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Tinkers
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2010
An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure.A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost seven decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring.
Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.
Critic Reviews
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Overall
- Joanne
- 02-19-11
Unique but valuable read
I am glad I read this book, despite some of the posted reviews. True, the book is not "action" as some award books are. It is a psychological piece dealing with secrets, families and the passage of time.
The book is best read as a multi-genre "experience," and it has aspects of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. It also employs occasional stream of consciousness and shifting characters. I read the book hard copy as I listened, which helped. This could be a confusing book to "get" if you only have the audio file.
But the book is dreamy and intense, and reveals about human relationships by portraying them as foggy and obscure. A sad book overall, but optimistic, too. I liked it.
9 people found this helpful
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- Kim
- 08-28-11
Hard to follow the audio
This is a spectacular, beautiful book but Rummel (the narrator) reads too quickly! I had to go back and read it in print to get the full impact of Harding's gorgeous language. The only way I could listen to this audiobook was to play it at 1/2 speed. I highly recommend the novel but not the audio.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- marcus
- 11-25-10
Breath Taking
I had no preconceptions when I ordered Tinkers. My wife's book club selected it and in my ongoing effort to be a supportive husband I decided to "read" along. (If I had known the book's premise, I wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole. A book about a dieing man? Never.)
I was immediately taken by the poetry laced through out the narrative. The master of the well-turned phrase, John Updike, came to mind in light of the extordinary richness and color of the language in Tinkers.
Slowly I became increasingly interested in the odd assortment of characters. By the book's conclusion I was swept away by what is certainly the best work of fiction I have "read" in years.
Whether you have read Tinkers already or not, if you have not listened to it being read you have missed part of its enchantment. Close your eyes and let the stream of beautiful sentences flow over you.
In case you are wondering, I borrowed my wife's copy of Tinkers after her book club and read it through in one setting. Another wonderful, but less sensual experience.
16 people found this helpful
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- Alby
- 04-28-11
Just... Couldn't... Finish... ugh...
I've been enjoying reading Pulitzer winning fiction for years. As I've begun to listen to more books I recently tried and loved A Visit From the Goon Squad (prior to its Pulitzer win) and gave five stars to Empire Falls which was a 20 hour book.
For a break I figured I'd give Tinkers a try as a shorter listen. What a disappointment. Unlike powerful (relatively) shorter books like Toni Morrison's Beloved, Tinkers grated on my nerves from the very beginning.
Professional reviews touted the detail of such tasks as watch repair which I found to be eloquent (for a watch repair manual) but incredibly boring in a novel. Proulx's The Shipping News contains a scene which describes the construction of a boat in detail as an integral part of the story after we're invested in the characters. In Tinkers however, the detailed clock repair scene made me want to drive into a tree. Any time the story even hinted at the prospect of another journey down the clock repair path I could only grit my teeth.
The trek in Tinkers felt contrived to me unlike Cold Mountain which was a sequence of adventures within a larger plot. I had no interest in the main characters nor the sub-characters who often felt forced into the story to me.
In the end I just couldn't finish the book and clicked it off with little reservation. As a concession for my bailing out I gave it a second star. Maybe it improved but I just couldn't give it that chance. Life is just too short.
13 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Matt
- 05-04-09
Beautifully written
This is a very good story, and the writing is fabulous. I was surprised that the other reviews complained about the language getting in the way of the story. I personally do not understand or care for poetry, but this book's style is very melodic(?) and really puts your imagination to work. The story is strong, and the descriptions are vivid. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
12 people found this helpful
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- james
- 07-05-17
better than I expected
Where does Tinkers rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I'm not sure where to rank it. Not at the top, but certainly not near the bottom. It's a different kind of novel.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I liked Howard the best. The sections with Howard driving the cart and his mule, Prince Albert, pulling it were the most interesting.
What does Christian Rummel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Rummel does a great job of reading. I really have no complaints. The narration is on par with the story.
If you could take any character from Tinkers out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Prince Albert, the mule, because that would surely be something to see.
Any additional comments?
This novel is for those who like description and enjoy the beauty of language. Don't get me wrong, there's a story here, and the author does a good job of telling it. It's not a long recording, and it's worth the time.
7 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Adam
- 05-21-10
Decent, but...
No structure. Enjoyable characters and a very emotional ending. I, however, am skeptical this novel would not have been better without some serious planning and perhaps another voice in the room. As it stands, it requires alot of patience, even for a novella-length story. Recommended, but not for everyone.
7 people found this helpful
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- Kelly
- 11-19-19
grief - an exploration
Tinkers is profound and moving, and for me was reminiscent of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Caldwell's Tobacco Road. This is a book that touched my heart and made me remember my dad and my grandfather. It is all about love, loss, death and healing. It is a small, beautiful book which is contemplative, subtle and nuanced. The writing is spare and simple, and the characters are very real. The first lines of the book had me hooked immediately.
As the book opens we find ourselves in the living room of an old man at the end of his life. He is surrounded by his family and the clocks he tinkered with for most of his life. That scene alone had me hooked. The man begins a journey through his life. The fact that his body is no longer functioning and headed towards death enhanced the free exploration of memory and allowed me to feel more connected to this frail man. My own father laid in a similar bed at the end of his life, mostly asleep and nonverbal. I wonder what journey he took through time? I hope it was enriching, curative and joyous, and that even some of the sad memories were redeeming.
The strength of this book is its use of the unreliability of memory. George Crosby was a watchmaker and handyman, he revisits his childhood in Maine and his father Howard, who left the family when George was still a child. Howard suffered from epilepsy at a time when most people didn't understand that it wasn't a mental illness. George's mother hid the affliction from the family until one night when he suffered a seizure at the dinner table. George was needed to help and ended up suffering a horrible bite where his hand was damaged. After this George's mom made the agonizing decision to have Howard placed in the asylum, but Howard knew the plan and disappeared instead. Howard's own father disappeared. He was suffering from some sort of mental break or dementia, and before his family could hospitalize him he left.
The book is focused and poignant. It takes place in the memories of a man who is living the last eight days of his life. And the meandering nature of his memories beautifully demonstrates the delicacy of life, love, connection, and death. We don't have control over these things. We can only wander and wonder and appreciate and remember.
The end came too quickly in this book. George passed and his family was left to grieve, just like my dad passed and left me to grieve. Thankfully I find him again when I find books like this gem by Paul Harding.
2 people found this helpful
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- joyce
- 07-04-14
I suspect that I should love this book.
I admire the author. Some of the phrases in this book are so beautiful I feel the words catch in my own throat, even though I am listening it being read. And it's an awful reader, at that. I am simply flummoxed by the choice of this particular reader for this gracefully worded and delicately unfolding end of life story. The reader's voice is loud, really loud, with scarce inflection most of the time, and he just hammers through some scenes that are so heartbreaking....couldn't he have paused to, maybe, take a breath, or something? If this style of recitation was deliberately matched to this story, then I am at a loss to understand or appreciate or like it. I tried, re-tried, and tried again to get through this book, but I was not able to finish it.
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- MAUREEN
- 09-12-11
Where has this book been hiding?
A great story with an important message; unfortunately, the narrator had a very unpleasant manner--he reads in a choppy way that is unsettling on the ears.
4 people found this helpful
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- denisszia
- 06-05-22
So much easier to listen to than read!
I've been struggling to finish the paperback for 8 years, read two - three pages and was completely zoned out after. With this 4 h recording I've powered through in two nights. The reader had a good speed, different characters had different voices, all together a pleasant experience. Thank you.