The Big Clock Paperback – 11 Nov. 2010

Having discovered the New York Review of Books I now have several on my tbr shelf and am looking forward to them all very much.Kenneth Fearing's novel was one of them and is a reminder why still my favourite genre of books is crime. That has taken a hit every now and then when I have chosen to read something average, or even poor. Probably more than any other genre, crime suffers from this. That is why it is so good to read something as excellent as this to reconfirm my favour. The Big Clock has many of the elements that are most important in crime novels, an unpredictability, a compulsion to turn the pages fascinated by the turn the story has taken, and the twists of course, of which there are plenty. Fearing creates several wonderfully clever situations, but to relate any one of them would spoil enjoyment for a potential reader.George Stroud edits a magazine for Earl Janoth's media empire in City and lives the high life of the time in post-depression 1940s New York. Fearing takes almost a third of the relatively short novel to the reader a feeling of the time, and the lives of the characters, the most significant of which narrate the story chapter by chapter. Despite the long build up there is the dark atmosphere of something about to happen, and sure enough the reader is soon with murder. It is at this stage when the novel becomes something special, constructing some situations as clever as anything I have written in the world of crime. Great stuff.

The early chapters are a bit confusing, because of the style. Each chapter is from the point of view of that person. Having more than one person is as old as the first mystery writers e.g. Wilkie Collins, but is really unusual. The point someone made about identifying with each character was not important to me. Knowing how they approached the same events was useful. None of the characters are really heroes or villains. It is difficult to be wholly on the side the main character who is clearly without an ethical base and extremely arrogant and self centred.The plot is not the best I have read, but is clever in the sense of making the reader think. Well worth the read and very different from the typical crime novel where action is more important than thinking through what is really happening.Good enough to be the basis of two films (I prefer the Ray Milland one to the Kevin Costner).Read this if you want a book that doesn't have clues and crime scene analysis, but gets you thinking about what people want and how they get it.

First published in 1946, "The Big Clock" tells the story of newspaper man George Stroud. Stroud, an amoral charmer, works for the large media conglomerate Janoth Enterprises, headed by Earl Janoth a man whose face is 'permanently fixed in a faint smile he had forgotten about long ago'. These two men become involved in a murder and in a brilliant plot device Stroud is ordered to head an investigation to find the last man seen alive with the victim - himself.The plot alone makes "The Big Clock" a great noir novel and by using multiple narrators Fearing allows us to follow the investigation from the point of view of the villain and the 'hero' - as well as several other characters. What makes this novel something more though is the resolutely strange writing which makes everything feel slightly off kilter. If you are prepared to go along for the ride this is an enjoyable and gripping read which vividly evokes and often satirizes its corporate setting.

Chandler described The Big Clock as a 'tour-de-force' and said it made his own work 'look like thirty cents'. If you like Chandler/Hammet/Cain then you should listen to Raymond and give The Big Clock a chance. It is the strangest noir thriller I have read with a powerful theme of the man investigating himself. Kenneth Fearing's disdain for big business and his interests in art and politics (as well as alcohol, adultery and murder) give the book several layers of unusual edge.A classic from the Forties. Well worth a read.

Oh, yes, how the clock still goes on humming. Kenneth Fearing heard its mechanical heartbeat, saw its two giant claws scrapping around and around the numerals – twelve on top, six on bottom, nine on the right and three on the left, back in the 1940s as he wrote his novel, The Big Clock – a story about the work-a-day world filled with people willing to conform, no matter what the price: high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhages, ulcers eating out the lining of their stomach and moral decay eating out their soul. As Fearing’s main character says about the clock: “It would be easier and simpler to get squashed, stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along.”The Big Clock is Kenneth Fearing’s classic noir/thriller novel published in 1946 and is not only a caustic commentary on American business but a story holding the reader in suspense with a keen desire to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. More specifically, the novel features the following:Multiple narrator/rotating first-person – Not only is the story told from the point of view of George Stroud, a sharp-looking, nimble-minded publishing executive/husband/father, but from the point of view of six other men and women – and with each rotation of first-person narrator the story picks up serious momentum and drives toward the conclusion. Considering how effective multiple narrators can be in the hands of an accomplished writer, it’s surprising this literary technique isn’t used more frequently.Femme fatale – What’s classic hardboiled noir without a femme fatale? There’s Vivian Sternwood in Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Brigid O'Shaughnessy in Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, Phyllis Dietrichson in Cain’s Double Indemnity -- and, yes, of course, Pauline Delos in The Big Clock. Here’s George Stroud’s first impressions when meeting Pauline at a posh uptown Manhattan party: “She was tall, ice-blonde, and splendid. The eye saw nothing but innocence, to the instincts she was undiluted sex, the brain said here was a perfect hell.” Incidentally, here are the first impressions of a similar sharp-looking, nimble-minded married man on meeting femme fatale Caroline Crowley at a similar posh uptown Manhattan party in Colin Harrison’s 1996 novel, Manhattan Nocturne,: “She may well have been the most beautiful woman in the room. . . . her face was no less beautiful as it approached, but I could see a certain determination in her features. ”. Goodness, some things never change.The power of myth – Robert Bly speaks of a major character from ancient Norse mythology: the giant: the giant is a being we can not only view as huge, cannibalistic, mean, violent and heavy-footed, but also as psychic energy from our shadow side that can, when we become enraged, take possession of us. Perhaps, on some level, the author was aware of this mythology when writing how business tycoon Earl Janoth reacts with extreme violence after Pauline makes accusations about his homosexual relations with Earl’s life-long friend/business colleague: “It wasn’t me, any more. It was some giant a hundred feet tall, moving me around, manipulating my hands and arms and even my voice. He straightened my legs, and I found myself standing.“A Greenwich Village artist – George Stroud collects the paintings of Louise Patterson. As a point of contrast to the men and women droning their life away in an office, Louise is a complete eccentric who hates anything smelling of the business world. Since events pull her into the story, she interacts with Stroud and his colleagues. Here is a snatch of dialogue where she lambasts one of the mousy white-collar types, “What the hell do you mean by giving my own picture some fancy title I never thought of at all? How do you dare, you horrible little worm, how do you dare to throw your idiocy all over my work?” The author gives Louise Patterson a turn as one of the first-person narrators -- a real treat for readers.The art of the novel – Kenneth Fearing was a poet as well as a novelist. Although The Big Clock is a caustic commentary on the business world, it is also a work of literature: all of the characters are complex and developed. There are no easy answers given; rather, Fearing’s poetic vision prompts us to reflect deeply on the challenges we face living in a modern urbanized, highly standardized and clock-driven world.

Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock is an atypical noir that puts us square inside of the big corporation, in this case Janeth Enterprises, run by the big man, Earl Janeth. George Stroud, an editor of Crimeways, is a mechanism to this daily grind, often referred to as the “big clock.”Trouble finds George after his night out with Pauline, one of the girls who works at Janeth Enterprises. When Pauline winds up dead, things really get complicated for George, especially since Pauline was Earl’s girlfriend.There are two major conflicts and predicaments that keep The Big Clock running from start to finish. One is that George himself could be implicated in the murder, so he is trying to save his own skin. The second delimma involves bringing forth the real murderer. And these two objectives have a deadline, so it is a race to see this through.One effective aspect to The Big Clock is the author’s methods. Fearing weaves an effective noir that breaks into other genres and modes. While this is an exceptional mystery, it is also a superb psychological thriller that builds with suspense as we get closer to a George’s ultimate dilemma. Fearing’s technique of constantly shifting narrative point of view with different characters narrating also adds dimension to vantage points of the plot. Tension builds, and then keeps building. And this is what pulls us in to the book’s final conclusion. There are really times when it seems as though Fearing has written himself into a corner, but he is masterful towards the end.In another sense, the “big clock” comes to symbolize not only the essence of time against the corporate grind, but the individual being pulled in into an escapable, fateful path that comes in the way of inevitable mortality. George, early in the novel, reflects on this:“Time.One runs like a mouse up the old, slow pendulum the big clock, time, surries around and across its huge hands, strays inside through the intricate wheels and balances and springs of the inner mechanisms, searching among the cobwebbed mazes of this machine with all its false exits and dangerous blind alleys…”The Big Clock is an effective change of pace for noir, one that enthusiasts for this genre should check out.

The Big Clock is not only one of the great thrillers of the 40s but one of the great novels, period. No mystery, the murderer is known from the outset, but the story is told from different points of view, heightening the tension. Fearing deftly weaves the various threads to its not thrilling but satisfying conclusion. The novels is also a good behind-the-scenes look at the publishing industry of the 40s.

I enjoyed the book but was confused by the ending---it seemed to end so abruptly and ambiguously. Then I got to my book club and discovered that the kindle edition is missing the very last line---the newspaper headline that the protagonist sees as his taxi is stopped at a red light. Seems like a problem, Amazon.

I just thought this was the most fun little book. The last line was not missing. I'm not sure what that reviewer was talking about.The book was suspenseful but also light and funny. The book has a happy ending, but I wouldn't say it was pat. The protagonist is both clever and lucky.I suppose the book was somewhat predictable, but if you read it you'll see that isn't really a bad thing in this case. In fact it would be rather strange if it weren't predictable, given the circumstances. I guess some people wish the protagonist had to pay for his crimes, but this is noir, the gray world.