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The Big Clock
George Stroud is a hard-drinking, tough-talking, none-too-scrupulous writer for a New York media conglomerate that bears a striking resemblance to Time, Inc. in the heyday of Henry Luce. One day, before heading home to his wife in the suburbs, Stroud has a drink with Pauline, the beautiful girlfriend of his boss, Earl Janoth. Things happen. The next day Stroud escorts Pauline home, leaving her off at the corner just as Janoth returns from a trip. The day after that, Pauline is found murdered in her apartment.
Janoth knows there was one witness to his entry into Pauline’s apartment on the night of the murder; he knows that man must have been the man Pauline was with before he got back; but he doesn’t know who he was. Janoth badly wants to get his hands on that man, and he picks one of his most trusted employees to track him down: George Stroud, who else?
How does a man escape from himself? No book has ever dramatized that question to more perfect effect than The Big Clock, a masterpiece of American noir.
Janoth knows there was one witness to his entry into Pauline’s apartment on the night of the murder; he knows that man must have been the man Pauline was with before he got back; but he doesn’t know who he was. Janoth badly wants to get his hands on that man, and he picks one of his most trusted employees to track him down: George Stroud, who else?
How does a man escape from himself? No book has ever dramatized that question to more perfect effect than The Big Clock, a masterpiece of American noir.
175 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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4,297 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Fearing
35Ìýbooks31ÌýfollowersKenneth Fearing (July 28, 1902 â€� June 26, 1961) was an American poet, novelist, and founding editor of Partisan Review. Literary critic Macha Rosenthal called him "the chief poet of the American Depression."
Fearing was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Harry Lester Fearing, a successful Chicago attorney, and Olive Flexner Fearing. His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by his aunt, Eva Fearing Scholl. He went to school at Oak Park and River Forest High School, and was editor of the student paper, as was his predecessor Ernest Hemingway. After studying at the University of Illinois in Urbana and the University of Wisconsin, Fearing moved to New York City where he began a career as a poet and was active in leftist politics.
In the 1920s and 1930s, he published regularly in The New Yorker and helped found Partisan Review, while also working as an editor, journalist, and speechwriter and turning out a good deal of pulp fiction. Some of Fearing's pulp fiction was soft-core pornography, often published under the pseudonym Kirk Wolff.
In 1950, he was subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C.; when asked if he was a member of the Communist Party, he is supposed to have replied, "Not yet."
Fearing was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Harry Lester Fearing, a successful Chicago attorney, and Olive Flexner Fearing. His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by his aunt, Eva Fearing Scholl. He went to school at Oak Park and River Forest High School, and was editor of the student paper, as was his predecessor Ernest Hemingway. After studying at the University of Illinois in Urbana and the University of Wisconsin, Fearing moved to New York City where he began a career as a poet and was active in leftist politics.
In the 1920s and 1930s, he published regularly in The New Yorker and helped found Partisan Review, while also working as an editor, journalist, and speechwriter and turning out a good deal of pulp fiction. Some of Fearing's pulp fiction was soft-core pornography, often published under the pseudonym Kirk Wolff.
In 1950, he was subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C.; when asked if he was a member of the Communist Party, he is supposed to have replied, "Not yet."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 329 reviews
June 18, 2024
Oh, yes, how the clock still goes on humming. Kenneth Fearing heard its mechanical, deadly 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 when he wrote his novel, The Big Clock � a tale 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, moral decay eating out their soul. As Fearing’s main character George Stroud says about the clock: “It would be easier and simpler to get squashed, stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along.�
One of my all-time favorites, Kenneth Fearing’s classic noir/thriller published in 1946 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 right up to the last sentence. 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 its conclusion. Considering how effective multiple narrators can be in the hands of an accomplished writer, it’s surprising this literary technique isn’t employed 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 thriller, 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.�
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 scathing depiction of the world of business, it is also a work of first-rate 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, clock-driven world.
A New York Review Books (NYRB) Classic and its two hundred pages can be read in a few days -- highly, highly recommended. I wish I could give it ten stars but the system only goes up to five.
Kenneth Fearing (1902-1961)
October 17, 2019
Curious to know how the book differed from the stellar movie of the same name, I read The Big Clock. The movie is better as whoever the screenwriter was tightened it and made it into a nifty little thriller, with lots of near misses and a much better ending. The movie also white washes all of the characters into better human beings than they are in the book, except for the head corporate snake Janoth, who is as vile in the movie as he is in the book. One thing the book has that the movie doesn't is that the big clock is not an actual clock, but when he references it he means our life running down. In the movie, the big clock is just a clock.
This reference by the author, Kenneth Fearing, makes me think of The Big Sleep which is referring to the last big sleep, death. Did Fearing get the idea for his title from Chandler? It seems likely as The Big Sleep was written in 1939 and The Big Clock in 1946. Fearing also is one of the first writers it seems to write about the horribly dehumanizing effect of the corporate system. We are all just cogs in the big clock. I believe the wonderful actors in the movie read the book too, as Elsa Lancaster's portrayal of Louise Patterson, uses the artist's maniacal laughter and eccentric personality to comic effect in the movie.
This reference by the author, Kenneth Fearing, makes me think of The Big Sleep which is referring to the last big sleep, death. Did Fearing get the idea for his title from Chandler? It seems likely as The Big Sleep was written in 1939 and The Big Clock in 1946. Fearing also is one of the first writers it seems to write about the horribly dehumanizing effect of the corporate system. We are all just cogs in the big clock. I believe the wonderful actors in the movie read the book too, as Elsa Lancaster's portrayal of Louise Patterson, uses the artist's maniacal laughter and eccentric personality to comic effect in the movie.
December 10, 2023
George Stroud is a married magazine editor who spends the weekend cheating on his wife with his boss’s girlfriend. Earl Jonoth is the boss who arrives at his girlfriend’s apartment building, just as Stroud is bringing her home. The two men see each other, but neither knows whether he has been recognized. When the girlfriend turns up dead, Jonoth is desperate to find the killer, presumably the man who brought her home. He assigns the task of tracking him down to Stroud. Stroud scrambles as all clues lead to him.
That is the set up of an entertaining noir novel. It is fast paced with snappy dialog. There is one scene in which 2 of the characters accuse each other of being gay. That surprised me in a book published in 1946. I have seen both movies based on this book, but I really have no recollection of them, except I do remember enjoying “No Way Out� (maybe that had something to do with Kevin Costner). In any event, it’s fun to read books from this era - great plots that are dark and twisty and they are also concisely written. I wish modern authors would take the hint.
That is the set up of an entertaining noir novel. It is fast paced with snappy dialog. There is one scene in which 2 of the characters accuse each other of being gay. That surprised me in a book published in 1946. I have seen both movies based on this book, but I really have no recollection of them, except I do remember enjoying “No Way Out� (maybe that had something to do with Kevin Costner). In any event, it’s fun to read books from this era - great plots that are dark and twisty and they are also concisely written. I wish modern authors would take the hint.
October 14, 2015
Noir classic that deserves its reputation. This is the kind of book the Coen brothers would love to film, but probably won't, since a fine movie -- perfectly cast w/ Milland, Laughton, Elsa Lancaster -- has already been made. (The story/movie must be Holy Ground for them.) But the Big Clock has the kind of blackness that the Coen brothers excel at it (The Man Who Wasn't There, Blood Simple). One of the nice things about this book is that no one is nice. It's a win-win as to who eventually goes down (sorry).
I don't want to reveal much about the book, other than it takes place in the publishing world, has a brutal murder, and a painting (complete with a mad artist). The book, written in 1946, also has a surprising amount of sex. Nothing on stage, but strong hints at serial infidelity, bisexuality, homosexuality (maybe), along with repeated asides that the main characters have done these things before. What a crew! The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that the ending seemed to bit pat, a bit too much of threading the needle. And Fearing's calling George Stroud's wife Georgette, and their daughter Georgia, seemed too cute, though Nabokov must have loved Stroud. For some reason I kept thinking of Humbert Humbert -- even though they're two completely different characters. But those two do share a monumental vanity that's jaw dropping.
I don't want to reveal much about the book, other than it takes place in the publishing world, has a brutal murder, and a painting (complete with a mad artist). The book, written in 1946, also has a surprising amount of sex. Nothing on stage, but strong hints at serial infidelity, bisexuality, homosexuality (maybe), along with repeated asides that the main characters have done these things before. What a crew! The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that the ending seemed to bit pat, a bit too much of threading the needle. And Fearing's calling George Stroud's wife Georgette, and their daughter Georgia, seemed too cute, though Nabokov must have loved Stroud. For some reason I kept thinking of Humbert Humbert -- even though they're two completely different characters. But those two do share a monumental vanity that's jaw dropping.
August 25, 2022
Published in 1946, The Big Clock is set in the world of a large publishing empire headed by a man named Earl Janoth. Janoth Enterprises publishes a variety of weekly and monthly magazines, one of which is Crimeways. The production of Crimeways is the responsibility of a man named George Stroud, the executive editor. Of the magazine, Stroud says, "In theory, we were the nation's police blotter, watchdogs of its purse and conscience, sometimes its morals, its table manners, or anything else that came into our heads. We were diagnosticians of crime; if the F.B.I. had to go to press twice a month, that would be us."
Stroud is married with a small daughter, but he is a hard drinker and a general bon vivant who often cheats on his wife. On one very carless weekend he cavorts with his boss's girlfriend and takes her home just as his boss arrives back from a trip. Janoth sees Stroud in the shadows as the girlfriend walks away from Stroud and comes to meet him, but Janoth fails to recognize him.
When the girlfriend is found murdered the next day, Janoth knows he is in grave danger because this unknown man has seen him going into her apartment about the time of the murder. Janoth concocts an alibi but knows that he needs to find and muzzle this potential witness. He thus makes up a story about the witness and assigns Stroud and the Crimeways team to find and identify him. The bulk of the book thus consists of Stroud allegedly searching for himself while trying to deflect the investigation in any other direction.
It makes for an interesting plot device and it's fun to watch Stroud react as the circle gradually closes around him. The problem, at least for me, is that Stroud is such a selfish and self-important jerk that it's almost impossible to sympathize with him. Beyond that, the ending of the novel seems very rushed and more than a little improbable.
The novel has a fair amount of sex for 1946, along with references to lesbianism and homosexuality. There is the suggestion that Janoth's girlfriend is bisexual and that Janoth himself might be a closeted gay man. Along the way, the author skewers the world of big business and the corporation men who are both its enablers and its victims, and all the while, the big clock of time keeps ticking away, ultimately bringing everyone to account.
Two very good movies were ultimately made from this book, "The Big Clock" (1948), starring Ray Milland and "No Way Out" (1987), starring Kevin Costner. This is one of those rare cases when both of the movies are actually better than the book they were based on.
Stroud is married with a small daughter, but he is a hard drinker and a general bon vivant who often cheats on his wife. On one very carless weekend he cavorts with his boss's girlfriend and takes her home just as his boss arrives back from a trip. Janoth sees Stroud in the shadows as the girlfriend walks away from Stroud and comes to meet him, but Janoth fails to recognize him.
When the girlfriend is found murdered the next day, Janoth knows he is in grave danger because this unknown man has seen him going into her apartment about the time of the murder. Janoth concocts an alibi but knows that he needs to find and muzzle this potential witness. He thus makes up a story about the witness and assigns Stroud and the Crimeways team to find and identify him. The bulk of the book thus consists of Stroud allegedly searching for himself while trying to deflect the investigation in any other direction.
It makes for an interesting plot device and it's fun to watch Stroud react as the circle gradually closes around him. The problem, at least for me, is that Stroud is such a selfish and self-important jerk that it's almost impossible to sympathize with him. Beyond that, the ending of the novel seems very rushed and more than a little improbable.
The novel has a fair amount of sex for 1946, along with references to lesbianism and homosexuality. There is the suggestion that Janoth's girlfriend is bisexual and that Janoth himself might be a closeted gay man. Along the way, the author skewers the world of big business and the corporation men who are both its enablers and its victims, and all the while, the big clock of time keeps ticking away, ultimately bringing everyone to account.
Two very good movies were ultimately made from this book, "The Big Clock" (1948), starring Ray Milland and "No Way Out" (1987), starring Kevin Costner. This is one of those rare cases when both of the movies are actually better than the book they were based on.
April 3, 2015
Due to it's awesome concept, I had great expectations for this short novel. The plot is tailor-made for a great noir. After George Shroud, a crime magazine editor, has a night-long fling with the bosses girlfriend, she ends up with her skull bashed in. His boss is determined to find the man she was with that night and gives the assignment to the very man he's searching for, George himself. Now George must try to steer the investigation away from himself and towards the person he truly believes killed the girl.
But the narrative takes a lot of meandering turns, especially in the beginning (I didn't really care about all the details of the magazine, or all of the philosophical musings about the "big clock"), and he never truly milked the concept to it's full potential. But once the story got going it was engaging enough to be enjoyable.
An instance where the awesome movie (one of my favorite film noirs) is better than the book.
"She was tall, ice-blond, and splendid. The eye saw nothing but innocence, to the instincts she was undiluted sex, the brain said here was a perfect hell."One clever thing that the author, Fearing, did was reveal more and more details about George's character every time his team discovers new information about the "mystery man."
But the narrative takes a lot of meandering turns, especially in the beginning (I didn't really care about all the details of the magazine, or all of the philosophical musings about the "big clock"), and he never truly milked the concept to it's full potential. But once the story got going it was engaging enough to be enjoyable.
An instance where the awesome movie (one of my favorite film noirs) is better than the book.
September 20, 2022
A Poet's Noir
Kenneth Fearing (1902 -- 1961) is sometimes called the "Chief Poet of the American Depression". His noir novel, "The Big Clock" (1946), while set in the aftermath of the Depression, captures a great deal of the lost, wandering character of New York City life in the early 1940's. The novel is intricately plotted and builds tension skillfully to its conclusion. But the book succeeds through its atmosphere, metaphors, and depictions of places more than through its story.
The book is told in the first person but with multiple speakers. This technique offers different perspectives on events as the story moves forward. The different speakers are identified in the separate chapter headings which makes the shifts easy to follow. The primary character is George Stroud who works as an executive for a large magazine conglomerate and lives in the suburbs with his wife and six-year old daughter. Stroud is a hard drinker and a womanizer who is torn between his ambitions for success in corporate life and his own dreams of a more independent footloose life, as evidenced in his earlier jobs as the owner of a roadhouse, a race-track detective, an all-night broadcaster, among other things. Stroud becomes involved with a woman, Pauline Delos, the mistress of his boss, Earl Janoth, who also narrates two chapters in the novel. Janoth is trying to save his magazine business from a corporate takeover.
The plot involves both the stifling, conformist nature of corporate life and a murder. There is a great deal in the book about personal identity and its lack. When Stroud brings Delos to her apartment after a tryst late one night, he sees Janoth from the car. Janoth sees a man but not well enough to make an identification of Stroud. As the evening progresses, Janoth kills Delos in a jealous rage. He and an assistant then ask Stroud to search for the witness on the street, on the pretext that the person was involved in the takeover machinations. Stroud thus is in a position of searching for himself and of throwing off the search.
The key metaphors of the book include "the big clock" which symbolizes the deterministic, remorseless, and purposeless movement of corporate life, for Fearing. Another metaphor, the opposite of the big clock, is a shabby place called Gil's bar, where people simply drift in and out. The proprietor keeps a museum of old junk and challenges his patrons with the stakes of a drink to name something he doesn't have in the "museum". Painting and art also play important roles in the story in the person of an artist named Louise Patterson, who also narrates a critical chapter of the book. Stroud is an admirer of Patterson's work. The twin titles given to one of her paintings which shows simply coins changing hands, "Judas" and "Study of Fundamentals" also capture the themes of the novel.
In his ambivalent roles as hunter and hunted, organization man and free spirit, Stroud reflects at one point in the story about his rigid, pressure-filled, business life:
" [T]he whole organization was full and overrunning with frustrated ex-artists, scientists, farmers, writers, explorers, poets, lawyers, doctors, musicians, all of whom spent their lives conforming, instead. And conforming to what? To a sort of overgrown, aimless, haphazard stenciling apparatus that kept them running to psychoanalysts, sent them to insane asylums, gave them high blood pressure, stomach ulcers. killed them off with cerebral hemorrhages and heart failure, sometimes suicide. Why should I pay still more tribute to this fatal machine? It would be easier and simpler to get squashed stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along."
In 1948, Fearing's novel was made into a movie starring Ray Milland. "The Big Clock" effectively uses the noir, crime genre to explore larger themes. The book is also included in a Library of America volume "Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930's and 40s" for readers who wish a broader exploration of American noir writing.
Robin Friedman
Kenneth Fearing (1902 -- 1961) is sometimes called the "Chief Poet of the American Depression". His noir novel, "The Big Clock" (1946), while set in the aftermath of the Depression, captures a great deal of the lost, wandering character of New York City life in the early 1940's. The novel is intricately plotted and builds tension skillfully to its conclusion. But the book succeeds through its atmosphere, metaphors, and depictions of places more than through its story.
The book is told in the first person but with multiple speakers. This technique offers different perspectives on events as the story moves forward. The different speakers are identified in the separate chapter headings which makes the shifts easy to follow. The primary character is George Stroud who works as an executive for a large magazine conglomerate and lives in the suburbs with his wife and six-year old daughter. Stroud is a hard drinker and a womanizer who is torn between his ambitions for success in corporate life and his own dreams of a more independent footloose life, as evidenced in his earlier jobs as the owner of a roadhouse, a race-track detective, an all-night broadcaster, among other things. Stroud becomes involved with a woman, Pauline Delos, the mistress of his boss, Earl Janoth, who also narrates two chapters in the novel. Janoth is trying to save his magazine business from a corporate takeover.
The plot involves both the stifling, conformist nature of corporate life and a murder. There is a great deal in the book about personal identity and its lack. When Stroud brings Delos to her apartment after a tryst late one night, he sees Janoth from the car. Janoth sees a man but not well enough to make an identification of Stroud. As the evening progresses, Janoth kills Delos in a jealous rage. He and an assistant then ask Stroud to search for the witness on the street, on the pretext that the person was involved in the takeover machinations. Stroud thus is in a position of searching for himself and of throwing off the search.
The key metaphors of the book include "the big clock" which symbolizes the deterministic, remorseless, and purposeless movement of corporate life, for Fearing. Another metaphor, the opposite of the big clock, is a shabby place called Gil's bar, where people simply drift in and out. The proprietor keeps a museum of old junk and challenges his patrons with the stakes of a drink to name something he doesn't have in the "museum". Painting and art also play important roles in the story in the person of an artist named Louise Patterson, who also narrates a critical chapter of the book. Stroud is an admirer of Patterson's work. The twin titles given to one of her paintings which shows simply coins changing hands, "Judas" and "Study of Fundamentals" also capture the themes of the novel.
In his ambivalent roles as hunter and hunted, organization man and free spirit, Stroud reflects at one point in the story about his rigid, pressure-filled, business life:
" [T]he whole organization was full and overrunning with frustrated ex-artists, scientists, farmers, writers, explorers, poets, lawyers, doctors, musicians, all of whom spent their lives conforming, instead. And conforming to what? To a sort of overgrown, aimless, haphazard stenciling apparatus that kept them running to psychoanalysts, sent them to insane asylums, gave them high blood pressure, stomach ulcers. killed them off with cerebral hemorrhages and heart failure, sometimes suicide. Why should I pay still more tribute to this fatal machine? It would be easier and simpler to get squashed stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along."
In 1948, Fearing's novel was made into a movie starring Ray Milland. "The Big Clock" effectively uses the noir, crime genre to explore larger themes. The book is also included in a Library of America volume "Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930's and 40s" for readers who wish a broader exploration of American noir writing.
Robin Friedman
October 25, 2024
A fanstastic Noir set-up. It's been adapted 3 times into film. I've only seen No Way Out, but loved both the movie and the book. The conceit is great. Balanced a thriller aspect with a dark humor. Fast-paced, intelligent, and clever.
January 10, 2024
The big clock was running as usual...Sometimes the hands of the clock actually raced, and at other times they hardly moved at all. But that made no difference to the big clock. The hands could move backward, and the time it told would be right just the same. It would still be running as usual, because all other watches have to be set by the big one.
A man is placed in charge of directing the search for a mysterious figure, the lover of a murdered woman, but the twist here is that the man knows that the person he is looking for is himself, and he is innocent, and he knows who the real murderer is. Wait a minute, you're saying, I saw this film a few years ago, with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman! You're right, the 1987 thriller No Way Out was based on this book, and two older films used the same plot as well. Fearing reaches high with this book, probably his greatest effort, with the metaphorical "big clock" grinding down individuals in the name of self-perpetuation, while also telling a thrilling mystery in just over 200 very readable pages.
This image is actually from the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy which has nothing to do with this book but it does feature a great clock.
A man is placed in charge of directing the search for a mysterious figure, the lover of a murdered woman, but the twist here is that the man knows that the person he is looking for is himself, and he is innocent, and he knows who the real murderer is. Wait a minute, you're saying, I saw this film a few years ago, with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman! You're right, the 1987 thriller No Way Out was based on this book, and two older films used the same plot as well. Fearing reaches high with this book, probably his greatest effort, with the metaphorical "big clock" grinding down individuals in the name of self-perpetuation, while also telling a thrilling mystery in just over 200 very readable pages.
This image is actually from the Coen Brothers film The Hudsucker Proxy which has nothing to do with this book but it does feature a great clock.
March 26, 2016
"I told myself it was just a tool, a vast machine, and the machine was blind. But I had not fully realized its crushing weight and power. That was insane. The machine cannot be challenged. It both creates and blots out, doing each with glacial impersonality. It measures people in the same life-span of mosquitoes and morals, the advance of time. And when the hour strikes, on the big clock, that is indeed the hour, the day, the correct time. When it says a man is right, he is right, and when it finds him wrong, he is through, with no appeal. It is as deaf as it is blind."
The cog springs forward, one tick, one second at a time; the wheel progresses, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, mile by mile whether you like it or not. Fearing's 'The Big Clock' is a New York-based noir that doesn't quite grab you until the climax unfolds. The difference in this is that the reader knows the obvious direction and plot while the characters involved do not. With this, me, the reader found it engaging and unique. Told from a first-person perspective, by a menagerie of characters, 'The Big Clock' goes forward in that clock-wise motion; composed of that unit time and doesn't disappoint.
The cog springs forward, one tick, one second at a time; the wheel progresses, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, mile by mile whether you like it or not. Fearing's 'The Big Clock' is a New York-based noir that doesn't quite grab you until the climax unfolds. The difference in this is that the reader knows the obvious direction and plot while the characters involved do not. With this, me, the reader found it engaging and unique. Told from a first-person perspective, by a menagerie of characters, 'The Big Clock' goes forward in that clock-wise motion; composed of that unit time and doesn't disappoint.
March 7, 2016
Very solid noir, nice takedown of The Corporation Man and his monumental tower of Babel, circa postwar New York City. This was made into a film, but even sight unseen it was entertaining to imagine throughout the reading. The movie version as I imagine it would be one of those cheap studio-bound one-offs, in hard-edged black and white, from RKO Pictures. Where the character actors who play the cabbies, waitresses and bartenders end up walking away with the best moments. In this kind of noir, 'circumstances' are the stars, and their enablers get all the best lines, whether sarcastic bellhop or secretarial pool wisecracker.
Author Fearing seems to have led one of those grotesque noirish lives himself, a bit like David Goodis, ending up writing shady pulp and outright pornography to float a meager existence defined by the bottle.
For this reader the novel was remarkable in that there is almost no 'fat' ... generally this kind of American noir takes a few questionable shaggy dog turns, a tangent or two-- as it lengthens into a saleable whole; The Big Clock has no such handicap. This is one nearly perfectly-gauged suspense story that moves in a razor straight line from inception to outcome; here the Plot is the the one and only roadmap, the ultimate timetable.
There is a notable flaw, though, which is that the Characters are not fully drawn. The villain(s) are crass rat bastards, the sympathetic players are pretty much wackos of one kind or another, and even the platinum blonde Dame is from central casting. None of them moves much beyond a 'type', but this is forgivable when there are maybe two dozen or so major and minor movers, clashing on the same stage throughout. (Not so plausible is the fact that the leading man goes through a shakespearian tragedy's worth of changes and doesn't vary his outlook too much in the course of events. But-- this is noir, pulpy, black noir-- we aren't here to sympathize with this hamlet, we're already in hell from page one, and don't seem to know it yet. )
Balancing the slight downside of character depth is the rotating points-of-view treatment by the author, multiple voices that tell the story. And not just a give and take between two characters, as is so beloved in the modern mystery. There are an astounding seven narrators in this tale, and it blends from one to the next seamlessly, like eggs being folded into a pudding.
A black pudding, made from the crushed up dreams and bloody scraps of all the other characters that have come before.
Author Fearing seems to have led one of those grotesque noirish lives himself, a bit like David Goodis, ending up writing shady pulp and outright pornography to float a meager existence defined by the bottle.
For this reader the novel was remarkable in that there is almost no 'fat' ... generally this kind of American noir takes a few questionable shaggy dog turns, a tangent or two-- as it lengthens into a saleable whole; The Big Clock has no such handicap. This is one nearly perfectly-gauged suspense story that moves in a razor straight line from inception to outcome; here the Plot is the the one and only roadmap, the ultimate timetable.
There is a notable flaw, though, which is that the Characters are not fully drawn. The villain(s) are crass rat bastards, the sympathetic players are pretty much wackos of one kind or another, and even the platinum blonde Dame is from central casting. None of them moves much beyond a 'type', but this is forgivable when there are maybe two dozen or so major and minor movers, clashing on the same stage throughout. (Not so plausible is the fact that the leading man goes through a shakespearian tragedy's worth of changes and doesn't vary his outlook too much in the course of events. But-- this is noir, pulpy, black noir-- we aren't here to sympathize with this hamlet, we're already in hell from page one, and don't seem to know it yet. )
Balancing the slight downside of character depth is the rotating points-of-view treatment by the author, multiple voices that tell the story. And not just a give and take between two characters, as is so beloved in the modern mystery. There are an astounding seven narrators in this tale, and it blends from one to the next seamlessly, like eggs being folded into a pudding.
A black pudding, made from the crushed up dreams and bloody scraps of all the other characters that have come before.
January 15, 2024
She was blonde as hell, wearing a lot of black.
You can tell when a poet tries to write a crime novel: he’s going to boil it down to hard essentials and work those metaphors down to the bone. George Stroud is doomed to be caught up in the gears of the implacable Big Clock, and he jumps in willingly for the sake of the quintessential femme fatale , the dangerous woman he should have known better than to get involved with.
It’s the same old story we’ve read about in dozens of crime books, us fans of noir and hardboiled genre fiction. This particular one appeals to my aestethic sense more than to my police procedural nitpicking. It works better with symbols and with language than as a murder investigation template.
But it is also a hell of a thriller, an edge-of-your seat race against the clock in the right hands, as witnessed by the several movie adaptations that focused on the chase instead of on the metaphor:
For example, the 1948 movie adaptation, scripted by another favorite author of the period Jonathan Latimer, replaces the metaphorical clock of Kenneth Fearing with an actual big clock in the publishing building where George Stroud works. All the action builds up towards a final confrontation among the huge moving parts of the mechanism.
Compare this with the embodiment of Fate, as the author intended:
The machine cannot be challenged. It both creates and blots out, doing each with glacial impersonality. It measures people in the same way that it measures money, and the growth of trees, the life-span of mosquitoes and morals, the advance of time. And when the hour strikes, on the big clock, that is indeed the hour, the day, the correct time. When it says a man is right, and when it finds him wrong, he is through, with no appeal. It is as deaf as it is blind.
Of course, I have asked for this.
Which brings me back to the actual plot.
George Stroud is a successful business executive, working for the most influential publishing trust in the country. He is happily married with a beautiful and smart daughter and a loving wife. He should know better than to go chasing after blonde bombshells wearing black, especially when they are known as the girlfriend of his authoritarian boss, Earl Janoth III.
When, after a weekend tryst, the lady Pauline is found murdered, his boss puts George Stroud in charge of finding the killer before the police. Our man is a recognized ace at finding the needle in the haystack for his department Crimeways , but he finds himself in double jeopardy because all the clues will point out to the weekend he spent with the victim, plus he is the only witness who saw his boss enter the woman’s apartment at the time of the crime.
The big clock is ticking inexorably as the evidence starts to come in from his team of investigative reporters. George Stroud is doomed, unless he can pull an ace out of his sleeve as the doomsday clock it ticking away.
>>><<<>>><<<
Kenneth Fearing was deservedly praised for his use of multiple POV’s and for his control of psychological pressure on the main character, but two aspects of the novel stand out for me and make it special when compared with other outstanding novels of the period: the glimpse into the inner workings of a major publishing organization and the use of painting as a key plot element.
What we decided in this room, more than a million of our fellow-citizens would read three months from now, and what they read they would accept as final. They might not know they were doing so, they might even briefly dispute our decisions, but still they would follow the reasoning we presented, remember the phrases, the tone of authority, and in the end their crystallized judgements would be ours.
The author was inspired, quite transparently, in describing the workplace of George Stroud by Henry Luce and his Time Inc. media conglomerate, one of the most influential public opinion shapers before the Murdoch era. I found the passages where the narrator discusses the power of the press and the moral quandary posed by the deployment of said power to be acutely relevant to our post-truth modern era. Fearing’s left-leaning politics might seem like a distraction from the plot, but I for one appreciated the brainstorming sessions in George Stroud’s office:
“We can suggest a new approach to the whole problem of crime,� I concluded. “Crime is no more inherent in society than diphtheria, horse-cars, or black magic. We are accustomed to thinking that crime will cease only in some far-off Utopia. But the conditions for abolishing it are at hand � right now.�
Similarly, the chase after an obscure painting supposed to be titled the Hand of Cain [an alternate title for the novel], might be seen as a stretch and a red herring but for me it serves well as a distraction and a welcome humorous relief of tension from some obvious plot holes.
As a side note, the role of the painter Louise Patterson in the 1948 movie is a scene stealer and an excellent cast choice in Elsa Lanchester. She is a breath of fresh air in a cynical world, as the author clearly intended:
“You must be a dreadfully cynical and sophisticated person, Mr. Klausmeyer. Don’t you ever long for a breath of good, clean, wholesome, natural fresh air?�
What else stood out for me in the novel: not so much the cute George-Georgia-Georgette worldplay, but definitely the visit to Gil’s Tavern and playing the game of the Museum of Everything:
“Everything. You name it and I’ve got it. What’s more, it’s an experience what happened to me or my family.�
“Funny how everybody wants to see that locomotive, or sometimes it’s the airplane or the steamroller, and usually they ask to see the crystal ball.�
What would you, dear reader, asked to be shown by Gil?
Alternating between funny and grim, with side trips into social commentary and psychological torment, the novel will be memorable for me for Kenneth Fearing’s use of language, for his concise and often bitter summary of living in the shadow of the big clock:
... knowing again that everything in the world was ashes. Cold, and spent, and not quite worth the effort.
June 19, 2019
"Clock" is a better-than-average noiry kind of novel. Somewhat by-the-numbers, it manages to get past a leaden opening few chapters and evolve nicely. Once it gets going, it's pretty great, and I was able, even, to get past its often surreal logic.
The plot is straightforward: guy sleeps with his boss's girlfriend. Boss doesn't know it's him. Boss kills girlfriend in fit of drunken anger. Boss wants to blame someone else. Boss gets guy having an affair with his now-dead girlfriend to investigate and find the "killer".
Multi-perspective chapters help advance the madness along, too. Made into the Kevin Costner vehicle "No Way Out" if you're one of the CostCo fans.
The plot is straightforward: guy sleeps with his boss's girlfriend. Boss doesn't know it's him. Boss kills girlfriend in fit of drunken anger. Boss wants to blame someone else. Boss gets guy having an affair with his now-dead girlfriend to investigate and find the "killer".
Multi-perspective chapters help advance the madness along, too. Made into the Kevin Costner vehicle "No Way Out" if you're one of the CostCo fans.
May 14, 2012
It took me about 40 or 50 pages to warm up to Kenneth Fearing's suspense classic The Big Clock, which is a fair amount of time considering the edition I read was less than 150 pages.
It's written in a breezy, faux-sophisticated style that really rubbed me the wrong way, but once the main conceit of the novel kicks in, it's a hard book to put down. In brief, a man named George Stroud, who works for an enormous publishing syndicate, cheats on his wife for the umpteenth time ... but this time it's with his boss's girlfriend. The boss, Earl Janoth, murders his mistress for unrelated reasons, and the only witness is George Stroud. Janoth's co-publisher and "fixer," Steve Hagen, convinces Janoth that they need to locate the mysterious witness and get rid of him.
The twist is that they put George Stroud in charge of the investigation, so he assembles a team of researchers and sets them to work locating ... him. Stroud doesn't want to come forward as a witness because it will destroy his marriage, but he also doesn't want to succeed in his investigation, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, he can't stall the investigation or screw it up without raising a red flag.
The excellent (and excellently handled) concept that drives the novel really hooked me, but I also didn't mind so much the writing style after I realized that it was Fearing's attempt to get us inside the head of George Stroud (several sections of the novel are written from other characters' first-person views, and they tend to be more utilitarian). And even though Stroud is a bit of a pretentious blowhard, some of his observations about the enormous publishing empire for which he works are pretty brilliant:
"What we decided in this room, more than a million of our fellow-citizens would read three months from now, and what they read they would accept as final. They might not know they were doing so, they might even briefly dispute our decisions, but still they would follow the reasoning we presented, remember the phrases, the tone of authority, and in the end their crystallized judgments would be ours."
The Big Clock was published in 1946 and made into a movie two years later starring Ray Milland. If you follow my classic film blog, I'll be reviewing the film version soon, so stay tuned...
It's written in a breezy, faux-sophisticated style that really rubbed me the wrong way, but once the main conceit of the novel kicks in, it's a hard book to put down. In brief, a man named George Stroud, who works for an enormous publishing syndicate, cheats on his wife for the umpteenth time ... but this time it's with his boss's girlfriend. The boss, Earl Janoth, murders his mistress for unrelated reasons, and the only witness is George Stroud. Janoth's co-publisher and "fixer," Steve Hagen, convinces Janoth that they need to locate the mysterious witness and get rid of him.
The twist is that they put George Stroud in charge of the investigation, so he assembles a team of researchers and sets them to work locating ... him. Stroud doesn't want to come forward as a witness because it will destroy his marriage, but he also doesn't want to succeed in his investigation, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, he can't stall the investigation or screw it up without raising a red flag.
The excellent (and excellently handled) concept that drives the novel really hooked me, but I also didn't mind so much the writing style after I realized that it was Fearing's attempt to get us inside the head of George Stroud (several sections of the novel are written from other characters' first-person views, and they tend to be more utilitarian). And even though Stroud is a bit of a pretentious blowhard, some of his observations about the enormous publishing empire for which he works are pretty brilliant:
"What we decided in this room, more than a million of our fellow-citizens would read three months from now, and what they read they would accept as final. They might not know they were doing so, they might even briefly dispute our decisions, but still they would follow the reasoning we presented, remember the phrases, the tone of authority, and in the end their crystallized judgments would be ours."
The Big Clock was published in 1946 and made into a movie two years later starring Ray Milland. If you follow my classic film blog, I'll be reviewing the film version soon, so stay tuned...
May 24, 2015
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:
“T¾±³¾±ð.
One runs like a mouse up the old, slow pendulum the big clock, time, scurries 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.
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:
“T¾±³¾±ð.
One runs like a mouse up the old, slow pendulum the big clock, time, scurries 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.
November 9, 2017
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.
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.
February 28, 2013
i have admired the john farrow film adaptation of this book for a long time, and i have to say it probably clouded my enjoyment of the novel though i love the conceit of george stroud's dilemma his story, above all. the big clock is an extended metaphor throughout the novel, of business and society controlling and overwhelming independent spirit which is reduced to a reality in the film: there actually *is* a big clock, and instead of ruminating on the big clock as it hustles people along, attention is paid to time and time pieces throughout: the murder weapon in the book for example, is not as it is in the film, a sundial but rather a brandy decanter close at hand. the scene is which the murder takes place is vastly superior in the novel, and the innuendo that sparks the killer's blood rage has much more impact.
i also appreciate how deftly fearing managed his multiple narrators: something not attempted in the film. but the end of the book is abrupt, and i believe the ending is very much improved in the harrowing film climax: it's neater. having recently watched the first three seasons of mad men, i found myself seeing similarities between main character of that show, don draper, and the character, george stroud: he is a man who has reinvented himself over and over again, and tries to manage a double life as best he can. this is a very readable book but i came at it from the wrong direction.
i also appreciate how deftly fearing managed his multiple narrators: something not attempted in the film. but the end of the book is abrupt, and i believe the ending is very much improved in the harrowing film climax: it's neater. having recently watched the first three seasons of mad men, i found myself seeing similarities between main character of that show, don draper, and the character, george stroud: he is a man who has reinvented himself over and over again, and tries to manage a double life as best he can. this is a very readable book but i came at it from the wrong direction.
February 25, 2024
The Big Clock was written in 1947, and was portrayed on film in 1948, 1976 and 1987. George Stroud is an executive editor for a large publishing company in New York City. He starts up an affair with the big boss's girlfriend, Pauline Delos. I found the first third of the novel, before any tension develops, to be quite slow. Then an event occurs that puts both George and his boss Mr. Janoth into some major hot water. The pace picks up as a cat-and-mouse game of secrets and discovery bring the story to a dramatic end.
I have two significant issues with Fearing's writing here. As a writer known for poetry, I'm afraid his tendency for an over-the-top writing style, especially in that slow opening portion of the book, was very distracting. Later, the coincidence that George himself is selected out of so many candidates to lead the all-important internal investigation to determine who was the "mystery man" last seen with Pauline Delos is too much.
I have two significant issues with Fearing's writing here. As a writer known for poetry, I'm afraid his tendency for an over-the-top writing style, especially in that slow opening portion of the book, was very distracting. Later, the coincidence that George himself is selected out of so many candidates to lead the all-important internal investigation to determine who was the "mystery man" last seen with Pauline Delos is too much.
August 9, 2021
Excellent noirish novel. About halfway through the suspense gradually builds to an unbearable crescendo. Written by noted proletarian poet Kenneth Fearing (1902-61), The Big Clock seamlessly combines a variety of literary techniques to make an intelligent and (mostly) rewarding experience. The "big clock" is a threatening metaphor that works on several levels: time, life, the corporate world, fate. Read it as you will. The story is told by several different first person narrators, each of which enriches the story and gives the reader new and unforeseen insights. My favorite aspect was that the protagonist's self-image is repeatedly punctured as we learn what others think of him. We're never what we think we are, only as others see us. The plot involves a publishing exec who is given the totality of the corporation's resources to track down a certain man, who is ... himself. This makes for a clever game of cat and mouse. Characters are interesting and genuine and perhaps daring for 1946. Of course novels were always much more socially forward compared to what films of the time were allowed to show, and my impressions of history are based more on classic movies. [spoilers ahead] My only quibble was the ending which was too quick, too neat, too happy, and too thin. The novel has laid out a complex background in great detail, we're invested in the many characters, the tension makes me want to put the book down, and it's all wrapped up in one sentence. All the many threads end with a flick of the wrist. The protagonist has committed his share of wrongs, but gets to walk away unscathed, better off than before, perhaps only to sin again. That's not noir. Not only that, questions remain. It's implausible that the police would relent so easily. Made into a 1948 movie of the same name with Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, and Elsa Lanchester. Remade as No Way Out (1987) with Kevin Costner, Sean Young, and Gene Hackman.
October 8, 2013
Sometimes, it is possible for an excellent novel to be overshadowed by an excellent film based on it. 's is probably better known as the original source for John Farrow's film of the same name, with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton. In many ways, the film was slightly better, though it could not hope to replicate the novel's multiple narrators: The film is entirely from the character of George Stroud, played by the underrated Milland. Also, the metaphorical title assumes in the film a central role, whereas for Fearing it is an occasional reference point.
Fearing also introduces an accusation of homosexuality as the motive for the murder of Pauline Delos (York in the film). In 1948, that would just not do, though the casting of George Macready as the silky Steve Hagen allows the film viewer to make up his own mind.
In any case, I think it is worthwhile to read the book as well as see the film. Fearing's experimental use of seven different narrators would not have been my bet to work out as well as it did. It helps add suspense to the whole notion that the man who committed the crime is also the man in charge of fingering ... himself.
Fearing also introduces an accusation of homosexuality as the motive for the murder of Pauline Delos (York in the film). In 1948, that would just not do, though the casting of George Macready as the silky Steve Hagen allows the film viewer to make up his own mind.
In any case, I think it is worthwhile to read the book as well as see the film. Fearing's experimental use of seven different narrators would not have been my bet to work out as well as it did. It helps add suspense to the whole notion that the man who committed the crime is also the man in charge of fingering ... himself.
September 3, 2017
The Big Clock is a book where the concept was better than the execution.
Originally published in 1946, the book focuses on George Stroud, a senior manager at a publishing firm, married with a young child; the book alludes to him being somewhat of a womanizer with a history of adultery. It's his loose morals that lands him in hot water when the girlfriend of his boss is found brutally murdered moments after he last saw her.
Sounds like a very good book - perfectly dark and oozing that noir atmosphere I love being enveloped in, and in a way it is a good book but unfortunately there's a lot of filler content which detracts from the pacing - a real let down considering the page count it relatively low (144 pages).
There's a distinct cat and mouse feel to The Big Clock as the world closes in on George as he tries to maintain his innocence while keeping his affair secret. The later stages of the book capture his frenetic scheming to great effect, a real highlight of the book.
My rating: 3/5 stars. I would recommend this to fans of early American noir. It's a book that reads better if you read slowly and get through big chunks in each sitting.
Review also appears on my blog:
Originally published in 1946, the book focuses on George Stroud, a senior manager at a publishing firm, married with a young child; the book alludes to him being somewhat of a womanizer with a history of adultery. It's his loose morals that lands him in hot water when the girlfriend of his boss is found brutally murdered moments after he last saw her.
Sounds like a very good book - perfectly dark and oozing that noir atmosphere I love being enveloped in, and in a way it is a good book but unfortunately there's a lot of filler content which detracts from the pacing - a real let down considering the page count it relatively low (144 pages).
There's a distinct cat and mouse feel to The Big Clock as the world closes in on George as he tries to maintain his innocence while keeping his affair secret. The later stages of the book capture his frenetic scheming to great effect, a real highlight of the book.
My rating: 3/5 stars. I would recommend this to fans of early American noir. It's a book that reads better if you read slowly and get through big chunks in each sitting.
Review also appears on my blog:
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August 24, 2024DNF @ the end of “George Stroud II�/@ p. 18. And I read a little of the introduction.
You know�.. middle-aged men with corporate jobs and wives and elementary school-age kids need stories about them too, or something. I think it tells you everything you need to know about this book and my experience reading it that this MC’s wife and kid are basically also named George (Georgette and Georgia) because they don’t exist except as extensions of himself, or that’s how he sees it, or something. Yeah, whatever. I have no desire to keep reading.
I will say, this is the last on my pile of NYRB Classics & similar that I bought at a huge and very nice indie bookstore while on a work trip and then had to have shipped home because they wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, lol. So mixed results on reading experience� but only positive memories of that bookstore!
You know�.. middle-aged men with corporate jobs and wives and elementary school-age kids need stories about them too, or something. I think it tells you everything you need to know about this book and my experience reading it that this MC’s wife and kid are basically also named George (Georgette and Georgia) because they don’t exist except as extensions of himself, or that’s how he sees it, or something. Yeah, whatever. I have no desire to keep reading.
I will say, this is the last on my pile of NYRB Classics & similar that I bought at a huge and very nice indie bookstore while on a work trip and then had to have shipped home because they wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, lol. So mixed results on reading experience� but only positive memories of that bookstore!
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November 6, 2024If a writer is to murder a character, shouldn’t it be for solid reason? Married George Stroud works for New York publishing magnate Earl Janoth. While George is mere middle management, he comes to capture the attention of the eminently attractive Pauline Delos, Janoth’s girlfriend. Not long after that affair launches, Janoth gets into an argument with Pauline, and kills her in a rage with a few brandy decanter blows to the head. Where did that violence come from? Mr. Fearing gave us no reason to consider Janoth’s personality dangerous. Had that character killed or abused others? Did he have a major psychological disorder? Had Janoth threatened Pauline previously? I felt the author needed a murder so he served one up hastily without much thought.
Janoth begins to scheme beyond an alibi. He needs to frame a fall guy so that our ultra-wealthy publisher can dodge justice. He tasks George with leading a posse of investigators to track down an unidentified man seen with Pauline before Janoth met up with her. That man was George. Naturally, George stalls, convincingly, in his search efforts, though he can’t prevent the teams from closing in as the big clock ticks.
While I liked the novel’s framing � each of the nineteen chapters is narrated by one of seven characters � the ending was lame. Here, too, Mr. Fearing caved to expediency. The result is a work that falls well short of remarkable.
Janoth begins to scheme beyond an alibi. He needs to frame a fall guy so that our ultra-wealthy publisher can dodge justice. He tasks George with leading a posse of investigators to track down an unidentified man seen with Pauline before Janoth met up with her. That man was George. Naturally, George stalls, convincingly, in his search efforts, though he can’t prevent the teams from closing in as the big clock ticks.
While I liked the novel’s framing � each of the nineteen chapters is narrated by one of seven characters � the ending was lame. Here, too, Mr. Fearing caved to expediency. The result is a work that falls well short of remarkable.
March 3, 2017
I actually got a copy for Kindle from Gutenberg.ca. So sue me!
It is also available in
The movie, with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton, departs from the book, and yet I consider both successful works. The "big clock," a metaphor in the book, is made literal in the movie. The theme of homosexuality is, of course, played down in the movie, but not absent.
What struck me about the book was this statement of George Stroud on the importance of his job, which he both hates and loves:
"... Down the hall, in Sydney's office, there was a window out of which an almost forgotten associate editor had long ago jumped. I occasionally wondered whether he had done so after some conference such as this. Just picked up his notes and walked down the corridor to his own room, opened the window, and then stepped out.
But we were not insane.
We were not children exchanging solemn fantasies in some progressive nursery. Nor were the things we were doing here completely useless.
What we decided in this room, more than a million of our fellow-citizens would read three months from now, and what they read they would accept as final. They might not know they were doing so, they might even briefly dispute our decisions, but still they would follow the reasoning we presented, remember the phrases, the tone of authority, and in the end their crystallized judgments would be ours.
Where our own logic came from, of course, was still another matter. The moving impulse simply arrived, and we, on the face that the giant clock turned to the public, merely registered the correct hour of the standard time.
But being the measure by which so many lives were shaped and guided gave us, sometimes, strange delusions."
The artist (Louise Patterson) whose work George collects, when she steps onstage, is a marvelous sketch of a true Bohemian:
"... Would you like some muscatel? It's all I have."
I dragged out what was left of a gallon of muscatel and found one of my few remaining good tumblers. It was almost clean.
"No, thank you," he said. "About that article, Miss Patterson�"
"Not even a little?"
"No, really. But regarding the article�"
"It isn't very good," I admitted. "I mean the wine," I explained, then I realized I was simply bellowing, and felt aghast. Mr. Klausmeyer hadn't done anything to me, he looked like the sensitive type who takes everything personally, and the least I could do was to refrain from insulting him. I made up my mind to act exactly like an artist should. I poured myself a glass of the muscatel and urged him, quite gently, "I do wish you'd join me."
"No, thanks. Miss Patterson, I didn't write that article in Newsways."
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No."
"Well, I thought it was a perfectly wonderful story." It came to me that I'd said the wrong thing again, and I simply howled. "I mean, within limits. Please, Mr. Klausmeyer, don't mind me. I'm not used to having my pictures labeled 'costly.' Or was it 'invaluable'? The one the murderer bought for fifty bucks."
All told, a very readable, very vivid snapshot of postwar America, which deserves its "minor classic" status.
It is also available in
The movie, with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton, departs from the book, and yet I consider both successful works. The "big clock," a metaphor in the book, is made literal in the movie. The theme of homosexuality is, of course, played down in the movie, but not absent.
What struck me about the book was this statement of George Stroud on the importance of his job, which he both hates and loves:
"... Down the hall, in Sydney's office, there was a window out of which an almost forgotten associate editor had long ago jumped. I occasionally wondered whether he had done so after some conference such as this. Just picked up his notes and walked down the corridor to his own room, opened the window, and then stepped out.
But we were not insane.
We were not children exchanging solemn fantasies in some progressive nursery. Nor were the things we were doing here completely useless.
What we decided in this room, more than a million of our fellow-citizens would read three months from now, and what they read they would accept as final. They might not know they were doing so, they might even briefly dispute our decisions, but still they would follow the reasoning we presented, remember the phrases, the tone of authority, and in the end their crystallized judgments would be ours.
Where our own logic came from, of course, was still another matter. The moving impulse simply arrived, and we, on the face that the giant clock turned to the public, merely registered the correct hour of the standard time.
But being the measure by which so many lives were shaped and guided gave us, sometimes, strange delusions."
The artist (Louise Patterson) whose work George collects, when she steps onstage, is a marvelous sketch of a true Bohemian:
"... Would you like some muscatel? It's all I have."
I dragged out what was left of a gallon of muscatel and found one of my few remaining good tumblers. It was almost clean.
"No, thank you," he said. "About that article, Miss Patterson�"
"Not even a little?"
"No, really. But regarding the article�"
"It isn't very good," I admitted. "I mean the wine," I explained, then I realized I was simply bellowing, and felt aghast. Mr. Klausmeyer hadn't done anything to me, he looked like the sensitive type who takes everything personally, and the least I could do was to refrain from insulting him. I made up my mind to act exactly like an artist should. I poured myself a glass of the muscatel and urged him, quite gently, "I do wish you'd join me."
"No, thanks. Miss Patterson, I didn't write that article in Newsways."
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No."
"Well, I thought it was a perfectly wonderful story." It came to me that I'd said the wrong thing again, and I simply howled. "I mean, within limits. Please, Mr. Klausmeyer, don't mind me. I'm not used to having my pictures labeled 'costly.' Or was it 'invaluable'? The one the murderer bought for fifty bucks."
All told, a very readable, very vivid snapshot of postwar America, which deserves its "minor classic" status.
September 12, 2014
I was a bit surprised at how slow this novel started: there’s nothing in the first thirty pages to indicate the page turning tension that is to follow. And even the next thrity pages are still setup. But the slow start does serve the strategic purpose of establishing George Stroud’s “normal world� before events threaten to undue it all. The final hundred pages, however, are page turning suspense as the noose around George’s neck gets tighter and tighter. Great stuff.
The multiple first person narrators - and there are seven, each given the chapter to themselves when they have the floor - worked much better than I expected. The narrative strategy question Fearing faced was: How to keep funneling information to the reader without having it just be a continual sequence of investigation status reports to Stroud? So having other narrators take the stage briefly to push the plot and let us see how Stroud is dealing with things was a good choice. Not a lot of variance in the voices, however, at least until the chapter narrated by the artist, there Fearing really stretched out and captured a voice different from Stroud.
Don’t want to be a spoiler so will skip the details, but the ending does not work because it doesn’t actually solve Stroud’s problem. On one level, yes, but on a potentially more important level things are much worse for him and the novel ends without even addressing a big part of the plot that is still in motion.
The multiple first person narrators - and there are seven, each given the chapter to themselves when they have the floor - worked much better than I expected. The narrative strategy question Fearing faced was: How to keep funneling information to the reader without having it just be a continual sequence of investigation status reports to Stroud? So having other narrators take the stage briefly to push the plot and let us see how Stroud is dealing with things was a good choice. Not a lot of variance in the voices, however, at least until the chapter narrated by the artist, there Fearing really stretched out and captured a voice different from Stroud.
Don’t want to be a spoiler so will skip the details, but the ending does not work because it doesn’t actually solve Stroud’s problem. On one level, yes, but on a potentially more important level things are much worse for him and the novel ends without even addressing a big part of the plot that is still in motion.
March 16, 2025
Magistrale noir del 1946 che segue le regole del genere sovvertendole dall’interno.
March 8, 2008
What, exactly, is a mystery novel? From a distance the genre seems like an obvious one: it's about Sam Spade tracking down a murderer, or Phillip Marlowe lurking in the foggy shadows with a pistol in hand.
Examined more closely though, most of the obvious elements that seem to define a mystery fall away. There are mysteries that don't involve murders (a number of Sherlock Holmes stories come to mind), that don't feature detectives as protagonists (like most of Jim Thompson's novels), and that don't even culminate in the solving of a crime (for example, Andrea Camilleri's The Shape of Water.) So if a novel can be a mystery without a corpse, a detective, or a criminal brought to justice, what exactly defines the genre?
If I had to take a stab at some kind of definition, I'd suggest that maybe two kinds of things characterize mystery novels. The first is that in such books, the essential and overt struggle of the protagonist is with the limits of their own understanding. Of course, one could argue that in most modern literature the awareness of the main character grows in some way over the span of the book, often culminating in a moment of self-realization. But in general this growth is subtextual, a byproduct of other plot activities. In a mystery, on the other hand, the struggle for knowledge becomes the overt goal of the protagonist and the driving factor of the narrative.
The second thing that seems to characterize mystery novels is that, as a result of the protagonist's struggle for understanding, the difference between essential and incidental details is erased. As the characters in a mystery try to decipher whatever puzzle is confronting them, they (as we as readers) have no way of knowing what facts may ultimately prove to be essential to that solution. The fact that a man is wearing a red shirt, or that there are footprints on a lawn, or the way that the wind rattles the shutters of a house, all may become vital clues. This means that we tend to read mystery novels with a kind of heightened state of awareness, since no passage can be safely skimmed over.
I'm bringing this up here because although The Big Clock is certainly a mystery, it doesn't conform to most expectations about the genre. Alternating between the perspective of multiple narrators, there's no clear detective/protagonist in this book, and although there is a murder there's never any question about who committed it: virtually all of the characters are aware of the guilty party from the start. This means that the mystery is never really "solved" -- it would be more accurate to say that it becomes irrelevant as the story reaches its conclusion.
In part because of this structural originality, and in part for the sheer quality of the prose, The Big Clock is a noir classic that deserves to be on the shelf alongside Dashiell Hammett and : highly recommended for fans of detective fiction in general, and particularly those interested in all the strange and wonderful places where the genre can go.
Examined more closely though, most of the obvious elements that seem to define a mystery fall away. There are mysteries that don't involve murders (a number of Sherlock Holmes stories come to mind), that don't feature detectives as protagonists (like most of Jim Thompson's novels), and that don't even culminate in the solving of a crime (for example, Andrea Camilleri's The Shape of Water.) So if a novel can be a mystery without a corpse, a detective, or a criminal brought to justice, what exactly defines the genre?
If I had to take a stab at some kind of definition, I'd suggest that maybe two kinds of things characterize mystery novels. The first is that in such books, the essential and overt struggle of the protagonist is with the limits of their own understanding. Of course, one could argue that in most modern literature the awareness of the main character grows in some way over the span of the book, often culminating in a moment of self-realization. But in general this growth is subtextual, a byproduct of other plot activities. In a mystery, on the other hand, the struggle for knowledge becomes the overt goal of the protagonist and the driving factor of the narrative.
The second thing that seems to characterize mystery novels is that, as a result of the protagonist's struggle for understanding, the difference between essential and incidental details is erased. As the characters in a mystery try to decipher whatever puzzle is confronting them, they (as we as readers) have no way of knowing what facts may ultimately prove to be essential to that solution. The fact that a man is wearing a red shirt, or that there are footprints on a lawn, or the way that the wind rattles the shutters of a house, all may become vital clues. This means that we tend to read mystery novels with a kind of heightened state of awareness, since no passage can be safely skimmed over.
I'm bringing this up here because although The Big Clock is certainly a mystery, it doesn't conform to most expectations about the genre. Alternating between the perspective of multiple narrators, there's no clear detective/protagonist in this book, and although there is a murder there's never any question about who committed it: virtually all of the characters are aware of the guilty party from the start. This means that the mystery is never really "solved" -- it would be more accurate to say that it becomes irrelevant as the story reaches its conclusion.
In part because of this structural originality, and in part for the sheer quality of the prose, The Big Clock is a noir classic that deserves to be on the shelf alongside Dashiell Hammett and : highly recommended for fans of detective fiction in general, and particularly those interested in all the strange and wonderful places where the genre can go.
July 16, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century American Crime
"No gang or business [or, in today's world, elections] in the world is immune to a gang with sufficient patience, resources, and brains. Here's the last word in criminal technique, matching business methods against business methods," writes Fearing in this ripped-from-today's headlines story. The clock is ticking: who'll be indicted next?
BOOK 84 (of 250)
Hook=2 stars: We're 'taught' instead of told-through-the-story of the publishing industry. Curveballs such as 'President McKinley' showing up in a bar serve as minor red herrings: are people really who the reader thinks they are? Who is committing what kind of crime?
Pace=2: Fearing steadily cranks up the twists, but the pace is slow for too long.
Plot=4: The middle third of this novel is great: Fearing closes in on a great mystery/thriller but sort of wimps out at the end. The author has a lot of elements up in the air and it's as if, instead of bringing the elements down, piece by piece, he just drops a final bombshell. The end. He takes the easy way out after, no doubt, a lot of blood, sweat and tears poured into a portion of this book.
People=5: Once you close the book, you might remember President Mckinley, or perhaps Pauline, the bombshell blonde, or George Stroud who is also George Chester, or the artist Loise Patterson or particularly Earl Jonath who owns and runs Jonath Enterprises. But as to why he stands out, well, I can't really say without giving anything away. And you might question who was straight, gay, or bisexual. And you will wonder what crimes, exactly, are being committed and by who? Great cast: surprisingly ambivalent about sexual preferences for 1946.
Place=4: While Agatha Christie's "Orient Express" ran horizontally, here we have a 30-story publishing company running vertically. The most powerful people are at the top: those in lower positions strive for a higher floor to work on a better publication. And a person's place in this building is intertwined beautifully with the plot. Fearing sets us in the middle of a publishing company which thrives on stories, and writers who make stories even bigger and better and possibly not even close to the truth anymore. Fearing can see clearly where publishing companies are headed: not to truth, but to money.
Summary: My average rating is 3.4. This is a very good book which, for me, could have been great had the author spent less time on foreplay and more time on plot resolution. Still, it's very good noir.
"No gang or business [or, in today's world, elections] in the world is immune to a gang with sufficient patience, resources, and brains. Here's the last word in criminal technique, matching business methods against business methods," writes Fearing in this ripped-from-today's headlines story. The clock is ticking: who'll be indicted next?
BOOK 84 (of 250)
Hook=2 stars: We're 'taught' instead of told-through-the-story of the publishing industry. Curveballs such as 'President McKinley' showing up in a bar serve as minor red herrings: are people really who the reader thinks they are? Who is committing what kind of crime?
Pace=2: Fearing steadily cranks up the twists, but the pace is slow for too long.
Plot=4: The middle third of this novel is great: Fearing closes in on a great mystery/thriller but sort of wimps out at the end. The author has a lot of elements up in the air and it's as if, instead of bringing the elements down, piece by piece, he just drops a final bombshell. The end. He takes the easy way out after, no doubt, a lot of blood, sweat and tears poured into a portion of this book.
People=5: Once you close the book, you might remember President Mckinley, or perhaps Pauline, the bombshell blonde, or George Stroud who is also George Chester, or the artist Loise Patterson or particularly Earl Jonath who owns and runs Jonath Enterprises. But as to why he stands out, well, I can't really say without giving anything away. And you might question who was straight, gay, or bisexual. And you will wonder what crimes, exactly, are being committed and by who? Great cast: surprisingly ambivalent about sexual preferences for 1946.
Place=4: While Agatha Christie's "Orient Express" ran horizontally, here we have a 30-story publishing company running vertically. The most powerful people are at the top: those in lower positions strive for a higher floor to work on a better publication. And a person's place in this building is intertwined beautifully with the plot. Fearing sets us in the middle of a publishing company which thrives on stories, and writers who make stories even bigger and better and possibly not even close to the truth anymore. Fearing can see clearly where publishing companies are headed: not to truth, but to money.
Summary: My average rating is 3.4. This is a very good book which, for me, could have been great had the author spent less time on foreplay and more time on plot resolution. Still, it's very good noir.
July 27, 2011
When I read fiction, the last aspect I care about is plot, but I've been reading crime novels and mysteries to help me better teach plot to my students interested in writing genre and popular fiction. I tore through the book in less than 24-hours. I read very slowly and in spurts, so I suspect many would read the novel in one sitting. Although Fearing has some dynamic poems, he restrains himself from linguistic indulgences in his fiction. I would have tired of the story-line, despite its straight-ahead pacing (yes, the "story" part of fiction bores me), but the narrator shifts through various characters, rarely revisiting events but instead moving the story forward from new perspectives, definitively sharpened the events and gave definition to George Stroud and the other characters. I'm not sure what motivates most of the characters; ultimately, this novel is all about delivering the story. Fearing's practice as a technician is the only aspect of the novel that will stay with me, but I am particularly impressed at how in a restrained prose style he uses narrative shifts to move the plot. I assume Roberto Bolano read Fearing's work.
February 5, 2016
A curious novel (from 1946) made into at least one curious movie, The Big Clock is regarded as a noir classic. Its premise is clever and original: A journalist is put in charge of an investigation to locate and identify a reluctant witness to a murder, who happens to be himself. The reason he was in the wrong place at the wrong time is that he was cheating on his wife with his boss's mistress, an unenviable twofer. Going to the cops will destroy his marriage; completing his task will finger him for the killer. The only mystery is how our man is going to get out of the jam. The tension mounts.
Set at a giant New York media conglomerate, the book is witty and scathing about the publishing industry and New York society of the forties. Fearing was a poet, and his prose was pretty decent, too; the clock of the title is a metaphor. We can all hear it ticking.
Set at a giant New York media conglomerate, the book is witty and scathing about the publishing industry and New York society of the forties. Fearing was a poet, and his prose was pretty decent, too; the clock of the title is a metaphor. We can all hear it ticking.
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