25 Points About "House"

A. D. Jameson offered readers of his blog 25 points about The House with a Clock in its Walls.  Some are well-known to established readers, others are his observations about plot points.

Some of his comments include the following:

#3: [House] is a Gothic horror novel for kids, and it’s genuinely spooky. For one thing, it’s about a house with a goddamned clock in its walls! And not just any clock, but a doomsday clock that, when it goes off, will bring about the end of the world. The book’s protagonist, Lewis Barnavelt, along with his Uncle Jonathan, can hear the clock ticking all throughout their house, but they cannot find it. (The evil wizard who made and hid the clock cast a spell that causes the clock’s ticking to sound the same from inside every wall). And so neither the heroes nor the reader know when the clock will go off and cause the world to end. Which is like . . . Christ!

...and some interesting points about the parents:

#16: The book opens with Lewis’s parents dying in a car crash, which is what causes him to go live with his Uncle Jonathan. Lewis initially seems upset about this: he frets over whether he will get along with his uncle, and he chokes up when he remembers his mom and dad.... But, once the first chapter ends, Lewis forgets his parents entirely—which is odd, given that he’s depicted as a fairly sensitive kid. And one of Bellairs’s strengths as a writer lies in crafting complex psychological portraits of his characters. But opportunities to have Lewis remember his parents later pass without comment. For instance, there’s a tense car chase scene, midway through the book, but that never once prompts Lewis to think about his parents, who of course died in a car crash. The impression is that Bellairs, having killed off Lewis’s parents, completely forgot them.

#17: Another missed opportunity: Lewis at one point resurrects a dead person, which is great...but he never once even thinks about resurrecting his dead parents, which - well, isn’t that damned peculiar?

...and something about point of view:

#15: I also must voice some quibbles with some of Mr. Bellairs’s aesthetic decisions. For instance, he’s occasionally lazy about POV, needlessly shifting from Lewis (the protagonist) to his Uncle Jonathan. At other times, the POV drifts into a needless second person address (although a lot of children’s books tend to do that, and I have always wondered why). Furthermore, a few aspects of the book haven’t aged particularly well—such as the subplot involving Lewis’s friend Tarby, which feels kinda creaky. . . . The book is, as a whole, rather leisurely paced, perhaps even a little rambly . . . but as a consequence, it’s also not wholly plot-driven, which I think pleasant.

...plus this nice tidbit:

#6: Receiving and rereading the book prompted me to check out the John Bellairs website, Bellairsia, which is fun and informative, including providing other other things reading guides for young and old readers alike.

Those are A.D.'s points - what points do you have?

[Ed. note: always good to know someone found the site useful.]