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the problem with Clockwork Boys.
Uh.
Okay.
Let's see.
I love Sebastian and Percy, the twins, and their life at boarding school. It's a great setting- dark, creepy dorms separated from the main building (which was once an asylum) by winding, unreliable and crooked paths, the entire thing perched on a cliff the edge of which had brought many a young man to his death.
I love the macabre nature of the place, and how the boys are ever on guard due to a series of highly unpleasant events that befall one of them in the second story in the series. I love that they're constantly blowing up the chem lab, and that the music rooms are dark and creepy and rumored to be haunted by the old director's ghost- that Sebastian, when he practices there alone, is startled by the sound of his own violin. I love Josef, their best friend, and how he and his mates pummel St. Norbert's, the school's rivals, on the misty, foggy, dreary rugby field.
I love Josef's white knighting- his defensiveness over the boys' honor. I love the constant battle between the boys and their mates and the Whips (the equivalents of Prefects in Harry Potter) and their.s
I love the mischief even the professors get up to. And I love that they never know what lies beyond the bend, both in a literal and metaphorical sense.
But I love their father too- Cecil- and his lover, Raleigh. I love Cecil's manor and the bright, natural grounds- the brook that passes through his property, the towering trees and the stables and the aviary and the gazebo in the middle of the garden his late wife planted and tended religiously (and that the staff still does, out of a sense of loyalty to their lost mistress). Oh, and his hedge maze. That's beast too. And I love the idea of these two men- two logical men of science- are defying a set of very real laws that could bring them under the executioner's ax (no joke- in England in the early 1800s, gays were executed if they were found out, and the world of Clockwork Boys is based heavily on Victorian England) for the sake of their love. And I love that Brokeland Manor, Cecil's home, becomes something of a safe haven for them. The one place where they can hug and kiss openly, where nothing is hidden from anyone and where they can fall asleep in one another's arms without worrying about who might see them during the night. That the staff is all devoted to keeping their secret; that they develop an affinity for taking in strays (which is a huge part of one of the stories), and that Raleigh is so quickly taken in as a second master to the servants, a second half to Cecil and a second father to the boys and their adored crippled sister.
In sum, this story is so... all over the place. xD I don't know how to find a balance between giving the Manor full attention and giving St. Nemo's, their boarding school, full attention. I love, basically, two seperate things about this story.
1) the uneasy, macabre atmosphere of St. Nemo's
and
2) the loving, safe, romantic atmosphere of Brokeland Manor.
I kind of like that such a duality exists within a single... universe (since it's hard to call Clockwork Boys a "story"- it's a number of stories), but it's hard to keep it balanced.
What this is, is classic romantic Victorian-esque lit, if you think about it. That the atmosphere reflects the events/emotions therein. Like, the manor has the gazebo- a sheltered structure, if you think about it. A safe place. And both Raleigh and Cecil feel that the Manor is a safe place. I hope to have a storm scene in which Raleigh comes out and finds Cecil sitting in the gazebo, maybe having spent some time thinking there over... something- and Raleigh will join him there. They might not even make contact through the whole scene, but they'll sit, perhaps in silence, and let the storm rage around them, sheltered in their gazebo.'
There's a significance to the weather, here. That's a huge component of Victorian lit.
Just like the fogginess and the cliff at St. Nemo's. Fog = mystery. Cliff = peril. Mystery surrounds the past and current events at the school; danger is kind of everywhere, between blowing things up and the Whips attempting to have both the twins' heads at all times.
But the fact that both states exist within one project... it's difficult.
Urrgh. Help, muses. Help.
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