The Bone Clocks

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Parts 1-2

Parts 3-4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: David Mitchell

Named one of Granta magazine’s 2003 cohort of Best of Young British Novelists, David Mitchell is considered one of the most influential prose writers of his generation. His work features a wide range of settings and narrators: His first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), takes place in Japan, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland; his third novel, 2004’s Cloud Atlas, begins in New Zealand in the mid-1800s and ends in Hawaii in the distant future.

Mitchell’s novels typically use their vast time spans and settings to discuss the common experiences of radically different people, as well as the impact that individual actions can have on the larger world. This allows Mitchell to raise profound philosophical questions about human action and morality, global cultural shifts, and mankind’s destiny amid the rise of technology and the dominance of political states. The Bone Clocks similarly employs a wide scope to juxtapose Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and the Iraq War of the early 2000s with global literary festivals and a post-Internet future. The political backdrop is especially important for this novel’s themes, since its events run tangentially to the secret war between two factions of immortal beings, the Horologists and the Anchorites.

Series Context: The Über-Novel of David Mitchell

Mitchell’s work is characterized by allusion and intertextuality, or references to his other works: Several characters, world developments, and themes recur across his novels. Mitchell describes his body of work as an interconnected chapters in an “Über-novel” that he compares to the legendarium of Middle-earth created by English fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien (Clark, Alex. “David Mitchell: ‘I think most writers have a deep-seated envy of musicians.’” The Guardian, 2020.) Though none of his other novels are explicit prequels or sequels to one another, The Bone Clocks provides context for readers noting these recurring elements.

In The Bone Clocks, Mitchell introduces the Atemporals, beings who lead long lives over great spans of time, encountering each other in various incarnations; Horologists inhabit mortal bodies without harming their hosts, while Anchorites consume souls that possess strong psychic energy. Horologists Marinus and Xi Lo appear in Mitchell’s 2010 novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Marinus as Dr. Marinus, and Xi Lo as Magistrate Shiroyama, who managed Japan’s relations with the Dutch East India Company through their trading post in Nagasaki. Marinus also features in two of Mitchell’s later novels, Slade House (2015) and Utopia Avenue (2020), in which Marinus, as Dr. Yu Leon Marinus, and Esther Little come to the rescue of guitarist Jasper de Zoet when they learn that he is being plagued by the spirit of Enomoto, the antagonist of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Meanwhile, Hugo Lamb, who is recruited to join the Anchorites in The Bone Clocks, previously appeared in Mitchell’s 2006 novel, Black Swan Green.

Several other characters more subtly refer to Mitchell’s other works. Crispin Hershey, for instance, meets the titular psychedelic rock band of the novel Utopia Avenue as a child. The band’s manager, Levon Frankland, appears briefly in Part Four of The Bone Clocks to give Crispin advice about his relationship with his father. Elijah d’Arnoq and Jonny Penhaligon are likewise related to characters who appear in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas. At the end of The Bone Clocks, Marinus has formed a new post-Horology group called Prescience, a name that alludes to the Prescients, a group from the final segment of Cloud Atlas.