Mr. Timothy

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: Bayard is not Dickens, but his characters and plot propelled me around Victorian London. As a character, Mr. Timothy is drawn with a complexity that defies prediction of his actions. The two children he partners with feel true, with the charm and courage that Dickens gave the children he wrote about. One cares what happens to all of them, and I assure you, much does happen. I found myself savoring the last few chapters, dreading that time when I would reach the back cover and part company with this fascinating group.

Rating:
Summary: God Bless Us... Everyone.
Review: Being a big fan of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I was eager to pick this book up and see where Bayard was going to take Tiny Tim as an emerging adult.

I didn't expect what this story had to offer, but as Bayard was loyal to Dickens, he shows us another dark facet of England. The collection and sale (in effect) of very young girls to the upper crust of society. And Mr. Timothy Cratchit as its unlikely hero.

The language of the book remained true throughout - and the combination of characters fit all the roles I would have expected in a Dickens tale. And while the story itself sometimes stuttered with strange asides tossed in to create time for other things to happen or to show which character was on which side - it wasn't the story itself I found myself taken by.

I particularly enjoyed the italicized letters that Tim wrote to his deceased father. The language and ideas of a life overlooked, of the love one might feel for one's parent not realized until it was too late. Of Tim as an adult trying to realize who he is going to be and not having his father to help him through this hardest of times. And realizing how much irritation and anger and impatience he spent on his father when alive as he is haunted by his father's ghost out of the corner of his eye. All of this as Bayard takes Tim on a journey to seek his own family, his own home.

Tim's letters to his father were the icing on the cake that made me truly enjoy this book and this one line in particular cemented Tim's missed feelings - "You had spent months, apparently, determining this configuration -- poring over maps, consulting with omnibus drivers, timing every leg of every day's journey. Had I been older, I would have realised: here is a man who wants to come home."

Rating:
Summary: avid reader
Review: BORING. this book should have been a short story. i am shocked that people liked it so much.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Timothy: Tiny Tim's New Found Voice
Review: Charles Dickens, English literature's unmatched character creator, managed to conjure up the most romantic, sweetly sick, maudlin personality ever to poke his tiny head into our Christmas celebrations. The Cratchit dinner party with Tiny Tim's banal "What a goose, Mother!" is more than enough to turn the cranberry sour on us. I imagine a much older Timothy Cratchit would cringe hearing the tiresome family stories of his infant self, as we all do when our parents, in a flush of narrative nostalgia show our naked-bottom photos to their friends.

Louis Bayard assists Tim Cratchit in finding his own voice and getting some dignity, as well as revenge, in the recent thriller Mr. Timothy. Fed up with being a product of someone else's pity, idealization or philanthropy Tim, upon the death of his father Bob, found his way to the gritty side of Victorian life. Living in a whorehouse, paying his rent through reading tutorials with the resident Madam, Tim acquired an autonomous start, out from the velvet grip of the Cratchits and Scrooge.

Robinson Crusoe the book he and the Madam are studying foreshadows many of the themes found in Mr. Timothy: rebellion, autonomy, tortured conscience, and dangerous adventure. Growing up is neither a neat nor tidy process; it requires genuine struggle, true integration of values, and the accepting responsibility. Tim's grown-up life is lived in vital contact with others but not under their shadow. He holds his own among the girls of the trade, those who manage them and those who exploit them.

Timothy's maturation is not limited to self-development but extends to genuine care for others less fortunate. Two Victorian waifs Philomela an Italian orphan and Colin a neglected songster and thief are younger protégés of the maturing Tim who "fathers' them without placing them in his shadow or making them extensions of his own story. While children in their relationship with Tim they nonetheless retain their dignity as individuals.

Getting out from beneath someone else's narrative is hard enough but a more difficult feat is doing so while still maintaining respect and understanding for those who have wrongfully treated you. Interspersed in the action are Tim's ghost letters to his father. They acknowledge Bob's flaws and the strange life of the Cratchits, as well as, the deep regret and gratitude that Tim develops for his father and step-uncle Ebenezer. Being a surrogate father puts his own childhood in a more nuanced perspective.

Fathers, origins, the maltreatment of children and the creation of broader more humane definition of family are the Dickensian themes that weave their way through the perambulations of Mr. Timothy's dark plot of smuggling, exploitation and murder. Bayard's redrafting of Dickens's Tim Cratchit is more than a self indulgent, postmodern exercise in outfoxing the classics, it is a legitimate help to any reader hoping to deepen and make contextually significant a time-honored modern myth.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Timothy
Review: Dickens' Tiny Tim returns in a dark, well-told historical thriller.

Timothy narrates this beautifully written book, which is not only a 19th-century thriller that will please readers who liked books such as FIEND IN HUMAN and THE ALIENIST, but is also a meditation on personality, maturation and loss. Timothy sees the ghost of his father wherever he goes, and must eventually come to terms with not only his father's death but his own adolescent behavior and the stresses that Scrooge's generosity put on his family. (Scrooge, though appearing, is never named in the text.) At times the narration slips into sentimentality, particularly when dealing with the father theme. Counteracting this, though, are moments of sensuality and some sensational action, especially a fight on the roof of a racing hansom cab.

One thing Bayard does particularly well here is to evoke a vivid, sympathetic character in first person. Timothy's personality clearly has aspects beyond what this text chooses to explore, and though this isn't the kind of book that normally has a sequel, I'd be glad to read one.

The language does occasionally slip into anachronism, but I found the errors trivial.

Definitely recommended.

Rating:
Summary: touching and thrilling
Review: Following the route of Gregory Maguire, Louis Bayard has taken a fairly minor yet memorable literary character and revisits him at another point in time. Entirely successful with a fun "DaVinci Code"-type caper (pacing not the puzzle), Mr. Timothy shines most with Bayard's Bob Cratchit ghost device/letters and depiction of filthy London. Ending is extremely touching and beautifully written a la Dickens; also loved clues of Tim's true sexual orientation: point did not dominate but made perfect sense. This one deserves the Masterpiece Theatre treatment--not the usual American-produced lard.
A wonderful, multi-tiered read.

Rating:
Summary: Read This Book! God Bless Us Everyone!
Review: I loved this book and can't imagine how it could be any better! Don't pay ANY attention to a negative review! I would recommend this book to everyone!

Rating:
Summary: Not A Christmas Carol. . .but Excellent
Review: It is a risky and difficult task to take on a famous piece of literature. Everyone who falls in love with a book likes to imagine how the story continues after the author decides to leave it. A writer who challenges a reader's imagination does so at his own risk. Failures are legion. But that is just what Louis Bayard has decided to do with Mr. Timothy, a novel based on characters from Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

As the title suggests, the story focuses on Tiny Tim Cratchit, now grown-up and healthy except for occasional twinges in the leg and a slight limp. Despite the support of the still living and reformed Scrooge, Tim is cast adrift upon the death of his father, Bob, and has thrown his lot in with a group of prostitutes where he earns his room & board by teaching the madam to read and write. While there, he becomes entangled with a young, troubled girl. In the process of trying to save the girl he discovers a ring of slavery and murder.

It's quite a plot!--not original but deftly handled and interesting mainly because of the risks he takes with character. Here are characters we know--the Cratchits, Scrooge--who Bayard has made his own without losing touch with the foundations Dickens has laid. Despite the happy ending we might have imagined at the end of A Christmas Carol, Bayard has not hesitated handing around death, weakness and despair to the Cratchits along with strength and goodness. He is not catering to his readers but challenging them, particularly rabid Dickens fans like myself, and he succeeds. Whatever I ultimately felt about the plot, I totally believed that this is what could have become of the Cratchits. Because of that, I enjoyed this novel immensely.

And Bayard has added a cast of new characters almost Dickensian in scope and many--Gully, Colin, Philomela, and a host of others--just as memorable. Intertwining these characters and their stories with reminiscences of how the Cratchits got from Dickens to now, Bayard has created a powerful piece of fiction. Having no knowledge of Bayard's other work, I had no idea what to expect from him but I am very pleased with the result and I think any reader, Dickens fan or not, will find a good read here.

Rating:
Summary: Not so tiny any longer...
Review: Remember one cold winter's night, a cute little muffin perched atop his father's shoulder,wishing God's blessings upon everyone he met? This Tiny Tim, who helps the reformation of one of literature's best loved misers, has long deserved a tale of his own, and Louis Bayard has granted this request in "Mr. Timothy".

This story's yarn starts at a Tiny Tim of 23, young man, nearly healed leg thanks to the benevolence of his evergiving "Uncle N". Just burying his father Bob Cratchit, Timothy ventures out in the story to make a name for himself, and his own mark on society. Pulling up digs in of all places a bordello, in which he earns his room by teaching its grand madame the fundementals of reading. Like his uncle, he's haunted by his own ghosts, in the form of his father, whom appears randomly throughout the streets of London through Tim's eyes.

Soon, dear Tim meets a waif, the irrepressable "Colin the Melodious", a nine year old, streetwise urchin who becomes Tim's Dr. Watson, in the case of several girls found dead along his neighborhood streets. For awhile, the branding of a letter "G" on their forearms is the only clue Tim has, until he meets another waif, Philomena. Beautiful of face inspires Tim to help her, along with a lack of English that hinders him, Philomena is the unwitting center of a mystery that only Tim's pernaciousness will crack.

Bayard's writing is both true to the mid-ninteenth century style of Dickens, and enjoyably brisk. Having command over both slower scenes that develop the story, and faster, action packed scenes that become real page turners (one involving a carriage that was simply amazing), Bayard makes this story come alive and a truly enjoyable read. It does take awhile to adjust to the words he uses, and from time to time, his exacting descriptions of 1860's London were a bit much to fuss through. Rest assured, you'll be on your way in the story in no time flat.

Do all of our beloved characters of literature grow up? Peter Pan? Tom Sawyer? Tiny Tim? Perhaps, perhaps. This Tiny Tim certainly will not let you down, and you'll enjoy your time spent in London with a cast of characters richly drawn and realized in "Mr. Timothy".

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but poorly edited, researched
Review: This book will be most appealing to those who know least about 19th-Century England. It's an entertaining story marred by scores of obvious mistakes--Bayard undertook the very ambitious project of writing in Victorian English, and his language often rings false to my ears. A typical example is the use of "fall" for autumn, which is quite rare in British English except for the expressions "spring and fall" and "fall of the year." And his Cockney characters add an "s" to infinitives, which I have never heard of in any dialect of English. Bayard also seems to think that a belief in the Trinity is characteristic of "papists" as opposed to Anglicans.

Of course, lots of people won't notice or won't care about such things, and they should find Mr. Timothy engaging, if somewhat conventionally melodramatic toward the end. For me, this novel increases my respect for real pros like Patrick O'Brian.