Tinkers

Great book, unfortunately short. The author has the talent to put you inside the mind of the protagonist. You could feel and touch all the memories of a man dying (created from his testimony, from his imagination or from his ghostly knowledge, it doesn't metter) and, like him, becoming something like a soul being freed from its body.

While this is a lovely, haunting, genius of a novel, I must admit that at times I felt lost and disconnected though overall reading this Pulitzer prize winner was an experience all it's own. There is something so sorrowful about these men and the boys they were. Certain moments in Tinkers feel Perfectly rendered... Imperfectly human...

Very strange. Focus on prose descriptions of details of various New England environments, almost a stream of consciousness from the view of those dying or reflecting on the dying of Howard, Howard's father, and George (Howard's son). We note the smells or lack thereof, the flowers, to room arrangements, dust, and spend hours sitting in ponds wondering about Indians. Two wonderful tidbits for me included visits with a hermit and the gradual disappearance of a minister who clearly entered the world of books.

Marilynne Robinson, author of GILEAD, describes Pulitzer Prize winner TINKERS as "truly remarkable," and as conferring "the illusion of ghostly proximity to other human souls."

Robinson's book is about a minister, and there's one in TINKERS. I had trouble with both of them, namely the long descriptive, philosophical and sermonizing passages that I had to read twice or more to figure out what the heck the characters were trying to say. There just isn't a whole lot of plot.There are also long, monotonous descriptions of clock works, which really didn't tell me much about how a clock works. I guess there's also supposed to be a connection between making a clock and nature. There's a description of building a bird's nest, which seems to require the same amount of patience as fixing a clock. Paul Harding is really good at description, which might be why he employs it so much, but that's no reason to ignore plot.

The book jumps back and forth between a grandfather (the minister), a father (a peddler or tinker) and the son, an antique clock repairman, who is dying on the first page of the book.

Howard Crosby, the peddler, has epilepsy, and there was also mental problem with his father, the minister, although we never specifically find out what it is. All of this affects George: the lack of a father, the lack of money as a youth.

Howard is probably the main character of the book as his epilepsy and amiable nature get him in all kinds of trouble, with his wife especially. I cared about Howard and worried about what would happen to him and wondered why he did certain things, some of which might be unforgivable to certain people.

The ending is so ironic some might say author Paul Harding wrote it first and tried to make the rest of the book fit.

Being from this area and living here all my life, I see this book as a representation of the people here. These two men remind me of many men in my life. The prose is lovely. I reread many pages for fun, for poetry, really.

Tinkers is the story of a father and son, narrated by the father as he is dying. George Washington Crosby goes back into his memories of his father who drove a horse and wagon with goods to sell, thus a tinker.

my thoughts will return to this tale for many years to come. A must read for fans of true American Literature. Five stars tomatoes who can take me out of my skin and transfer my mind and body to a different place and time as Mr.Harding has done with Tinkers.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is one of the best books I've read in years. Slim at 191 pages, it is about the last eight days of dying clock repairman George Washington Crosby, whose hallucinating mind wanders across time in his final hours, stopping at disordered points in his life and that of his father.

The first novel by Harding, Tinkers was rejected by numerous publishers and sat in a drawer for several years before it found a home at Bellevue Literary Press, an obscure non-profit publisher based in New York's Bellevue Hospital. It's the first book from a small press to win the Pulitzer since John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces in 1981.

I don't often like awardbait -- difficult literary novels with spare plots seemingly tailored for award consideration -- but the language of Tinkers is as exquisite as a T.S. Eliot poem. Harding is at his most evocative when describing the workings of an antique clock or the natural wonder of the New England countryside, yet the entire book is written with an tinkerer's eye towards the world. There may never be a more eyebrow-curling description of halitosis than when George's father Howard pulls the tooth of a suffering hermit who buys from his tinker's wagon: "A breeze caught the hermit's breath and Howard gasped and saw visions of slaughter-houses and dead pets under porches." When George witnesses his father's epileptic seizure at the dinner table on Christmas Day, it's a perfectly described moment of absolute terror -- and you can see why he's taking it to the grave.

At times, Tinkers wanders into pure existential reverie, like these thoughts from George's father as he drags his wagon of goods from one rural homestead to another:

"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough."

I wasn't sure about this novel until I was 50 pages in, and even briefly considered abandoning it for fare more light than an old man's deathbed vigil. The cumulative impact of passage after passage like the above convinced me that Tinkers was a masterwork that would be cherished for generations, like a centuries-old grandfather clock.

Tinkers came out of the blue to win the Pulitzer, much to the surprise of countless award prognosticators. Up to that point it seems to have been the small, quiet, special book known only to a select few. If you strip away its sudden fame, you have a lovely story told with obvious talent and a spiritual sense of precision. George's life and impending death is told in snatches of human thought; sounds, feelings, and random memories come up to the surface and leave as quickly as they came. As one man's take on human consciousness in the midst of suffering it is incredibly successful and moving. For a novel, however, there felt like there was something ever so slightly missing that connected the threads together to make the book as powerful as its opening suggests. Still, it is serious American literature, and a welcome release from books which tell instead of show, and filled throughout with a transitory sense of familiarity which is too rare in modern fiction.

This book is difficult to read at times and somewhat chaotic at first but it beautifully describes the random thoughts of a dying man as he reviews his life. The writing is beautiful and I found many parts that I re-read many times. It deals with time: passing time, wasted time, and the symbolism of the clock winding down our lives. The book may not be for everyone but it is full of very good writing and is very thought provoking.

Every sentence is well written. The story is touching and profound. All through the impressive development of the scenarios and the memories of the characters, the author can communicate some feelings and experiences that I thought were extremely difficult to live through the written word.

I thought the writing style was fresh and unusual, and the imagery was amazing. I could visualize the dreams and hallucinations going on in Crosby's mind and feel the fragile border between the real and not real. That said, I felt sometimes the words got in the way and pushed me back from knowing what actually was going on in the end of life for this man. While I did like the book (sort of), it left me unfulfilled as a reader, and I had wished more gaps had been filled in this story.

This Pulitzer winner is so deftly written and beautifully constructed that it is deceptively simple. The story of a man on his deathbed with his family around, his final thoughts and the past reconstructed interspaced with writings of the natural and mechanical worlds is lovely, haunting, and I will definitely read it again.

This book is phenomenal. I loved every page...every sentence...every word. Exceptionally well written! The characters are well developed and the plot is fairly unique. It is not an action thriller, it is certainly a "slower" paced book but I feel in this day and age it's nice to get some rest from our crazy hectic world and find recluse in early woodsy America. There were passages that left me in awe at how someone could describe life so well...very insightful and eloquent.

Lately I have come upon such awful books that I feel every joe shmo with a plot that's "sellable" is given a book deal - don't get me started on that Twilight mess. This book was not even given a chance in the beginning; it was only through the support of local bookstores that it actually received some attention and now it's a Pulitzer winner! What a great Cinderella story!

Buy this book if you like to think & ponder on the meaning of life and aren't looking for an easy story fix. You won't regret it.

We read it for our Book Club... great discussion about relationships between men of three generations. Interesting weaving into the discussion how important our relatiosnhip with nature is compared to mechanicaly things... like clocks and time.

Tinkers was a surprise read for me - a library checkout that turned into multiple purchases - for my library at home and for other book worm pals. By far THE BEST read for me in a long time - SUPERB writing! Simple yet GREAT story. Easily secured a spot in my TOP FIVE all time (and I'm OLD) favorite reads!

I couldn't get into this book and was disappointed because the awards and critical reviews made it sound wonderful. I enjoy good language use, but I read a novel for the story. In this novel, the language use takes center stage to the story itself. It was too much in the way. I may go back to it another time, but I couldn't finish it the first try.

I first heard about Tinkers on the PBS Newshour when it had just won the Pulitzer. The description of the publisher--a tiny medical/science press that only puts out 2 or 3 works of fiction a year--and the fact that Paul Harding was an alumnus of the Iowa Writers' Workshop was intriguing, and Paul's description of being in Marilynne Robinson's class compelled me to pick up the book the next day.

Tinkers is the kind of book that I endlessly fantasize about writing. The language is precise and gorgeous, the story dense. I can only take it in in tiny bits, like a piece of rich cake, and I can savor every bite no matter its size. When I read a book like this, I talk to it out loud, so moved by every tight, lovely sentences, every description of nature, of the internal workings of clocks, epilepsy, old age, fierce, violent weather, encroaching death. Had you been in the same room with me as I made my way through the almost 200 pages, you would have heard nonverbal noises of affirmation, surprise, want, adoration, recognition. I would gasp, say "Jesus" in wonder, in surprise and awe, and sometimes I would just close my eyes and press the open pages against my forehead. The protagonist suffers from seizures, and after one has passed through his body, "confusion prevailed; Howard's blistered brain crackled and sparked blue... it was as if... [he], by accident of birth, tasted the raw stuff of the cosmos."

The story is a relatively simple one--an old man is dying, and in his mind travels back to his New England childhood and the people and places who remain there--but it is done with such grace, such beauty, such pain and precision, it's almost unbelievable.

Marilynne Robinson calls Tinkers "remarkable", and it is. If you're a fan of her work--Housekeeping, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, its sequel, Home--and savor beautiful prose, Tinkers will undo you.

An amazing concoction of words and phrases and verbal illustration. Harding put me in every scene to hear each sound, smell each fragrance, touch each surface and taste each adjective. Thanks, Paul, for a wonderful day with George, Howard and their loved ones--known and unknown.

beautifully written word rich. thought provoking. archaically constructed plot with melodramatic side bars. somewhat distracting. few plot leads forces reader to supply their own links. could be less artsy more pragmatic

In parts brilliant, in parts underwhelming in my opinion. I thought the flow in certain parts of the book was too choppy. The parts that are good, however, are VERY good, so I'd still recommend this book.

As a neurologist who tries to care for individuals affected by delirium, epilepsy and dementia I have found this novel to be an unending source of insight into the first person experience of illness and the impact of illness on those who live with the affected. Thank you, Paul.

George Washington Crosby lays on his deathbed, hallucinating and partially reliving the life he has known. Most of his thoughts drift back to his childhood and his father, Howard. Howard was a door to door salesman pulling a car with a mule into the backwoods. Without giving too much of the plot away, if this book could be said to have a plot, George's relationship with his father was both close and distant, and ultimately tragic. George also thinks about his own life as a handyman of sorts, but mostly a fixer of clocks. And thus the book meanders from one thought to the next as George slowly but inexorably expires. It's at times a soft detailed excursion into the minutiae of a life, and at others a hard bitten look into the pleasures and travails, and ultimately heartbreaking childhood.

This novel is certainly poignant and well written but I am not sure it rises to the level of Pulitzer Prize winner. A short, enjoyable, and wonderfully descriptive novel, with a well rounded central character at death's door is the best way to describe it. It is definitely worth a read, but is somewhat overrated.

This book is beautifully written. The story and characters are detailed and Paul Harding wrote the entire book in a fashion that reads more like poetry than a true novel. By that I mean that the pacing is odd at times and while thoroughly enjoyable I felt like it ended quite abruptly and without any indication that I was about to be done reading. There are also varied formats throughout that jump out of the central story and into what I guess are supposed to be excerpts from other writings, which at first are a little confusing. That being said the book is worth reading for the sentences and imagery alone, and the story is an interesting look at a period of time not often written about. Thanks Paul!

Loved this book, the most optimistic book about death imaginable. Without being false or sentimental, it embraces the view that life is worth living despite the pain and suffering it comes with, and it comes with a lot.

It's rare book can make you cry from a happy thing happening, and that this book does that. It's not so rare that a book can make you cry from an unhappy thing happening. This book does that too.

Bravo.

I chose this book because the author won a Pulitzer Prize for writing. After reading the book I wonder how in the world Paul Harding won such a notable prize. He is a good writer, with several memorable sentences, but the book was disjointed, difficult to follow and as far as I was concerned did not have a purpose, plot or story.