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Clocks
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28 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1891
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72 people want to read
About the author
Jerome K. Jerome
877 books1,383 followersJerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the River Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 6, 2016
So Jerome K. Jerome likes clocks. A lot. I guess. I... don't know what this book is. I don't even know if it's a book. It does make me wonder how high Jerome was when he wrote it. I mean, I do like my watch, but I don't really think that I could write 28 pages about it. I also don't think I'll ever feel so passionate about a clock to say this:
"As for the other class of clocks—the common or always-wrong clocks—they are harmless enough. You wind them up at the proper intervals, and once or twice a week you put them right and "regulate" them, as you call it... But you do all this, not from any selfish motives, but from a sense of duty to the clock itself. You want to feel that, whatever may happen, you have done the right thing by it, and that no blame can attach to you."
Or this: "But the great charm about my clock is its reliable uncertainty. It works on no method whatever; it is a pure emotionalist."
Okay, to be fair, not all 28 pages are about clocks. Jerome has followed a literary technique that can be best explained as:
He moves on to talk about exaggeration, and boy is he smooth! I didn't realise the shift until I'd read the second paragraph about exaggeration. I feel you on this Jerome, we all exaggerate everything we do, and everything we don't.
He does eventually get back to his crazy clock again; the clock that strikes thirteen and thirty-two and forty-nine and whatnot. But by then, I was just utterly lost. This is hands down, without a doubt the most pointless thing that I have ever read.
This is how I felt by the time I finished the book:
Oh, by the way, if you want to know the answer to this, Jerome: "I never have been quite able to decide, myself, which is the more irritating to run two miles at the top of your speed, and then to find, when you reach the station, that you are three-quarters of an hour too early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about outside the booking-office, talking to some local idiot, and then to swagger carelessly on to the platform, just in time to see the train go out!"
I think it's better to wait that extra 45 minutes rather than miss the train itself. Too bad you're dead and can't read this.
"As for the other class of clocks—the common or always-wrong clocks—they are harmless enough. You wind them up at the proper intervals, and once or twice a week you put them right and "regulate" them, as you call it... But you do all this, not from any selfish motives, but from a sense of duty to the clock itself. You want to feel that, whatever may happen, you have done the right thing by it, and that no blame can attach to you."
Or this: "But the great charm about my clock is its reliable uncertainty. It works on no method whatever; it is a pure emotionalist."
Okay, to be fair, not all 28 pages are about clocks. Jerome has followed a literary technique that can be best explained as:
He moves on to talk about exaggeration, and boy is he smooth! I didn't realise the shift until I'd read the second paragraph about exaggeration. I feel you on this Jerome, we all exaggerate everything we do, and everything we don't.
He does eventually get back to his crazy clock again; the clock that strikes thirteen and thirty-two and forty-nine and whatnot. But by then, I was just utterly lost. This is hands down, without a doubt the most pointless thing that I have ever read.
This is how I felt by the time I finished the book:
Oh, by the way, if you want to know the answer to this, Jerome: "I never have been quite able to decide, myself, which is the more irritating to run two miles at the top of your speed, and then to find, when you reach the station, that you are three-quarters of an hour too early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about outside the booking-office, talking to some local idiot, and then to swagger carelessly on to the platform, just in time to see the train go out!"
I think it's better to wait that extra 45 minutes rather than miss the train itself. Too bad you're dead and can't read this.
March 7, 2016
for me he is second Oscar Wilde
April 26, 2020
Small and very very readable, and everything one expects of the author after reading the three men adventures - although in this only the protagonist figures along with his social interactions generally as necessary.
The chief interaction is with the clocks in general and a large grandfather clock in particular, which was bought because the wife admired one bought by a friend of the husband and wished they could have one - and who has not experienced this, having seen a beautiful clock in someone's home, remembering one that actually did belong to one's grandfather (but one was too young then and not stable enough to have a home to house such a clock, so he did not leave it for one to inherit after all!) - so one connects with this immediately, even in this era of various far more advanced clocks - digital clocks and watches, computers and laptops and phones, almost everything everywhere with its own clock and that too either atomic or gps or better, with possibilities of two or more clocks display according to one's needs or fancy.
Still, one hankers after such clocks for home, a large grandfather clock and - if one has seen them - a cuckoo clock too if one can have them. And then one reads this, and one's tiredness of work vanishes and one laughs out loud never mind how late one lay oneself in bed and expected to read only a page before falling asleep. One cannot put this one down and is sorry he did not write more about his fights and coming to understandings with his other clocks.
In one word?
Superb!
Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
The chief interaction is with the clocks in general and a large grandfather clock in particular, which was bought because the wife admired one bought by a friend of the husband and wished they could have one - and who has not experienced this, having seen a beautiful clock in someone's home, remembering one that actually did belong to one's grandfather (but one was too young then and not stable enough to have a home to house such a clock, so he did not leave it for one to inherit after all!) - so one connects with this immediately, even in this era of various far more advanced clocks - digital clocks and watches, computers and laptops and phones, almost everything everywhere with its own clock and that too either atomic or gps or better, with possibilities of two or more clocks display according to one's needs or fancy.
Still, one hankers after such clocks for home, a large grandfather clock and - if one has seen them - a cuckoo clock too if one can have them. And then one reads this, and one's tiredness of work vanishes and one laughs out loud never mind how late one lay oneself in bed and expected to read only a page before falling asleep. One cannot put this one down and is sorry he did not write more about his fights and coming to understandings with his other clocks.
In one word?
Superb!
Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
January 6, 2019
LOL funny. Not perfect, but pretty good.
“Time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of eternity.”
“Time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of eternity.”
February 3, 2024
this work explores the unpredictable charm of time, societal emphasis on exaggeration in education and life, criticism of maintaining false appearances, cynicism about a world filled with pretense and lies, and a philosophical reflection on the transient nature of time as a passing dream. all in 28 pages.
May 5, 2013
I don't even know how to categorise this short text. It was alright, certainly not life changing or fascinating.
April 8, 2020
a short story about clocks that isn't about clocks at all!
March 27, 2024
Quick and funny - kind of weird it wasn't packaged in a collection as it's 20 Libby pages (ie small pages) only.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews