Free PDF Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh
After knowing this extremely easy method to review and get this Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh, why do not you inform to others concerning by doing this? You could tell others to visit this internet site and also opt for looking them favourite books Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh As understood, below are bunches of listings that supply several sort of publications to collect. Merely prepare couple of time as well as internet connections to get guides. You can actually take pleasure in the life by reading Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh in a quite straightforward fashion.
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh
Free PDF Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh
Book enthusiasts, when you require a new book to read, find guide Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh below. Never stress not to discover exactly what you need. Is the Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh your required book now? That holds true; you are actually an excellent viewers. This is a best book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh that comes from fantastic writer to show you. Guide Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh provides the best experience and also lesson to take, not just take, but additionally discover.
Definitely, to improve your life high quality, every e-book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh will certainly have their specific driving lesson. Nonetheless, having certain awareness will certainly make you really feel much more confident. When you feel something occur to your life, in some cases, reviewing publication Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh can assist you to make tranquility. Is that your actual pastime? Sometimes indeed, but in some cases will be not exactly sure. Your option to check out Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh as one of your reading books, can be your correct publication to review now.
This is not about how much this book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh prices; it is not additionally about what sort of book you really like to read. It has to do with just what you could take and receive from reviewing this Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh You could like to choose other book; but, it doesn't matter if you try to make this e-book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh as your reading choice. You will not regret it. This soft documents e-book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh could be your buddy all the same.
By downloading this soft documents publication Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh in the online web link download, you remain in the initial step right to do. This website actually offers you simplicity of how you can obtain the ideal book, from best vendor to the brand-new launched book. You could discover a lot more publications in this site by checking out every link that we give. Among the collections, Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh is one of the very best collections to offer. So, the first you get it, the initial you will get all favorable regarding this e-book Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), By Gerald Kersh
"How easy Mr. Kersh makes it all seem! How admirably he sets the scene, the atmosphere . . . very neatly done." - The Observer
"Three short, rough novels, hard-hitting, battering the emotions without compunction . . . Kersh tells a story, as such, rather better than anybody else." - Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph
Best known for his gritty novels of London life and his weird and often horrific short fiction, in Clock Without Hands (1949) Gerald Kersh delivers three novellas, each very different but all showcasing the virtuosity of his storytelling. Clock Without Hands relates the unexpected and macabre impact of a sordid murder on the mild-mannered neighbour who witnesses the crime. In Flight to the World's End, a desperate boy flees his cruel life at an orphanage, only to discover a harsh truth about the world outside. And in Fairy Gold, a clerk plays a malicious practical joke on his impoverished co-worker, with unpredictable and startling consequences.
Gerald Kersh (1911-1968) published more than thirty books, including the noir classic Night and the City (1938) and Fowlers End (1957), which Anthony Burgess called "one of the great comic novels of the century," as well as hundreds of short stories which were once ubiquitous in British and American magazines. But though he has been championed by Angela Carter, Harlan Ellison, Ian Fleming, Michael Moorcock and others, Kersh has undeservedly fallen into neglect since his death. This edition of one of his lesser-known books is the first-ever reprint and includes a new introduction by Thomas Pluck.
- Sales Rank: #2266670 in Books
- Published on: 2015-02-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.99" h x .50" w x 5.00" l, .53 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 218 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
"You Click Unheard... You Are in Hell"
By Eclectic Reader
The three novellas which make up Clock without Hands (1949; re-issued by Valancourt Books in 2015 with an Introduction by Thomas Pluck) is the perfect sampler of the many worlds of Gerald Kersh (1911-1968). The tales encompass the grim, down and out world of urban life, the slow and relentless smothering of innocence, and the offbeat and zany. Regardless of the tone of the tale, all three stories contain typical, uncompromising elements: starkness, realism, and a sense of mankind's helplessness in a callous world.
In the opening title story, "Clock without Hands," readers enter an impoverished urban world where irony is king and the realm is filled with needy and desperate people with little chance of escape or betterment. Of the three novellas included in the collection, this chronicle most resembles some of Kersh's most unforgettable work: Night and the City (1938) and Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1953). Police arrest a woman for the brutal stabbing of "her pig of a husband." The trial and verdict is sure to be a slam-dunk for the prosecution especially given their "chief witness," George Wainewright, but the defense has a powerful argument for self-defense based upon the husband's repeated and well-known brutality toward his wife.
From the beginning there are subtle hints that not all is well with Wainewright and once the jury reaches its decision Kersh, slowly rips off the veneer that barely covers Wainewright to reveal a man yearning for attention--to be a somebody--at any cost. Effort after effort to attain his goal, each more frantic than the one before it, is met with frustration until the story reaches its dramatic, tragic, violent, and mordant conclusion.
"Flight to the World's End" takes readers away from the most typical of Kersh urban settings and drops them in what otherwise would appear to be an idyllic setting as the author introduces his main characters: Peter John Gospel, a poet, and his protective wife, Betty Lou, who is determined to provide her husband with the most affirming (at least in her mind) and isolated environment in which to work and thirteen-year-old Henry Ford, a ward at St. Timothy's Home for Waifs and Stays.
The majority of the author's attention is focused upon Henry--a youth nearly bursting with generosity who is not only denied the opportunity to demonstrate his true nature, but is mistreated because of his inability to fit in by both his peers and superiors to the point where he is desperate to escape the Home and run away, naïvely hoping to find a new beginning with a life at sea. With his usual flair for the ironic, Kersh throws into the path of the youth's escape an opportunity that forces the boy's true nature to once again surface and to perform "a noble deed," as well as force Peter John Gospel to face a long-denied, buried truth about his own inner self. It is a moving story, but as is usual for Kersh, there are seldom happy endings no matter what kind of prospects present themselves to his characters.
The concluding tale in Clock without Hands, "Fairy Gold," introduces readers to one of Kersh's typically comic characters, Mr. Dick Trew who fancies himself an "excruciatingly funny" jokester and story-teller who also likes "to tell stories in dialect, for he was proud of a certain knack of mimicry, and a mobile, expressive face." Nothing pleases him more than to get others to laugh and admire his comedic skills and nothing frustrates him more than a joke that falls flat or is ruined by the intervention of another's untimely comment.
"Fairy Gold" is the longest of the three novellas in Clock without Hands. Unfortunately, a part of its length has the feeling of unnecessary padding to it. The first two stories are more appealing in their directness, "Clock without Hands" being the most focused of the tales. "Fairy Gold," however, still contains Kersh's razor sharp sense of irony even though the story is off-beat. Trew sets about to create his greatest prank ever at the expense of Joseph Hugh Middleton. Although generally excellent companions, Trew's trick comes in the form of a cruel and heartless hoax perfectly timed for the August Bank Holiday, one that the overworked and grossly underpaid Middleton and his wife with a baby on the way fall for completely. Much like the attention deprived protagonist in "Clock without Hands," Trew's joke doesn't win him what he expects and through a series of what appear to be missteps by Middleton, the intended victim of the joke, along with some tricks planted by the author, Middleton comes out on top.
"Fairy Gold" contains some interesting commentary on the vicious cycle of people having to work in order to get money--money which just changes hands to pay for the labor of others and Kersh creatively works the concept into the story itself toward the end as a part of Middleton's eventual fate. Unlike so many Kersh stories, the conclusion to "Fairy Gold" has a happy but not altogether surprising ending.
Clock without Hands is not among Kersh's A-list of titles, but is none the less entertaining and worthwhile. Kersh's writing is always fascinatingly wrought with vividness but without verbosity. His characters always come across as true-to-life and although there can occasionally be some obvious plot manipulation in his stories, they are always rewarding. As Thomas Pluck in his Introduction to the Valancourt edition writes, "Kersh can do more with a story than many can with a novel; with the novella, he does more than others do with a series." The many and varied worlds of Gerald Kersh are always worth a visit.
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh PDF
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh EPub
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh Doc
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh iBooks
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh rtf
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh Mobipocket
Clock Without Hands (Valancourt 20th Century Classics), by Gerald Kersh Kindle
