Further Adventures reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Entry 7 - Dec 10, 2023 Suzann Kale SPOILER ALERT

Lives Intertwining

It’s not just in the first person — it’s in different first people as the chapters progress. When you start each new chapter, you don’t know in whose head you will arrive. You figure it out quickly, but the fun is following a complicated story arc for each character and how the POV changes bring you deeper and deeper into not just the story, but life-changing chance meetings. And how a small life event can change the entire course of someone’s life.  

For instance (still spoiler alert, so don’t read if you have not read the book!): We are inside Holly Sykes' head as the story begins. We meet her family. She has a fight with her mom, and runs away from home. Ed Brubeck, a really nice classmate, enters the scene (we’re still in Holly’s head) and then leaves. I know Ed will reappear later, but I don’t know when, why, or how.

After a few chapters, we are inside Hugo Lamb’s head as he is skiing in Switzerland with his buddies. We find out some disturbing things about Hugo, but we let it go because.. Well, I’m inside his head. Who’s to judge? 

Then in a further chapter, still inside Hugo’s head, we find that Holly is the bartender at the Swiss ski lodge, and she and Hugo hook up. 

Holly’s little brother, Jacko, is missing. That’s all we know at this point, although there was a brief foreshadowing early on (in Holly’s head) of Jacko being somewhere strange.

Suddenly, after a few chapters, we are inside Ed Brubeck’s head! And so on. 

We get many different versions of each event. Each version, though different, is true for that character. So far, for me, there is no right or wrong, just people living their lives and how their lives intertwine.