The Watchmaker of Filigree Street: The extraordinary, imaginative, magical debut novel

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Das zweite was mich massiv ärgert war die gesamte Storyline mit Grace, weil NICHTS daran Sinn macht. NICHTS.

The characters: a young telegrapher called Thaniel, a Japanese watchmaker called Mori, a young Oxford-based scientist called Grace, a girl orphan called Six, some Whitehall civil servants, an anglified Japanese dandy, other minor English and Japanese characters. So weit, so gut, nicht wahr? Die Atmosphäre ist in vielen Momenten sehr schön und ich mag Magical Realism. In seinen besten Momenten liest sich das Buch wie ein Märchen.Which leads to my next gripe: because the characterization was a problem, the actions of the characters were oftentimes confusing or made no sense. Our main characters had some strong feelings towards each other (either positive or negative) throughout the story. However these feelings never felt explained or justified. Spoiler: Why did Mori have such a dislike for Grace? Because he was clairvoyant and could see her future actions? Why did Thaniel never question Mori? What was the point of Grace's master plan? So many things happened that the plot just couldn't justify. She moved like a faulty bicycle, by turns too fast, and then too slowly. (And later, about the same character:) Her joints were moving badly, all unoiled hydraulics. Think of horse races. People like to bet on the one with three legs and a wheeze.They don't bet on that one because they think it will win, but because they can see how very glorious it would be if it were to win” Also meiner Meinung nach hätte es der Story (UND der Romanze, aber zu der komm ich später) sehr gut getan, wenn Nathaniel irgendeine Agenda gehabt hätte. ANYTHING. Wenn er z.b. extrem karrieregeil gewesen wäre und sich deswegen bei Mori (dem japanischen Uhrmacher) einquartiert, um an Infos zu kommen und dann merkt, dass der Typ zwar seltsam aber ganz nett ist und Gewissenskonflikt und so. Das hätte VIEL mehr Spaß gemacht, als das was wir kriegen.

Have you ever finished a book and it gives you whiplash? You are all immersed in it, you're ride or die with the characters, plot, and writing style, and then it ends and you feel like you went from 70mph to hitting a tree and the airbags just hit you in the gut and you're laying there confused about what to do now in life? Natasha Pulley had me hooked with her depiction of Victorian London; its burgeoning system of telegrams that bounce between government buildings and a rapidly expanding underground train system. The main character, Thaniel Steepleton is introduced in the midst of the panic. He is working in London as a clerk to support his widowed sister and her children. Thaniel has given up on his dreams like many other Londoners to make ends meet. He barely manages to exist, given his low pay. He had once dreamed of being a pianist. I'm incredibly heartbroken over the loss of Katsu, and I can only hope he turns up unexpectedly one day after crawling out of the rubble. Or Mori makes a new one that is an exact replica of the old.Die Grundprämisse der Geschichte ist großartig. Es spielt in London und in Japan des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts und es geht um Bombenattentate, einen englischen Telegrafisten und einen japanischen Uhrmacher, der die Zukunft sehen kann. Und einen mechanischen Oktopus, der vielleicht oder vielleicht nicht eine Seele hat. Mph. This was well written and I was really enjoying it. Lovely sense of time, stroppy unlikeable heroine, interesting steampunky 'science' without too much annoying airship bobbins and a great concept. But I do wish there had been a proper plot--it just kind of evaporated towards the end, leaving me with a sense that there's less to this than meets the eye. Natasha Pulley’s writing superpower is to make me not care about the flaws in her books. (And, yes, there always are some.) I’m generally too entranced to care about the problems. That didn’t happen with this book. Past ghosts and future ghosts. The outline of things that happened or might soon happen. The logic is hard to grasp... but suspend disbelief for that, fair enough. But how come only soon-to-happen fate strings appear? Why only the most likely fate strings? (e.g. those trajectories for the owls or the stone-throwers? surely there are infinite possibilities, however small a chance?). The more you think about it, the harder it is to find the 'logic' of the idea. What determines what appears from thousands of years of potential ghosts, why only the most plot-relevant stuff?

This kind of writing is rampant in this book as well as the author focusing on minute details, such as how silk skirts hiss when someone wearing them walks, in favor of developing the character wearing the silk skirts. On it goes. The characters are mostly flat, bloodless, and unlikable, and they all sound alike, whether man or woman, young or old, British or Asian. Which brings me to this: there's a peppering of racial remarks throughout the book aimed at Asians and other non British persons. I'm not sure why the offensive remarks are in here, especially when everyone sounds the same and pretty much looks the same. One of the main characters, who's Asian, has bleached his hair blond and cut it very short. How very strange for a story taking place in the 1880's. Secondly, do you enjoy magical realism and mystical settings. The author uses nineteenth century Japan for this book with Samurai, great Houses, nightingale floors and paper walls, and snow. Lots and lots of snow. Reading it made me want to curl up in front of a big log fire to stay warm. I liked Mori in book one. He could remember the future, it was a simple concept. He knew a lot of things, but he always felt like a grounded character that was 'limited' in his scope. In this book, his clairvoyance seems to be through the roof. Every tiny detail (down to a footstep, a word, a inclination) is meticulously prepared in advance. He is seeing decades of futures and near-infinite possibilities, not just for his own life, but for Japan, London, Russia... he is carefully manipulating thousands of people to do things to lead to other things (see: the Hokkaido prisons).Mori smiled properly. The lines around his eyes were deeper than usual now. They made him look like an old photograph of a young man, often crushed, but ironed carefully so that only the ghosts of the marks remained.” The only aspect I liked was the portrayal of a cultural divide between the united kingdom and Japan (their different traditions, languages, social norms etc.). Other than that...there wasn’t much I liked. Besides multifaceted interpersonal dynamics, many other lines intertwine in this tale – politics and Irish nationalists, bombs and rabid racism, the arrogance of the upper classes and the sacrifices of poor people, music and mechanical inventions – making the narration as true as a kaleidoscope. Making the readers care. Making them want to understand. Die kleine Six - 9 Jahre alt - die Mori aus einem Arbeiterhaus geholt hat und jetzt als Adoptivtochter bei Thaniel lebt fand ich als Charakter auch sehr interessant! Durch ihre schlimmen Erfahrungen in ihrem bisherigen Leben ist sie außergewöhnlich und in ihrer Art nicht einfach. Dennoch muss man sie einfach ins Herz schließen, weil die Autorin so genial durchklingen lässt, wie Six in ihrer unnahbaren und eher gelehrigen Art so sehr mit ihren Gefühlen zu kämpfen hat.

Because in the end, none of that really matters. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is an enjoyable, sometimes mind Firstly, do not read this without reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street first. You need the context and you need to already love the characters before fully appreciating the events of the second book. Thaniel and Mori's relationship is easier to understand when you know their history.I won’t go into the plot rehashing here – it’s complicated, and I don’t want to spoil the fun of reading for the others. I’ll concentrate on the characters instead. Now you all know that I despise spoilers, so that is as much as I'm going to say about the actual plot or ingredients of the book. Meanwhile, something strange is happening in a frozen labor camp in Northern Japan. Takiko Pepperharrow, an old friend of Mori's, must investigate. Pretty cool setup, right? We don’t get a strong sense of Thaniel right off the bat; Mori, meanwhile, comes off as ambiguous but always strangely likeable. There is also another character, Grace, who shows up and slowly becomes a part of the book’s narrative. It is weird, and atmospheric, and very interesting to see the cogs turn.