The Horizontal Instrument

2008 Reading List (99 items)
list by Raven

Upon finishing this I thought it was an interesting take on love, loss and grief about a man who losses his wife to dementia. At first it read like a book about time and timepieces interspersed with bits of the story but after awhile it became moments of introspective reflections on perspective, time, memory and how they are connected again interspersed with more of the story reading like two sepa... read more

Description: When his wife, Elizabeth, dies from a disease which destroys her memory, then her personality and finally her physical being, watchmaker Robert Garrett decides to remember her by embarking on a special project. All his life he has been obsessed with an age old question: can there ever be such a thing as a perfectly accurate time piece? Elizabeth’s memorial will be a traditionally built mechanical watch in which he hopes natural imperfections of every kind will conspire to create a flawless instrument. Can Robert succeed in a quest that has eluded generations of craftsmen and scientists before him? In any case, what is perfect When his wife, Elizabeth, dies from a disease which destroys her memory, then her personality and finally her physical being, watchmaker Robert Garrett decides to remember her by embarking on a special project. All his life he has been obsessed with an age old question: can there ever be such a thing as a perfectly accurate time piece? Elizabeth’s memorial will be a traditionally built mechanical watch in which he hopes natural imperfections of every kind will conspire to create a flawless instrument. Can Robert succeed in a quest that has eluded generations of craftsmen and scientists before him? In any case, what is perfect time? And how can he reconcile his horological obsession with memories of the one person he knew and loved best in the world? ... (more) (less)