Some months back I read a tweet (I think it was from Maud Newton) that introduced me to Muriel Spark's one children's book - The Very Fine Clock - with some charming drawings by Edward Gorey. The book made its way to my wish list, and I did not give it a whole lot of thought after that. Published in 1968 and now out of print, it struck me as one of those things that would wait for the right moment. But this week, the book found its way to me most unexpectedly.
There was a project that needed to be done at school. Not one I wanted to do but one I thought I should do. And I did not enjoy it a single bit. But in the bottom of an old box filled with a large and various array of school detritus from the last three decades or so, sat this book. And the clock on the cover was looking squarely at me. A moment of bookish serendipity. And I thrilled at the thought that I was meant to have this. And that good karma had been somehow acquired through my willingness to take on this crap job.
The picture book begins:
"Once there was a very fine clock whose name was Ticky. His friend, Professor Horace John Morris, had brought Ticky home with him from Switzerland one day, in the winter time, many years ago. Since then, Ticky and the professor had become very attached to each other, and they understood each others' ways."
Ticky speaks to the professor and his professor friends in a way that impresses them so much that they invite him to join their ranks at the university. But Ticky must decline. He must remain in the house with his other clock friends for ultimately "heart speaks to heart," and Ticky is a bridge between two worlds that must remain in place.
Very happy to own this.