and I found the bird automaton itself really interesting. There did seem to be a thread or theme regarding people becoming unhinged due to emotion or obsession, but like so much else in the book, it never really came into focus.
