Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Clockwork
	Author:	Pullman, Philip
	Date Published:	1998
	Genre:	Fantasy
	Grade Level:	5 - 7
	Booktalker:	Susan Bartel

Booktalk:
“Once upon a time (when time ran by clockwork) a strange event took place in a little German town. Actually, it was a series of events, all fitting together like the parts of a clock, and although each person saw a different part, no one saw the whole of it: but here it is, as well as I can tell it.” So begins the tale of Clockwork, by Philip Pullman. Karl, the apprentice clockmaker, is in despair as he sits in the White Horse Tavern, because tomorrow is supposed to be his big day, the day he will present to all the people his addition to the town clock. It is to be a figure he has fashioned himself which will do some extraordinary movements when the clock strikes the hour. Folks from miles around have gathered to see the remarkable unveiling. What no one knows but Karl is that there is no new figure because he has been unable to make one. In the same tavern is Fritz, the storyteller, who’s known for his wonderful entertaining ghost stories. He has a story for this evening, but first he joins Karl for a drink. Karl, in his misery, shares with Fritz the awful situation he finds himself him. Karl is entertaining thoughts of running away, or even killing himself. The crowd begins to clamor for Fritz to tell his story. Fritz first looks apologetically at Karl, telling him and the crowd, that, by some strange coincidence, he’s written a story about clockwork, which is in no way about Karl. And Fritz begins his story. It goes something like this: Prince Otto has taken his young son hunting in the dead of winter. They’ve set off on a sledge for a mountain lodge, expected to be gone for a week or so. Only two nights later, the palace sentries hear the panicked whinnying of horses and see a sledge approaching the palace as if being driven by a madman. As it neared, they could be it was the palace sledge, hurtling behind those terrified horses. The sledge drove round and round the courtyard, the horses covered in foam, their eyes rolling. The sledge finally caught on something and turned over. Out fell the driver and a bundle, which the servant picked up, finding the little prince asleep, safe and unharmed. But as for the driver… well, as they came closer they saw it was none other than Prince Otto himself, stark dead, as cold as ice, with his eyes wide and staring ahead of him, his left hand gripping the reins and his right hand still moving, lashing the whip up and down, up and down, up and down. They took the little baby to his mother so she could be assured he was safe. But what to do about Prince Otto? They took his body in and called the Royal Physician, who was puzzled. A dead body that wouldn’t keep still! The Physician carefully unfastened the Prince’s clothing, and there it was: a gash across his breast just over the heart, crudely sewn up with a dozen stiches. The Physician got his scissors and snipped them away, and then nearly fainted, because when he opened up the wound, there was no heart there. Instead there was a little piece of clockwork, attached to the Prince’s veings and tick-tick-ticking away in perfect time the lashing of the arm. He carefully cut the clockwork free, lifted it out, and the arm fell still, just like that. The Physician sewed up the Prince, saying he had suffered a contusion of the brain and that his love for his son had kept him alive just long enough to drive him safely home. He was buried with a great deal of ceremony. As to solving the mystery, the Physician knew of one man who might be able to explain the strange happenings, and that was the great Dr. Kalmenius. For making clockwork, he had no equal. Dr. Kalmenius was said to spend hours in graveyards contemplating the mysteries of life and death. He was known to walk about at night, pulling behind him a sledge containing whatever secret matter he was working on. He was tall and thin, with a prominent nose and jaw. His eyes blazed like coals in caverns of darkness. His hair was long and gray with a loose hood like that of a monk. At this point Fritz stopped. The latch to the tavern was lifting. The door slowly opened. There stood a man in a long black cloak with a loose hood like a monk’s. His gray hair hung down, framing a long, narrow face with a prominent nose and jaw, and eyes that looked like burning coals in caverns of darkness. Behind him he pulled a sledge with a covered form riding on it. The stranger bowed. “Dr. Kalmenius, at your service.