French philosopher Henri Bergson said that “the clock time of technology is different from the psychological time we experience”. A belief, I imagine, Rebecca Struthers would agree with when she writes “that to pin one’s hopes on a natural event occurring on a numerical day or hour of a human-constructed calendrical system is to be doomed to disappointment”.
The natural world was our first clock and humans have since endeavoured to develop timekeeping mechanisms in an effort to control time (that have often served to allow time to control us). “From its very beginning the watch both reflected and developed our relationship with time.”
Struthers is a watchmaker and academic with a PhD in antiquarian horology. Her book is more an exploration of the mechanics of time and timekeeping rather than the philosophical story of time. Still, the author explores how the development of timekeeping mechanisms has shaped religious and cultural beliefs and practices, and how this in turn has shaped our attitudes to time.
If at times the text feels dense, this is probably down to the subject matter and extensive research included in the book rather than the writing style of Struthers, who endears the reader with her passion and charming personal interjections.
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The most thought-provoking chapters look at the role watches and timekeeping devices have played in the history of exploration, colonisation, slavery and war; the relationship between time and power.
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Watches have become more accurate, durable, attractive and readily available. They have enabled the experience of time to evolve from a communal to a personal entity, and ultimately to become a global system.
“The focus of a watchmaker,” Struthers writes, “is often smaller than a grain of rice”, but the author understands this tiny mechanism to be emblematic of a concept bigger than any of us, that will outlive us all.
If time has become a commodity, it would appear then that the author adopts an oppositional stance in her own craft of conserving old watches, often of negligible value. This is how the author chooses to “spend” her own time.
Time is precious, the author concludes; we cannot control it. Struthers, however, makes the case for defying “the clock-time of technology”, and choosing instead to live in the moment. A thought-provoking read.
