Mr. Timothy
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First Sentence
NOT SO TINY ANY MORE, that's a fact. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
NOT SO TINY ANY MORE, that's a fact. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Louis Bayard could have fallen flat on his face with this, tripped up by the chains of a weighty literary classic. He makes a brave attempt to strike out on his own by marrying an external crime mystery with an internal story of a lost soul trying to find himself.
The crime part worked much better. The crime deepened and became more disturbing as the reader discovered more in time with the narrator. The subject matter was disturbing but rang true.
The lost soul (Timothy) that was the ultimate outcome of the Dickens original felt contrived, like the author was trying to glue on some literary credibility. That Timothy feels that way is credible, but the way it is portrayed in the book is not. He begins by writing letters in pen and ink to his dead father. Soon he is writing these letters in places and in the midst of dramatic situations where he has no pen, ink, light or time. He is in life threatening situations but sees them as an excuse to sit down and muse about the same old father-son complexity.
And the most annoying part was the language. The author clearly did a lot of research to attempt the feel of 1860s London (although I did spot a couple of anachronisms) but why is that sense of being there constantly thrown away by the choice of modern American idiom and American words. Getting the idiom right can't be easy, but the choice of American words over English (for example sidewalk, Fall, wrench rather than pavement, Autumn, spanner) must surely be deliberate. My guess is this is the decision of the editor who thought that the US market, where this book was first published, was too dimwitted to understand or look up such words as 'pavement'. If I was an American I would be insulted by this obvious dumbing down.
Yet despite these annoyances I managed to read to the end and feel my time was well spent.
The crime part worked much better. The crime deepened and became more disturbing as the reader discovered more in time with the narrator. The subject matter was disturbing but rang true.
The lost soul (Timothy) that was the ultimate outcome of the Dickens original felt contrived, like the author was trying to glue on some literary credibility. That Timothy feels that way is credible, but the way it is portrayed in the book is not. He begins by writing letters in pen and ink to his dead father. Soon he is writing these letters in places and in the midst of dramatic situations where he has no pen, ink, light or time. He is in life threatening situations but sees them as an excuse to sit down and muse about the same old father-son complexity.
And the most annoying part was the language. The author clearly did a lot of research to attempt the feel of 1860s London (although I did spot a couple of anachronisms) but why is that sense of being there constantly thrown away by the choice of modern American idiom and American words. Getting the idiom right can't be easy, but the choice of American words over English (for example sidewalk, Fall, wrench rather than pavement, Autumn, spanner) must surely be deliberate. My guess is this is the decision of the editor who thought that the US market, where this book was first published, was too dimwitted to understand or look up such words as 'pavement'. If I was an American I would be insulted by this obvious dumbing down.
Yet despite these annoyances I managed to read to the end and feel my time was well spent.
Format:Hardcover
Louis Bayard's Mr Timothy rejoins Dickens's Tiny Tim when he is an adult. Timothy is something of a lost soul, drifting through the days waiting for the happy part of 'happily ever after' to kick in. Dickens didn't conclude 'A Christmas Carol' with that phrase but it was certainly implied. In this book the majority of the Cratchits are either dead or scattered, no longer a family but instead a remnant of one. Scrooge goes on though, locked forever in his embodiment of the spirit of Christmas generosity. It is this continuing generosity that has so stagnated Mr Timothy's attempts to rise above supporting character status and make a life worthy of a leading character. Bayard never really comes close to emulating Dickens's style further than populating the first person narrative with a host of very Dickensian eccentric caricatures; the cat-haunted crusty sailor, the brothel madame, the scatological licorice proffering detective, the philosophical cab driver and the singing adventurous street urchin. It's a pretty enjoyable read with a very dark mystery at its core and if Bayard doesn't quite nail-on the Victorian setting it is still a very admirable effort.
11 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Mr. Timothy is a wonderful achievement for Louis Bayard, and is full of rip-roaring action set to a wonderfully “literary” style. Mr. Timothy takes us on the journey of Timothy Cratchet, who with his trusty companions Colin, the Melodious and the enigmatic Philomela, works to break up a sinister pedophile ring reaching high up into the British aristocracy. Bayard has recreated the world of grown-up Timothy Cratchet - the crutch-wielding tyke from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol - who is now a "mostly able-bodied" 23 years old residing in a London whorehouse in exchange for tutoring the madam. He struggles to wean himself from financial dependence on his ancient "Uncle" Ebenezer Scrooge, and is haunted by the spirit of his late father--a man whose optimism and strength the son feels himself incapable of imitating.
We first encounter Timothy, during the Christmas season of 1860. He's vexed by the discovery of two dead 10-year-old girls, each branded with the letter "G"--one found in an alley, the other fished from the Thames River by Cratchit and his “diamond in the rough” best friend Gully. What follows, is a tale of horror and a wonderfully breathless flight through the teeming markets, shadowy passageways and the rolling, sinister foggy London of the 1860’s. Bayard brings the sights, sounds and smells of 19th century London vividly to life. The smoky, stinky atmosphere of London pubs; the claustrophobic feeling of Mrs. Sharpe’s brothel; “the kitchen grease, the rat droppings and the spit-laden gin”; the muddy streets of London with the “shattered frothing cisterns, and the wrenched-off water spouts, clogged with black ice.”
Totally atmospheric on substance and tone, Bayard reinvents Dickens for the modern reader, and provides us with a very clever story that is perfect for Christmas. You also don’t need to have read A Christmas Carol or know anything about the story to enjoy this novel. My only criticism is that I wish Bayard had included some gay content in his story – even a subplot involving a gay or lesbian character would have sufficed for showing us what life may have been like for our community in 1860’s England. Nevertheless, Mr. Timothy is a wonderfully inventive and meticulously researched read.
Michael
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