The 13 Clocks Author: Visit Amazon's James Thurber Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0671229443 | Format: PDF
The 13 Clocks Description
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Paperback: 124 pages
- Publisher: Fireside/ Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 15, 1977)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671229443
- ISBN-13: 978-0671229443
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
It's hard to categorize "The Thirteen Clocks" -- is it a children's fairy tale? a book for grown-ups? Who cares? Readers from 5 to 95 will enjoy this wonderful book; the kids for the story and the adults for Thurber's marvelous way with words. It's a simple little fantasy tale of an abducted princess, a murderous duke, and the prince who comes to her rescue. And it starts off as all fairy tales should, with "Once upon a time..."
Thurber brings us the beautiful Princess Saralinda, the Duke of Coffin Castle who was so cold that he managed to stop time one snowy night when all thirteen clocks in the castle stopped at ten minutes to five and never started again, and Prince Zorn of Zorna, who called himself Xingu, the prince whose name begins with X and doesn't, who is the one man who can defeat the duke's evil plans and rescue Saralinda. But Thurber's best invention by far is the Golux, a spaced-out wizard whose spells have a way of backfiring from time to time, who assists Zorn in his quest to save the princess. And there is a deliciously spooky, never-seen monster called the Todal, that "smells of old, unopened rooms and sounds like rabbits screaming", who is the cold duke's infernal weapon, and, ultimately, his nemesis.
Thurber's way with words will leave you boggle-eyed. This is the quintessential read-aloud book and the kids love it. On the second or third reading they'll be chanting along with sentences like these: "The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets..." And Thurber goes hogwild in making up all kinds of words that somehow managed to portray what he want to get across.
James Thurber went to Bermuda to finish a book, and wrote The Thirteen Clocks instead. He says it was escapism and self-indulgence. If so, the world needs more self-indulgence, because this book is pure fun. It's a simple fairy tale, a book to be shared with a child. The water-color illustrations by Mark Simont are a perfect enhancement to the mood of the story.
The tale opens with an evil Duke in a gloomy castle--a Duke who is always cold. "We all have flaws," he says, "and mine is being wicked." (p. 114) The castle has thirteen clocks, all frozen at ten minutes to five. The lovely Princess Saralinda, "warm in every wind and weather," is the only warm thing in the castle and the Duke (her so-called uncle, though actually her kidnapper) purposefully thwarts all her suitors with tasks impossible to perform. When they have failed, he slits them from guggle to zatch and feeds them to the geese.
The Thirteen Clocks is built of standard fairy tale elements. A wandering minstrel who is really the youngest son of a king falls in love with Princess Saralinda and accepts a seemingly impossible test to win her hand. Assisted by a magical creature called Golux, he sets off to fulfill the test. Their progress is threatened by a number of unsavory characters; the Todal, for example, an agent of the devil sent to punish evil-doers for having done less evil than they should. Needless to say, all turns out well in the end.
The story itself may be standard, but the telling of it is typical Thurber wordplay. The Thirteen Clocks is not exactly poetry, but it begs to be read aloud for the rhythm, rhyme and alliteration. A particularly hectic passage from page 73 illustrates:
"The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets.
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