Hourmaster: Novel - Hardcover

Bataille, Christophe; Howard, Richard

2.98

51 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811213579 ISBN 13: 9780811213578

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corp., 1998

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In his palace in a city vanquished by the years, the Duke Gonzaga lives consumed by his passion for young girls and his deep boredom. Time passes as marked by the more than two hundred clocks situated throughout the palace. When the old hourmaster and his successor both disappear, Gonzaga employs Arturo who becomes the new keeper of the palace's timepieces. Arturo -- called Gog -- also becomes the Duke's friend and for a time alleviates Gonzaga's boredom as they share the nightly clock-keeping rounds. There seems to be the beginning of new life in the realm. The hourmaster marries happily and fathers a daughter. But the Duke's restlessness and ennui return and when the hourmaster vanishes -- for reasons the reader is to discover -- time again stands still. In the words of the translator Richard Howard, Christophe Bataille's third novel "is a remarkable, even triumphant little book."

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Review:

Christophe Bataille's first novel, the jewel-like Annam, won France's Prix du Premier Roman in 1993, when he was only 21. Hourmaster is his third novel, and he continues to deliver his exquisite prose in small doses, belying the brevity of his work with the depth of his imagination.

Sometime in the 17th century, Duke Gonzaga, who remains massively indifferent to the entropy that surrounds him, rules over an unnamed and decaying French port. The Duke tries to relieve his boredom by sleeping with his ladies-in-waiting and throwing decadent parties, but he only finds purpose when the 218 clocks that measure the slow passage of time in the palace begin to run down. More fable than novel, Hourmaster is a richly evocative work, echoing the Fisher King myth, the work of Edgar Allen Poe, and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, while retaining its own unique voice. Great things come in small packages.

From the Back Cover:

Hourmaster is a novel about evil, the passage of time, and the dissolution of a society - France in the seventeenth century. In his palace in a city vanquished by the years, the Duke Gonzaga lives consumed by his deep boredom and his passion for young girls. Time passes as marked by the more than two hundred clocks situated throughout the palace. Needing a new hourmaster, Gonzaga employs Arturo to be the keeper of the palace's time-pieces. Arturo - called Gog - also becomes the Duke's friend and for a time alleviates Gonzaga's boredom as they share the nightly clock-keeping rounds. There seems to be the beginning of new life in the realm. But, for reasons the reader is to discover, doom settles like fog upon the Duke's domain and time stands still.

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