Brilliant novel from an expert author
We all complain sometimes that we don't have enough hours to do the things we want to do. At other times we grumble that time is passing too slowly and we are bored and fed up.
The relationship between people and time is complicated, but it is we who make time full of twists and turns. Time really is very simple: it just ticks away turning today into tomorrow.
But something has suddenly started to go wrong with time. Out of nowhere, time tornados are blowing in like tsunamis sweeping away people, land and buildings. Time traps are stopping trains and planes and then whizzing them to their destinations at the speed of light. Something has to be done to get time back on track.
World governments are currently in advanced negotiations with a private company called Quanta, a powerful multinational organisation that has developed the technology to control time.
Quanta's business aim is to eventually buy and sell time just like electricity or water. But for the time being, its boss is helping world leaders sort out the irregular behaviour of time and the chaos this is causing.
But the control of time is not really in the hands of world governments or Quanta. It is in the hands of an ordinary teenager called Silver who is the secret guardian of an ancient clock called the Timekeeper. Whoever owns the Timekeeper controls time and will become the most powerful person in the universe.
The Timekeeper has passed secretly through history, its power hidden by people who fully understand what it can do. But rumours about the existence of the Timekeeper have leaked out over the centuries, and there have always been unscrupulous individuals who have wanted to own the Timekeeper for their own ends.
Silver lives in a big rambling mansion called Tanglewreck. Her parents disappeared when she was seven years old, and, since then, she has been looked after by her bad-tempered aunt, Mrs Rokabye. Silver has heard weird tales about a special clock that might be hidden somewhere in Tanglewreck, but she doesn't really understand these stories.
One day, a mysterious man who gives his name as Abel Darkwater knocks on the door of Tanglewreck. He is looking for the Timekeeper and he knows that Silver is the key to its discovery.
Jeannette Winterson is the author of many acclaimed novels for adults and Tanglewreck is her first work for younger readers. It is a brilliant book: big, exciting and packed full of inventiveness and adventure. Winterson has crammed enough originality into Tanglewreck to fill a dozen stories.
Occasionally, brilliant ideas get in the way of the plot, but just when you think the whole thing might zoom out of control, Winterson pulls in her imagination and gets things back in line.
Tanglewreck is a breathless read that doesn't stand still for a moment. The author has obviously had great fun writing this book, and if at the end you are left with ideas fatigue, the best thing to do is wait a while, give your brain a rest, and then read the whole book again to make sure you didn't miss anything the first time around.
Tanglewreck
By Jeanette Winterson
Published by Bloomsbury
ISBN 0 7475 8064 2
