“Clockwork Angels” review
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS AN OVERLY-LONG AND DETAILED REVIEW OF THE BOOK’S PLOT AND THEMES.
This is the first time I’m ever reviewing a book. Since I read a lot as a kid, I can remember mom suggesting the idea to me that I could maybe review stuff like this. Granted, I might not be so good at it now, but isn’t it just so darn fun to give your opinions on something?
Anyway, the book is “Clockwork Angels” by Kevin J. Anderson. And…based on the lyrics from some random song from that rock band called Rush. And no, I’m not familiar with Rush since they’re from before my time. IMO, Keane and Coldplay ought to be the ones who get their song lyrics made into stories. Say…maybe I could do that
Despite that, this book was actually published quite recently, like last year or so. Not that you’d be able to tell, which is actually a good thing because a story like this needs to be timeless. Would I read it to my kids? Eh…you’ll find out!
The book is of the sci-fi/fantasy persuasion, so it’s got this whole fictional universe set up and whatnot, and it’s actually pretty well-made. Better than the sci-fi/fantasy thing I’M trying to write, given that mine’s just vague right now.
The story begins on the continent of Albion (no relation to that one old-school Anglican guy on here with that particular username), in a village known as Barrel Arbor. Our protagonist, 16-going-on-17 Owen Hardy lives in a society filled with extreme order. Each day has a schedule, and everyone has some job to do in the village, making everything run like…well, clockwork (yes, this is one of those stories where timepieces are a motif, given that everything is “on time” in this society). The orderliness is given by a benevolent man known as the Watchmaker, who lives in a glorious, far-off city known as Crown City, and runs everything from where he is. In essence, a benevolent dictatorship. Owen, like everybody else in his society, has only nice things to say about the Watchmaker, whom he is grateful to for having made so much glorious order.
…And right away, we have our first cliché! Keep track of it, folks, there will be plenty more
The Watchmaker is very clearly supposed to represent order, rules, regulations, and the idea of living your life under a plan. Which, you know, is a bad thing. Always.
It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to connect the Watchmaker and his trappings with a theocracy. So of course, as is a typical cliché in these sorts of works, anything remotely resembling religious worship is a bad thing. Why? Because the benevolent being you’re worshipping is really just power-hungry and controlling, and he’ll keep you and your mind trapped in a box, as demonstrated by the Watchmaker.
For some reason (or maybe it’s actually quite obvious?) the Watchmaker isn’t a critique on Christianity per se, or even explicitly organized religion. Just legalism and rules and whatnot, which Christianity is not supposed to be, and which Jesus was preaching against. And BTW, there is no Christ figure in this book in any regard, unless you count the sacrifice of Owen’s…I’ll get to that later, right now I have to get back to the actual plot. You’ll have to forgive me, as again this is my first review.
A rainstorm is predicted by the Watchmaker and issued to the village, but Owen encounters a mysterious peddler who asks him “What do you lack?” Since Owen is convinced by the Watchmaker that he lacks nothing, the peddler just gives him a piece of the Watchmaker’s propaganda, a book called “Before the Stability”. No, this doesn’t really become that relevant later, although it makes for a nice plot-hole later on.
Owen’s mother, we learn quickly, died of a fever, but left behind some “chronotype” (no idea what that means, never gets explained) picture books of faraway lands, including Crown City, where the Watchmaker lives, another continent known as Atlantis (nothing like your typical underwater city of Atlantis, so just forget everything you’ve heard about Atlantis right now), a sea port known as Poseidon, and the so-called Seven Cities of Gold. Owen knows on one level that these things are just places in storybooks, but he also hopes that they are real, somewhere out there. Of course, he also realizes that he’ll never get to visit these places, assuming that he lives as the Watchmaker would have him (and of course he doesn’t, because otherwise we’d have a VERY boring story). His father urges him to “put all this foolishness behind him” once he turns 17 in a week, which is implied to be the age of adulthood in this society. America’s is 18, but whatever.
That night, Owen wants to do something special, knowing that his life is about to get even more tightly run by social rules once he becomes legally recognized as an adult, so he sneaks off into the night to see some constellations, just to be able to point them out to his girlfriend, Lavinia. Or rather, I should say, the girl he has a crush on who doesn’t reciprocate and has no personality. He just wants to give her a kiss that night, to make a special moment that’s ever-so-slightly “rebellious”, in light of the Duggar-esque rules of courtship prior to marriage.
But of course, Lavinia doesn’t show up, leaving Owen to wander beyond his village that night to a docking station for steam-powered airships.
Cliché no. 2! Steam-powered airships in this society instead of jet engines due to different fictional chemicals and laws of physics! As cool as the designs on these things are, as per the cover, I hate to say it, but steam-powered dirigibles are flying metal clichés. Thanks to the Hindenberg issue, they’re pretty much confined to science fiction. They do, however, give a “steam-punk” vibe, but quite frankly steampunk is a dead medium. How many stories out there feature a young man who rebels against the evil theocracy through the use of technology, thus liberating the people?
And yet, oddly enough, this story does get interesting. It actually SUBVERTS this idea. Owen runs into a man who encourages Owen to covertly ride on the steamship with him, telling him to “be free” and that the Watchmaker can go suck it. While we have more of cliché number 1 in terms of dialogue…
Owen was no longer comfortable riding with this odd, intense, man. “But that’s our loving Watchmaker!”
The man’s voice dripped with scorn. “Yes. He loves us all to death.”…
“That’s not what I was brought up to believe.”
“You were brought up to believe—how easy for you!” the man said with an edge to his voice that could easily peel an apple. “It’s easy to believe. But now you should learn the truth. See Crown City for youself.”
I was a bit confused by what I was reading. All of the “rebel against the evil God!” rhetoric was there, but notice something? Our anarchist—in fact, that’s the name he goes by, as we later figure out—isn’t a confirmed hero. Nor his bitterness justified, since it’s clear that the Watchmaker doesn’t treat his people like slaves, or make them adhere to Biblical standards of conduct, or even sexually abuse or molest anyone. You can’t equate him to a militant atheist’s idea of a Catholic bishop, especially since we haven’t even seen him yet (my apologies to Catholics, I think it’s awful how everybody portrays your whole faith as evil and corrupt nowadays).
The Anarchist isn’t a good guy. “This is supposed to be our good guy?” I asked myself. “THIS is the representative of the always-right ideology?” Well, he isn’t. And that sole concept impressed me greatly.
I’ve never read V for Vendetta, but I’m familiar with it. There some guy in one of those Guy Fawkes masks (this thing started the trend) destroys the “Fascist” government of Britain and replaces it with anarchy in a tragically quick manner (tragic that the Fascists basically can’t stop him at all). I think the idea there was that anarchy>fascism, but here we’ve got something similar, order vs. chaos, and anarchy, chaos, and “freedom” aren’t portrayed as correct. Which is fine by me, considering that I’d rather live under the Watchmaker, who at best just makes life mundane and ordinary, then under anarchic “freedom”.
So for anyone keeping score, our “Cliché vs. Originality” chart is 2-1. I guess I’ll keep this up as I’m going along.
Owen and the Anarchist part ways at Crown City, and Owen loves the glorious architecture and amazing newfound freedom he has—the freedom to just go anywhere and see everything in the city. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t like the even more concentrated order of the place, and all of the regulations imposed by the city guards. One noteworthy example is a haberdasher (hat salesman) who gives him a signature hat he keeps for the rest of the book, with little plot relevance. Said haberdasher is blind, and has no way of knowing what sort of hat Owen needs—even though he should, given all of the glorious order around the city and whatnot, with everyone having some place and all that. This is an example, like the incident with the peddler, that the order the Watchmaker imposes is flawed, which I’m counting as part of cliché no. 1 since it ties into the whole idea that “God is a mere man since His plans aren’t really perfect” theme we’ve all seen too many times in stories.
Next he encounters a carnival, featuring an assortment of typical circus people—bearded lady, strongman, fire-eater, mechanical gypsy fortune teller who we find out is a mechanized daughter of the Watchmaker later on with little plot relevance, etc. (Which is why I spoiled it). And a tightrope-walking acrobat woman named Francesca, who Owen falls in love with at first sight when she hands him a rose as part of her act. After a run-in with the city guard for sleeping outside, Owen is forced to leave the city and joins the carnival as an amateur juggler.
At some point, Francesca also takes Owen to see the titular Clockwork Angels, four beautiful robots that sing out nuggets of wisdom from the Watchmaker. One of them is “All is for the best”, and another is “Lean not unto your own understanding”. Yeah, that’s about as close to jabbing at Christianity as the book will go, since that’s from Proverbs, so more fuel for cliché no. 1!
Another relevant thing is that the fire-eater, Tomio, tells Owen that there once was a performer called D’Angelo Mysterio who made cool explosions to dazzle the audience, but was kicked out due to wanting to do dangerous stuff.
We later find out that this was the Anarchist, thanks to a vignette giving us his POV and the Watchmaker’s, examining their respective backstories. The Watchmaker got rich from figuring out the secrets of alchemy (sci-fi/fantasy universe, remember?), giving us cliché number 3—metals can be transmuted into gold, it’s legit! And somehow managed to keep his empire running from there, due to extending his lifespan by mechanizing his organs and whatnot (he’s about 200 years old or so). He did this to his dog and his daughter, so it’s clear that he has a bit of heart beneath all of that machinery. Also, that peddler from the beginning? That was him, in disguise. The Anarchist, meanwhile, was a brilliant and innovate student at this Alchemist’s Academy or whatever that ended up discovering a chemical reaction that either made diamonds or caused big explosions—and of course he botched it at some point. However, the Watchmaker, however, sent him notes encouraging him to be innovative, which started the whole thing with the Anarchist getting kicked out of the college and getting a burnt hand. Now I can always remember the Anarchist whenever I think college life sucks. At least my hand will never burn off!
Owen, meanwhile finds that he likes the carnies, since they’re like this nice family that isn’t so strict with rules and regulations like the Watchmaker, but they’re not lawless “freedom fighters” like the Anarchist wants Owen to be. Owen celebrates his seventeenth birthday with the carnies and…is led into Francesca’s tent, if you catch my drift. I’m not kidding, that’s how the book says it. Since we know Owen is 17 and we…don’t actually know how old Francesca is, it’s a bit awkward for me because the first thing I think is statutory rape or “some dude just got lucky!”. But, they are both technically adults, so…it’s ok. Age of consent laws really need to not vary from place to place.
But then, something unusual happens, giving us subversion no. 2. Owen’s one-night stand is treated respectfully as the consummation of a marriage, at least in the mindset of the still-innocent Owen (no, copulation does NOT instantly turn you from a child into an adult). He feels bonded eternally to Francesca, as a husband and wife should be and as man and women are supposed to feel after such an important action is taken. Oddly enough, this secular book has a fairly Biblical view on sex, i.e. when a man and a woman have (consensual) sex, it is best for them to get married if they weren’t already before. See Deuteronomy for details on this—pre-marital sex between two engaged people is actually not as sinful as is believed, although it would take a bit to explain. Other Christians have backed me up on this, I swear.
Owen doesn’t word it right, though. He asks for Francesca’s hand in marriage, and that they live in Barrel Arbor together. “Oh, Owen,” Francesca laughs, “I’d never let myself get trapped like that!” She means getting tied down to one place, not a marital bond, but Owen is too blinded by love to see this and takes it as a rejection. And I kind of thought that was what she meant, too, and felt kind of sorry for him. She wasn’t taking their sex seriously.
Owen leaves the carnival (cliché/subversion score is 3-2, BTW!) in sorrow, but watches the group perform in Chronos Square, with the Clockwork Angels. He spots the Anarchist (he’s the only one who recognizes him since the Anarchist has mostly kept himself hidden while conducting acts of sabotage) and stops his plot to blow up the Square and kill everyone there, but in the confusion the Anarchist gives Owen the detonator and pins the blame on him. Owen flees yet again since everyone thinks he’s the Anarchist and boards a steamship (not the flying kind) for the continent of Atlantis and the city of Poseidon, leaving Albion behind.
Once in the port city of Poseidon, he finds a dingy, crappy city full of lawlessness, beggars, and no rules. “Free” from the Watchmaker, sure, but not exactly a paradise. It DOES however, have one of the coolest things in literature: An alternate universe bookstore! Subversion number 3!
Ok, the place isn’t that exciting, but basically, Owen realizes that there are other universes out there, but it’s implied to be other instances of THEIR OWN universe. Every universe, as explained by the clerk, has an Albion and whatnot. So no “real world” references, or any references to any other fictional universe. Think more like “alternate timelines”. This causes Owen to wonder if the books his mother read to him that showed him idolized versions of the places he’s visited were just alt. universe books, from some better world.
Owen runs into yet another interesting character, a wise, large man with his own airship, known as Pangloss. Yes, Pangloss, although this one is nothing like the one in Candide at all. Bonus points for the name, but I’m not counting it as a subversion since there had to be a cliché that had to be subverted. Instead, I’ll give that credit to Pangloss himself—everybody knows that big, burly guys aren’t supposed to be smart! Except this one is, and basically serves as the dad Owen needed, encouraging him to read all of the alt. universe books he has on his airship.
Owen reads one book written by his mother from another universe, and in this universe she managed to find the Seven Cities of Gold and lived there before returning home, having adventured the heck out of the world. He is determined to find the Seven Cities of Gold himself, hoping that they’re as great as they were in his books, even though he feels like they might not since nothing else has been so far.
Owen and Pangloss travel to the end of the steamship railroad line (I think they’re like metal blimps that take off and land on railways instead of runways) to a town called…Endoline. Yeah, they really should have given it a different name. Owen gets directions to the Seven Cities of Gold from the people there, and sets out on his own through the Redrock Desert. Pangloss doesn’t believe the cities are real, so he’s fine with Owen trying to set out and die trying to find them, since he’s not actually his kid, after all. And on the chance that they are real, Owen decides that he won’t come back. Owen does find the ruins of the cities after a long, uneventful journey through the desert, but finds the first city to find that…it’s completely empty. Subversion no. 4! I was actually expecting something there. Maybe not paradise, but at the very least something.
Upon reaching the last city, the sun sets at just the right time, creating a dazzling spectacle, letting the city illuminate in gold, just like it was supposed to be. Owen then realizes that even though he didn’t find much at the end of his journey, he’s glad just to have seen it all.
And so, having finally seen everything that there is to see in his world, Owen heads for home. On his way across the sea back to Albion, though, a group of pirates known as “Wreckers” destroy the ship he’s in and capture him, and Owen quickly finds out that the Anarchist is in league with them. They all live in an island made of shipwrecks, and intend to cut off the Watchmaker’s supply of rare minerals from Atlantis.
The Watchmaker and his airships full of troops quickly arrive to crush this rebellion, however, and amid the confusion both the Watchmaker and the Anarchist try to convince Owen to join their side. Owen refuses and escapes amid the chaos, and we never actually know what happens to either of them.
Owen eventually returns to Albion at last, reminiscing over his long adventure. He finds the carnies once again, who are glad to see him return. Francesca explains the misunderstanding, and says yes to Owen’s marriage proposal. In the epilogue, Owen has settled down with Francesca, and she trains their grandchildren to succeed her in the carnival, while she herself becomes the new ringmaster (apparently the old ringmaster was her mother, disguised as a man). At home, Owen, as per the advice of the gypsy fortune-teller/robot/daughter of the Watchmaker to “tend his garden” when he asks for his fortune.
Unfortunately for the author(s), I’ve read Candide. Had to for a class once. So I know EXACTLY what they mean by “tending a garden”. Look up Candide for the explanation, it’s a bit complicated to explain, except that Candide has shared traits with Clockwork Angels. Except back then, a disdain for Christianity, implied or explicit, wasn’t a cliché. I won’t count tending one’s garden as a cliché, since this the second time I’ve seen it being used as a moral to a story. Of course, Owen takes it literally and just tends a garden, trying to live his life in a mixture of freedom from tight rules, but with just a wee bit of organization and purpose.
Now that that long plot summary is over (maybe I’ll do something better for other reviews, but I’m an amateur at the moment, what can I say?), I’ll move on to my thoughts on the book itself:
Overall, I’d say it’s kind of ok. It’s full of imagination and was very well thought-out, and sure went from a lot given that the song’s lyrics, each line of which details something from one of the chapters, was just a generic thing about not liking order and wanting to be free and all that crap. The universe was very well-made and ties into the song well, but you don’t have to like or ever listen to Rush to read and enjoy the book, thank goodness. The universe of the story, oddly enough, is both governed by the song and yet also “free”—kind of like the message of the entire story as a whole, but that has some issues, too, which I’ll get to later.
The book also, as per the clichés vs. subversions count (3-4), did have some unexpected moments, and I appreciate the plot going as long as it did. The story could have been shorter, the plot more simplistic, the morals more heavy-handed, the characters flatter, and the world smaller—and the book did none of those things. It went the extra mile and really milked those random song lyrics for all they were worth.
On the other hand, however, the order vs. chaos motif is not explored well. All we have to go by in the story are two extremes, and the carnival—our “third option”—isn’t really either. There’s no organization and no spontaneity—you’re running a carnival. You can be silly and have fun, but that might get old after a while. Plus, isn’t Francesca technically forcing his grandchildren into a role that they might not want to be (i.e. circus performers)? Wouldn’t that be violating their “freedom” to do whatever?
Another thing is that Owen initially thinks that “all is for the best”, and that the Watchmaker has some sort of plan for him. But gradually, he loses this faith in stability and such once things start to go wrong and he hits setbacks, like Francesca “rejecting” him and being forced to flee to Atlantis. So I guess while the reader is lead to believe (ironically) that Owen’s adventures are spontaneous, they do serve a point and seem to go in his favor enough that he is able to learn a lot and not get killed. So maybe he is living in the best of all possible worlds, and maybe some invisible hand or clockwork angel is guiding him throughout his journey, given the coherence of the plot and the adherence of the events to song lyrics. But the book doesn’t really want you to think that—it wants you to believe that Owen just got lucky and didn’t get killed.
So you can see the ideology is a bit skewed. Although we’re told that “too much order is bad” and “too much freedom leads to anarchy, which is also bad”, we aren’t given a viable solution other than “tend to your garden”. That worked in Candide, but not so much here. In Candide, “tend to your garden” meant “The world is chaotic place, so just live your life the way you want to and try to ignore it”. That’s a reasonable message, but you really shouldn’t repeat a message from another book, even if you’ve made that message less inflammatory and satirical, seeing as there isn’t an ounce of satire that I could see in Clockwork Angels.
Or is the solution “follow your dreams and screw what everyone else thinks, but don’t forget to be rational?” That is, after all, what Owen did—he followed his dreams and went everywhere he wanted to go, but he also learned and matured along the way. That makes more sense, but this message isn’t hammered as much when it needs to be. The adventure is focused on more than what Owen learned from it, and from the epilogue and brief prologue it seems that all Owen himself has learned is “I should just ignore the world and live in freedom!” Which is not quite the message we the readers are probably supposed to pick up, assuming that the “follow your dreams but don’t” thing is the message. Which one is it? Both? What if “following your dreams” means acting like the Anarchist and overthrowing society, or the Watchmaker and hijacking society around your desires?
And speaking of the Watchmaker, that’s another issue in this book. While I’m not quite sure if I can designate him as the antagonist—that role goes to the Anarchist—the readers learn that he sort of set this whole plot in motion. And by doing so, he was a complete MORON.
To clarify, here’s his influence on the plot summarized: He has a device I didn’t mention earlier because I wanted to mention it later, which sort of outlines people’s destinies and controls what actions they take in life—at least in this universe, it seems. It’s implied that he makes sure Owen gets the idea to run into the Anarchist, to see just how dangerous he is, and Crown City, to see how nice and orderly it is. And to get kicked out of the carnival…I think.
Lots of other events, like Owen going to see Atlantis and everything on it and seeing the carnival itself, don’t help the Watchmaker’s agenda at all. He supposedly wants to “set an example” of Owen to show his people that breaking the rules will get you nowhere, but he gives too much autonomy to Owen at times for his own good. He could have never dressed up as that peddler and given that Owen that book, especially since it had little plot relevance since Owen was already loyalty to the Watchmaker at the beginning of the story. He could have given Owen some sort of immunity status from the guards so that they wouldn’t drive him to the carnival. He could have taken him around the world to show him everything in some fancy airship so that he could see it all for what it really was without learning anything in the process. He could have let Owen be privy to his agenda and spun it to make himself appear benevolent. He could have driven him back to Barrel Arbor quickly after seeing Crown City, since once Owen gets into trouble he begins to regret having started out in the first place. Or, most viable of all, he could have never initiated the whole plot with Owen in the first place.
His only motives for starting this whole plot are to use Owen as a pawn to get rid of the Anarchist (who I will get to in a minute), or he could have groomed Owen to be his successor, seeing as those machines might not be able to keep him alive forever and there wasn’t some successor already waiting in the wings. But the Watchmaker doesn’t do much regarding that, expecting Owen to be repulsed by the Anarchist of his own free will and conscience and side with the Watchmaker. If he had been more controlling and orderly, ironically, then he could have made sure that Owen saw only what he needed to see. What was Owen supposed to do afterwards, assuming that the Watchmaker had gotten him even more in his camp than he was at the beginning of the book? Owen didn’t hate the Watchmaker then, but he DID want to see the world and have just a bit of freedom. Surely the Watchmaker could have given him that so that he could show him that it wasn’t all what it was cracked up to be by his late mother’s picture books? Dang, Watchmaker, you give order and stability a bad name!
As for the Anarchist, well, to clarify, the Anarchist was created by the Watchmaker, on accident. Or on purpose, it’s never really clarified why. All we know is that the Anarchist was smart and, like Owen, wanted to do a bit more and try things that hadn’t been done before. The Watchmaker egged him on secretly by leaving notes under his dorm room pillow (awkward to think of a partially-mechanized old man elevated to a god-like status in his society for this one scientific breakthrough he made more than a century ago sneaking into dorm rooms at night to slip notes under one guy’s pillow, huh?), and the Anarchist eventually tried an experiment at the suggestion of the Watchmaker that nearly killed him. Assuming that he did this on purpose, why would you build up this pawn just so you could kill him? Was the Watchmaker afraid that even if he left the Anarchist alone, the guy could undermine him? If the Watchmaker had left the Anarchist alone, wouldn’t he never have become, well, the Anarchist?
I guess it’s supposed to parallel God causing evil to reign for a time and then for good to triumph it, but in this case, the Watchmaker is a mere man. And he’s more concerned with keeping his power in check than in loving people.
My point is that our semi-villain isn’t as much of a chessmaster as he ought to be, and the Anarchist and he are ultimately rival villains competing for supremacy the story’s universe. The Anarchist says that he wants freedom, but I would like to refer you to Vladimir Lenin, who was brought back from exile by the government of a nation that the country he established would soon wage war with. In that case, Lenin was the Anarchist and Kaiser Wilhelm was the Watchmaker…except the Anarchist made the Soviet Union. So instead of being an “evil God” figure, the Watchmaker is more of a “controlling Kaiser Wilhelm” figure. Except maybe he didn’t get overthrown? We don’t know, and according to the story we’re really not supposed to care, even though a large majority of the story’s universe’s inhabitants are under the Watchmaker. What happened, assuming that the Anarchist won that little skirmish in the ocean? Furthermore, why would the Watchmaker even GO there? He could get killed and then the whole society would collapse? And why would you not have handpicked a successor years before?
Ultimately, the lesson and Christian moral I can tie from all of this is “Thank God I’m a Christian”. Why do I say that? Well, I can trust that I have freedom in Christ, yet I’m also governed by an entity far more benevolent and trustworthy than the Watchmaker, and even if I’m not privy to His plans like I was to the Watchmaker’s in this book I can trust them far more so than I could any human authority’s.
And God has His own Anarchist to His Watchmaker—Satan. God created him, just like how the Watchmaker “created” the Anarchist, but Satan’s turn to evil was Satan’s own doing. He simply wanted to rebel. And to tie this back to the book I just read, it’s not entirely clear if the Anarchist is telling the truth about his origins. How do we not know that the Watchmaker intended for him to be his successor, and the accident in which he got injured and kicked out of the college was just that—an accident?
Apparently, the book would have me believe that a God-like figure who tries to impose stability is evil—and so is someone who wants to overthrow him. But two sides like that cannot BOTH be evil. And if they were, I’d choose the lesser of the two evils—stability. I love the idea of rules, schedules, and a well-organized and ordered life. And yet I’d also like freedom, but don’t feel like I lack it. I feel like I lack order in my life, to answer the Watchmaker-disguised-as-peddler’s question to Owen at the beginning of the story.
I would not like to be like Owen and go on a great adventure, only to learn very little from it. I would hate to go on an adventure knowing that eventually, I’d have to return home and shut out the world. As a Christian, I’m called to DO something, not ignore things. If there is a tyrannical Watchmaker imposing order on everyone’s lives, it’s my job to show how people can be free in Christ. If there is an Anarchist trying to establish mob rule, it’s my job to show how Christianity can provide a plan, purpose, morals and meaning to one’s life once a person realizes that all of their “freedom” from Christ just leads to an endless cycle of indulgence, sin, and aimlessness.
The Christian life, when practiced adequately, is a much better balance of freedom vs. security than just tending a garden and shutting out the world, although the vegetables would be nice. Granted, I’m no fundamentalist that will go out there and tell everybody to vote for Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachmann, and Rick Santorum all at once, but I don’t want to just stay in my room and read the Bible and pray forever in a monastery, even though I’d have more fun doing that then being a Dominionist.
Finally, one last thing I want to touch on: in the book, Owen dreams of seeing what his mother showed him in those books he had as a child. But then Owen went to all of those places and found out that it either wasn’t real or wasn’t as great as he had believed. The book encourages the old “beliefs are meant to be shattered” cliché, possibly making it 5-4 if you’re still keeping track. I keep feeling like many people say that about Christianity—like I’m supposed to “grow up” and “Put all of this foolishness behind you”, as Owen’s father said. If the book is trying to tell the reader to rebel against what he was taught, generally presumed to be Christian beliefs, then it’s kind of undermined by the fact that Owen still holds to the idea of following your dreams by the end of the book, even as an old man in the epilogue. At best, he promotes a rational and reasonable faith in grand ideas and big thinking, so maybe this book isn’t trying to undermine Christianity like my OCD kept telling me. (Just a joke, I know the book isn’t trying to do that, but I do think the old “rebellion” thing is clichéd).
So overall, I’m grateful for the fact that if I ever go on a sort of adventure like Owen does, I will have God guiding me every step of the way. I can lean not unto my own understanding, trust that all is for the best, and have my freedom from a secular society that seems to celebrate all sorts of diversity except for any benefits Christianity brings.
I guess if I were writing this book, I’d only change one thing, in addition to the whole dropping of the song motif: The scene at the last Golden City. I would have the spirit of Owen’s mother appear, and she would say this:
“I have been guiding you through your seemingly chaotic and aimless life. The world may not be the way it was in those books, but it is not all evil. I will see you through to the end. My son, and I want you to trust me even if things seem bleak. You can rely on me because you know that I love you.” THAT would have made Owen’s day, wouldn’t it? J
I do have this, though, that you can ponder over. Sure, they get taken out of context, but they do apply to individuals in addition to the Israelites of the Old Testament:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS AN OVERLY-LONG AND DETAILED REVIEW OF THE BOOK’S PLOT AND THEMES.
This is the first time I’m ever reviewing a book. Since I read a lot as a kid, I can remember mom suggesting the idea to me that I could maybe review stuff like this. Granted, I might not be so good at it now, but isn’t it just so darn fun to give your opinions on something?
Anyway, the book is “Clockwork Angels” by Kevin J. Anderson. And…based on the lyrics from some random song from that rock band called Rush. And no, I’m not familiar with Rush since they’re from before my time. IMO, Keane and Coldplay ought to be the ones who get their song lyrics made into stories. Say…maybe I could do that
Despite that, this book was actually published quite recently, like last year or so. Not that you’d be able to tell, which is actually a good thing because a story like this needs to be timeless. Would I read it to my kids? Eh…you’ll find out! The book is of the sci-fi/fantasy persuasion, so it’s got this whole fictional universe set up and whatnot, and it’s actually pretty well-made. Better than the sci-fi/fantasy thing I’M trying to write, given that mine’s just vague right now.
The story begins on the continent of Albion (no relation to that one old-school Anglican guy on here with that particular username), in a village known as Barrel Arbor. Our protagonist, 16-going-on-17 Owen Hardy lives in a society filled with extreme order. Each day has a schedule, and everyone has some job to do in the village, making everything run like…well, clockwork (yes, this is one of those stories where timepieces are a motif, given that everything is “on time” in this society). The orderliness is given by a benevolent man known as the Watchmaker, who lives in a glorious, far-off city known as Crown City, and runs everything from where he is. In essence, a benevolent dictatorship. Owen, like everybody else in his society, has only nice things to say about the Watchmaker, whom he is grateful to for having made so much glorious order.
…And right away, we have our first cliché! Keep track of it, folks, there will be plenty more
The Watchmaker is very clearly supposed to represent order, rules, regulations, and the idea of living your life under a plan. Which, you know, is a bad thing. Always.
It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to connect the Watchmaker and his trappings with a theocracy. So of course, as is a typical cliché in these sorts of works, anything remotely resembling religious worship is a bad thing. Why? Because the benevolent being you’re worshipping is really just power-hungry and controlling, and he’ll keep you and your mind trapped in a box, as demonstrated by the Watchmaker.
For some reason (or maybe it’s actually quite obvious?) the Watchmaker isn’t a critique on Christianity per se, or even explicitly organized religion. Just legalism and rules and whatnot, which Christianity is not supposed to be, and which Jesus was preaching against. And BTW, there is no Christ figure in this book in any regard, unless you count the sacrifice of Owen’s…I’ll get to that later, right now I have to get back to the actual plot. You’ll have to forgive me, as again this is my first review.
A rainstorm is predicted by the Watchmaker and issued to the village, but Owen encounters a mysterious peddler who asks him “What do you lack?” Since Owen is convinced by the Watchmaker that he lacks nothing, the peddler just gives him a piece of the Watchmaker’s propaganda, a book called “Before the Stability”. No, this doesn’t really become that relevant later, although it makes for a nice plot-hole later on.
Owen’s mother, we learn quickly, died of a fever, but left behind some “chronotype” (no idea what that means, never gets explained) picture books of faraway lands, including Crown City, where the Watchmaker lives, another continent known as Atlantis (nothing like your typical underwater city of Atlantis, so just forget everything you’ve heard about Atlantis right now), a sea port known as Poseidon, and the so-called Seven Cities of Gold. Owen knows on one level that these things are just places in storybooks, but he also hopes that they are real, somewhere out there. Of course, he also realizes that he’ll never get to visit these places, assuming that he lives as the Watchmaker would have him (and of course he doesn’t, because otherwise we’d have a VERY boring story). His father urges him to “put all this foolishness behind him” once he turns 17 in a week, which is implied to be the age of adulthood in this society. America’s is 18, but whatever.
That night, Owen wants to do something special, knowing that his life is about to get even more tightly run by social rules once he becomes legally recognized as an adult, so he sneaks off into the night to see some constellations, just to be able to point them out to his girlfriend, Lavinia. Or rather, I should say, the girl he has a crush on who doesn’t reciprocate and has no personality. He just wants to give her a kiss that night, to make a special moment that’s ever-so-slightly “rebellious”, in light of the Duggar-esque rules of courtship prior to marriage.
But of course, Lavinia doesn’t show up, leaving Owen to wander beyond his village that night to a docking station for steam-powered airships.
Cliché no. 2! Steam-powered airships in this society instead of jet engines due to different fictional chemicals and laws of physics! As cool as the designs on these things are, as per the cover, I hate to say it, but steam-powered dirigibles are flying metal clichés. Thanks to the Hindenberg issue, they’re pretty much confined to science fiction. They do, however, give a “steam-punk” vibe, but quite frankly steampunk is a dead medium. How many stories out there feature a young man who rebels against the evil theocracy through the use of technology, thus liberating the people?
And yet, oddly enough, this story does get interesting. It actually SUBVERTS this idea. Owen runs into a man who encourages Owen to covertly ride on the steamship with him, telling him to “be free” and that the Watchmaker can go suck it. While we have more of cliché number 1 in terms of dialogue…
Owen was no longer comfortable riding with this odd, intense, man. “But that’s our loving Watchmaker!”
The man’s voice dripped with scorn. “Yes. He loves us all to death.”…
“That’s not what I was brought up to believe.”
“You were brought up to believe—how easy for you!” the man said with an edge to his voice that could easily peel an apple. “It’s easy to believe. But now you should learn the truth. See Crown City for youself.”
I was a bit confused by what I was reading. All of the “rebel against the evil God!” rhetoric was there, but notice something? Our anarchist—in fact, that’s the name he goes by, as we later figure out—isn’t a confirmed hero. Nor his bitterness justified, since it’s clear that the Watchmaker doesn’t treat his people like slaves, or make them adhere to Biblical standards of conduct, or even sexually abuse or molest anyone. You can’t equate him to a militant atheist’s idea of a Catholic bishop, especially since we haven’t even seen him yet (my apologies to Catholics, I think it’s awful how everybody portrays your whole faith as evil and corrupt nowadays).
The Anarchist isn’t a good guy. “This is supposed to be our good guy?” I asked myself. “THIS is the representative of the always-right ideology?” Well, he isn’t. And that sole concept impressed me greatly.
I’ve never read V for Vendetta, but I’m familiar with it. There some guy in one of those Guy Fawkes masks (this thing started the trend) destroys the “Fascist” government of Britain and replaces it with anarchy in a tragically quick manner (tragic that the Fascists basically can’t stop him at all). I think the idea there was that anarchy>fascism, but here we’ve got something similar, order vs. chaos, and anarchy, chaos, and “freedom” aren’t portrayed as correct. Which is fine by me, considering that I’d rather live under the Watchmaker, who at best just makes life mundane and ordinary, then under anarchic “freedom”.
So for anyone keeping score, our “Cliché vs. Originality” chart is 2-1. I guess I’ll keep this up as I’m going along.
Owen and the Anarchist part ways at Crown City, and Owen loves the glorious architecture and amazing newfound freedom he has—the freedom to just go anywhere and see everything in the city. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t like the even more concentrated order of the place, and all of the regulations imposed by the city guards. One noteworthy example is a haberdasher (hat salesman) who gives him a signature hat he keeps for the rest of the book, with little plot relevance. Said haberdasher is blind, and has no way of knowing what sort of hat Owen needs—even though he should, given all of the glorious order around the city and whatnot, with everyone having some place and all that. This is an example, like the incident with the peddler, that the order the Watchmaker imposes is flawed, which I’m counting as part of cliché no. 1 since it ties into the whole idea that “God is a mere man since His plans aren’t really perfect” theme we’ve all seen too many times in stories.
Next he encounters a carnival, featuring an assortment of typical circus people—bearded lady, strongman, fire-eater, mechanical gypsy fortune teller who we find out is a mechanized daughter of the Watchmaker later on with little plot relevance, etc. (Which is why I spoiled it). And a tightrope-walking acrobat woman named Francesca, who Owen falls in love with at first sight when she hands him a rose as part of her act. After a run-in with the city guard for sleeping outside, Owen is forced to leave the city and joins the carnival as an amateur juggler.
At some point, Francesca also takes Owen to see the titular Clockwork Angels, four beautiful robots that sing out nuggets of wisdom from the Watchmaker. One of them is “All is for the best”, and another is “Lean not unto your own understanding”. Yeah, that’s about as close to jabbing at Christianity as the book will go, since that’s from Proverbs, so more fuel for cliché no. 1!
Another relevant thing is that the fire-eater, Tomio, tells Owen that there once was a performer called D’Angelo Mysterio who made cool explosions to dazzle the audience, but was kicked out due to wanting to do dangerous stuff.
We later find out that this was the Anarchist, thanks to a vignette giving us his POV and the Watchmaker’s, examining their respective backstories. The Watchmaker got rich from figuring out the secrets of alchemy (sci-fi/fantasy universe, remember?), giving us cliché number 3—metals can be transmuted into gold, it’s legit! And somehow managed to keep his empire running from there, due to extending his lifespan by mechanizing his organs and whatnot (he’s about 200 years old or so). He did this to his dog and his daughter, so it’s clear that he has a bit of heart beneath all of that machinery. Also, that peddler from the beginning? That was him, in disguise. The Anarchist, meanwhile, was a brilliant and innovate student at this Alchemist’s Academy or whatever that ended up discovering a chemical reaction that either made diamonds or caused big explosions—and of course he botched it at some point. However, the Watchmaker, however, sent him notes encouraging him to be innovative, which started the whole thing with the Anarchist getting kicked out of the college and getting a burnt hand. Now I can always remember the Anarchist whenever I think college life sucks. At least my hand will never burn off!
Owen, meanwhile finds that he likes the carnies, since they’re like this nice family that isn’t so strict with rules and regulations like the Watchmaker, but they’re not lawless “freedom fighters” like the Anarchist wants Owen to be. Owen celebrates his seventeenth birthday with the carnies and…is led into Francesca’s tent, if you catch my drift. I’m not kidding, that’s how the book says it. Since we know Owen is 17 and we…don’t actually know how old Francesca is, it’s a bit awkward for me because the first thing I think is statutory rape or “some dude just got lucky!”. But, they are both technically adults, so…it’s ok. Age of consent laws really need to not vary from place to place.
But then, something unusual happens, giving us subversion no. 2. Owen’s one-night stand is treated respectfully as the consummation of a marriage, at least in the mindset of the still-innocent Owen (no, copulation does NOT instantly turn you from a child into an adult). He feels bonded eternally to Francesca, as a husband and wife should be and as man and women are supposed to feel after such an important action is taken. Oddly enough, this secular book has a fairly Biblical view on sex, i.e. when a man and a woman have (consensual) sex, it is best for them to get married if they weren’t already before. See Deuteronomy for details on this—pre-marital sex between two engaged people is actually not as sinful as is believed, although it would take a bit to explain. Other Christians have backed me up on this, I swear.
Owen doesn’t word it right, though. He asks for Francesca’s hand in marriage, and that they live in Barrel Arbor together. “Oh, Owen,” Francesca laughs, “I’d never let myself get trapped like that!” She means getting tied down to one place, not a marital bond, but Owen is too blinded by love to see this and takes it as a rejection. And I kind of thought that was what she meant, too, and felt kind of sorry for him. She wasn’t taking their sex seriously.
Owen leaves the carnival (cliché/subversion score is 3-2, BTW!) in sorrow, but watches the group perform in Chronos Square, with the Clockwork Angels. He spots the Anarchist (he’s the only one who recognizes him since the Anarchist has mostly kept himself hidden while conducting acts of sabotage) and stops his plot to blow up the Square and kill everyone there, but in the confusion the Anarchist gives Owen the detonator and pins the blame on him. Owen flees yet again since everyone thinks he’s the Anarchist and boards a steamship (not the flying kind) for the continent of Atlantis and the city of Poseidon, leaving Albion behind.
Once in the port city of Poseidon, he finds a dingy, crappy city full of lawlessness, beggars, and no rules. “Free” from the Watchmaker, sure, but not exactly a paradise. It DOES however, have one of the coolest things in literature: An alternate universe bookstore! Subversion number 3!
Ok, the place isn’t that exciting, but basically, Owen realizes that there are other universes out there, but it’s implied to be other instances of THEIR OWN universe. Every universe, as explained by the clerk, has an Albion and whatnot. So no “real world” references, or any references to any other fictional universe. Think more like “alternate timelines”. This causes Owen to wonder if the books his mother read to him that showed him idolized versions of the places he’s visited were just alt. universe books, from some better world.
Owen runs into yet another interesting character, a wise, large man with his own airship, known as Pangloss. Yes, Pangloss, although this one is nothing like the one in Candide at all. Bonus points for the name, but I’m not counting it as a subversion since there had to be a cliché that had to be subverted. Instead, I’ll give that credit to Pangloss himself—everybody knows that big, burly guys aren’t supposed to be smart! Except this one is, and basically serves as the dad Owen needed, encouraging him to read all of the alt. universe books he has on his airship.
Owen reads one book written by his mother from another universe, and in this universe she managed to find the Seven Cities of Gold and lived there before returning home, having adventured the heck out of the world. He is determined to find the Seven Cities of Gold himself, hoping that they’re as great as they were in his books, even though he feels like they might not since nothing else has been so far.
Owen and Pangloss travel to the end of the steamship railroad line (I think they’re like metal blimps that take off and land on railways instead of runways) to a town called…Endoline. Yeah, they really should have given it a different name. Owen gets directions to the Seven Cities of Gold from the people there, and sets out on his own through the Redrock Desert. Pangloss doesn’t believe the cities are real, so he’s fine with Owen trying to set out and die trying to find them, since he’s not actually his kid, after all. And on the chance that they are real, Owen decides that he won’t come back. Owen does find the ruins of the cities after a long, uneventful journey through the desert, but finds the first city to find that…it’s completely empty. Subversion no. 4! I was actually expecting something there. Maybe not paradise, but at the very least something.
Upon reaching the last city, the sun sets at just the right time, creating a dazzling spectacle, letting the city illuminate in gold, just like it was supposed to be. Owen then realizes that even though he didn’t find much at the end of his journey, he’s glad just to have seen it all.
And so, having finally seen everything that there is to see in his world, Owen heads for home. On his way across the sea back to Albion, though, a group of pirates known as “Wreckers” destroy the ship he’s in and capture him, and Owen quickly finds out that the Anarchist is in league with them. They all live in an island made of shipwrecks, and intend to cut off the Watchmaker’s supply of rare minerals from Atlantis.
The Watchmaker and his airships full of troops quickly arrive to crush this rebellion, however, and amid the confusion both the Watchmaker and the Anarchist try to convince Owen to join their side. Owen refuses and escapes amid the chaos, and we never actually know what happens to either of them.
Owen eventually returns to Albion at last, reminiscing over his long adventure. He finds the carnies once again, who are glad to see him return. Francesca explains the misunderstanding, and says yes to Owen’s marriage proposal. In the epilogue, Owen has settled down with Francesca, and she trains their grandchildren to succeed her in the carnival, while she herself becomes the new ringmaster (apparently the old ringmaster was her mother, disguised as a man). At home, Owen, as per the advice of the gypsy fortune-teller/robot/daughter of the Watchmaker to “tend his garden” when he asks for his fortune.
Unfortunately for the author(s), I’ve read Candide. Had to for a class once. So I know EXACTLY what they mean by “tending a garden”. Look up Candide for the explanation, it’s a bit complicated to explain, except that Candide has shared traits with Clockwork Angels. Except back then, a disdain for Christianity, implied or explicit, wasn’t a cliché. I won’t count tending one’s garden as a cliché, since this the second time I’ve seen it being used as a moral to a story. Of course, Owen takes it literally and just tends a garden, trying to live his life in a mixture of freedom from tight rules, but with just a wee bit of organization and purpose.
Now that that long plot summary is over (maybe I’ll do something better for other reviews, but I’m an amateur at the moment, what can I say?), I’ll move on to my thoughts on the book itself:
Overall, I’d say it’s kind of ok. It’s full of imagination and was very well thought-out, and sure went from a lot given that the song’s lyrics, each line of which details something from one of the chapters, was just a generic thing about not liking order and wanting to be free and all that crap. The universe was very well-made and ties into the song well, but you don’t have to like or ever listen to Rush to read and enjoy the book, thank goodness. The universe of the story, oddly enough, is both governed by the song and yet also “free”—kind of like the message of the entire story as a whole, but that has some issues, too, which I’ll get to later.
The book also, as per the clichés vs. subversions count (3-4), did have some unexpected moments, and I appreciate the plot going as long as it did. The story could have been shorter, the plot more simplistic, the morals more heavy-handed, the characters flatter, and the world smaller—and the book did none of those things. It went the extra mile and really milked those random song lyrics for all they were worth.
On the other hand, however, the order vs. chaos motif is not explored well. All we have to go by in the story are two extremes, and the carnival—our “third option”—isn’t really either. There’s no organization and no spontaneity—you’re running a carnival. You can be silly and have fun, but that might get old after a while. Plus, isn’t Francesca technically forcing his grandchildren into a role that they might not want to be (i.e. circus performers)? Wouldn’t that be violating their “freedom” to do whatever?
Another thing is that Owen initially thinks that “all is for the best”, and that the Watchmaker has some sort of plan for him. But gradually, he loses this faith in stability and such once things start to go wrong and he hits setbacks, like Francesca “rejecting” him and being forced to flee to Atlantis. So I guess while the reader is lead to believe (ironically) that Owen’s adventures are spontaneous, they do serve a point and seem to go in his favor enough that he is able to learn a lot and not get killed. So maybe he is living in the best of all possible worlds, and maybe some invisible hand or clockwork angel is guiding him throughout his journey, given the coherence of the plot and the adherence of the events to song lyrics. But the book doesn’t really want you to think that—it wants you to believe that Owen just got lucky and didn’t get killed.
So you can see the ideology is a bit skewed. Although we’re told that “too much order is bad” and “too much freedom leads to anarchy, which is also bad”, we aren’t given a viable solution other than “tend to your garden”. That worked in Candide, but not so much here. In Candide, “tend to your garden” meant “The world is chaotic place, so just live your life the way you want to and try to ignore it”. That’s a reasonable message, but you really shouldn’t repeat a message from another book, even if you’ve made that message less inflammatory and satirical, seeing as there isn’t an ounce of satire that I could see in Clockwork Angels.
Or is the solution “follow your dreams and screw what everyone else thinks, but don’t forget to be rational?” That is, after all, what Owen did—he followed his dreams and went everywhere he wanted to go, but he also learned and matured along the way. That makes more sense, but this message isn’t hammered as much when it needs to be. The adventure is focused on more than what Owen learned from it, and from the epilogue and brief prologue it seems that all Owen himself has learned is “I should just ignore the world and live in freedom!” Which is not quite the message we the readers are probably supposed to pick up, assuming that the “follow your dreams but don’t” thing is the message. Which one is it? Both? What if “following your dreams” means acting like the Anarchist and overthrowing society, or the Watchmaker and hijacking society around your desires?
And speaking of the Watchmaker, that’s another issue in this book. While I’m not quite sure if I can designate him as the antagonist—that role goes to the Anarchist—the readers learn that he sort of set this whole plot in motion. And by doing so, he was a complete MORON.
To clarify, here’s his influence on the plot summarized: He has a device I didn’t mention earlier because I wanted to mention it later, which sort of outlines people’s destinies and controls what actions they take in life—at least in this universe, it seems. It’s implied that he makes sure Owen gets the idea to run into the Anarchist, to see just how dangerous he is, and Crown City, to see how nice and orderly it is. And to get kicked out of the carnival…I think.
Lots of other events, like Owen going to see Atlantis and everything on it and seeing the carnival itself, don’t help the Watchmaker’s agenda at all. He supposedly wants to “set an example” of Owen to show his people that breaking the rules will get you nowhere, but he gives too much autonomy to Owen at times for his own good. He could have never dressed up as that peddler and given that Owen that book, especially since it had little plot relevance since Owen was already loyalty to the Watchmaker at the beginning of the story. He could have given Owen some sort of immunity status from the guards so that they wouldn’t drive him to the carnival. He could have taken him around the world to show him everything in some fancy airship so that he could see it all for what it really was without learning anything in the process. He could have let Owen be privy to his agenda and spun it to make himself appear benevolent. He could have driven him back to Barrel Arbor quickly after seeing Crown City, since once Owen gets into trouble he begins to regret having started out in the first place. Or, most viable of all, he could have never initiated the whole plot with Owen in the first place.
His only motives for starting this whole plot are to use Owen as a pawn to get rid of the Anarchist (who I will get to in a minute), or he could have groomed Owen to be his successor, seeing as those machines might not be able to keep him alive forever and there wasn’t some successor already waiting in the wings. But the Watchmaker doesn’t do much regarding that, expecting Owen to be repulsed by the Anarchist of his own free will and conscience and side with the Watchmaker. If he had been more controlling and orderly, ironically, then he could have made sure that Owen saw only what he needed to see. What was Owen supposed to do afterwards, assuming that the Watchmaker had gotten him even more in his camp than he was at the beginning of the book? Owen didn’t hate the Watchmaker then, but he DID want to see the world and have just a bit of freedom. Surely the Watchmaker could have given him that so that he could show him that it wasn’t all what it was cracked up to be by his late mother’s picture books? Dang, Watchmaker, you give order and stability a bad name!
As for the Anarchist, well, to clarify, the Anarchist was created by the Watchmaker, on accident. Or on purpose, it’s never really clarified why. All we know is that the Anarchist was smart and, like Owen, wanted to do a bit more and try things that hadn’t been done before. The Watchmaker egged him on secretly by leaving notes under his dorm room pillow (awkward to think of a partially-mechanized old man elevated to a god-like status in his society for this one scientific breakthrough he made more than a century ago sneaking into dorm rooms at night to slip notes under one guy’s pillow, huh?), and the Anarchist eventually tried an experiment at the suggestion of the Watchmaker that nearly killed him. Assuming that he did this on purpose, why would you build up this pawn just so you could kill him? Was the Watchmaker afraid that even if he left the Anarchist alone, the guy could undermine him? If the Watchmaker had left the Anarchist alone, wouldn’t he never have become, well, the Anarchist?
I guess it’s supposed to parallel God causing evil to reign for a time and then for good to triumph it, but in this case, the Watchmaker is a mere man. And he’s more concerned with keeping his power in check than in loving people.
My point is that our semi-villain isn’t as much of a chessmaster as he ought to be, and the Anarchist and he are ultimately rival villains competing for supremacy the story’s universe. The Anarchist says that he wants freedom, but I would like to refer you to Vladimir Lenin, who was brought back from exile by the government of a nation that the country he established would soon wage war with. In that case, Lenin was the Anarchist and Kaiser Wilhelm was the Watchmaker…except the Anarchist made the Soviet Union. So instead of being an “evil God” figure, the Watchmaker is more of a “controlling Kaiser Wilhelm” figure. Except maybe he didn’t get overthrown? We don’t know, and according to the story we’re really not supposed to care, even though a large majority of the story’s universe’s inhabitants are under the Watchmaker. What happened, assuming that the Anarchist won that little skirmish in the ocean? Furthermore, why would the Watchmaker even GO there? He could get killed and then the whole society would collapse? And why would you not have handpicked a successor years before?
Ultimately, the lesson and Christian moral I can tie from all of this is “Thank God I’m a Christian”. Why do I say that? Well, I can trust that I have freedom in Christ, yet I’m also governed by an entity far more benevolent and trustworthy than the Watchmaker, and even if I’m not privy to His plans like I was to the Watchmaker’s in this book I can trust them far more so than I could any human authority’s.
And God has His own Anarchist to His Watchmaker—Satan. God created him, just like how the Watchmaker “created” the Anarchist, but Satan’s turn to evil was Satan’s own doing. He simply wanted to rebel. And to tie this back to the book I just read, it’s not entirely clear if the Anarchist is telling the truth about his origins. How do we not know that the Watchmaker intended for him to be his successor, and the accident in which he got injured and kicked out of the college was just that—an accident?
Apparently, the book would have me believe that a God-like figure who tries to impose stability is evil—and so is someone who wants to overthrow him. But two sides like that cannot BOTH be evil. And if they were, I’d choose the lesser of the two evils—stability. I love the idea of rules, schedules, and a well-organized and ordered life. And yet I’d also like freedom, but don’t feel like I lack it. I feel like I lack order in my life, to answer the Watchmaker-disguised-as-peddler’s question to Owen at the beginning of the story.
I would not like to be like Owen and go on a great adventure, only to learn very little from it. I would hate to go on an adventure knowing that eventually, I’d have to return home and shut out the world. As a Christian, I’m called to DO something, not ignore things. If there is a tyrannical Watchmaker imposing order on everyone’s lives, it’s my job to show how people can be free in Christ. If there is an Anarchist trying to establish mob rule, it’s my job to show how Christianity can provide a plan, purpose, morals and meaning to one’s life once a person realizes that all of their “freedom” from Christ just leads to an endless cycle of indulgence, sin, and aimlessness.
The Christian life, when practiced adequately, is a much better balance of freedom vs. security than just tending a garden and shutting out the world, although the vegetables would be nice. Granted, I’m no fundamentalist that will go out there and tell everybody to vote for Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachmann, and Rick Santorum all at once, but I don’t want to just stay in my room and read the Bible and pray forever in a monastery, even though I’d have more fun doing that then being a Dominionist.
Finally, one last thing I want to touch on: in the book, Owen dreams of seeing what his mother showed him in those books he had as a child. But then Owen went to all of those places and found out that it either wasn’t real or wasn’t as great as he had believed. The book encourages the old “beliefs are meant to be shattered” cliché, possibly making it 5-4 if you’re still keeping track. I keep feeling like many people say that about Christianity—like I’m supposed to “grow up” and “Put all of this foolishness behind you”, as Owen’s father said. If the book is trying to tell the reader to rebel against what he was taught, generally presumed to be Christian beliefs, then it’s kind of undermined by the fact that Owen still holds to the idea of following your dreams by the end of the book, even as an old man in the epilogue. At best, he promotes a rational and reasonable faith in grand ideas and big thinking, so maybe this book isn’t trying to undermine Christianity like my OCD kept telling me.
(Just a joke, I know the book isn’t trying to do that, but I do think the old “rebellion” thing is clichéd).So overall, I’m grateful for the fact that if I ever go on a sort of adventure like Owen does, I will have God guiding me every step of the way. I can lean not unto my own understanding, trust that all is for the best, and have my freedom from a secular society that seems to celebrate all sorts of diversity except for any benefits Christianity brings.
I guess if I were writing this book, I’d only change one thing, in addition to the whole dropping of the song motif: The scene at the last Golden City. I would have the spirit of Owen’s mother appear, and she would say this:
“I have been guiding you through your seemingly chaotic and aimless life. The world may not be the way it was in those books, but it is not all evil. I will see you through to the end. My son, and I want you to trust me even if things seem bleak. You can rely on me because you know that I love you.” THAT would have made Owen’s day, wouldn’t it? J
I do have this, though, that you can ponder over. Sure, they get taken out of context, but they do apply to individuals in addition to the Israelites of the Old Testament:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
