Clockwork Princess
by Cassandra Clare
Format: select
When I read, I ask a LOT of questions. Here’s some stuff I searched or wondered about while reading book Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare.
From my review:
This is how a series should end. You should be glued to the pages and so invested about what is going to happen next to these characters. There should be a twist that shocks you so much you feel like whacking your sleeping husband with your kindle so you have SOMEONE to tell at 3 a.m. even if he has no idea what you are talking about. There should also be some melodrama that makes you roll your eyes but you care about the characters so much that you keep reading anyway. And a little cheesiness never killed anyone (In fact, it tastes darn good on bittersweet sometimes)… Read More
Spoiler Questions
I had a few things I want to discuss with you that spoil the book, so skip this section if you don’t want to be spoiled!
At the end of the book, the angel in Tessa’s necklace leaves a star mark on her shoulder. Don’t Jace and Clary have star marks on their shoulder like Tessa does?? I think they do but it’s been a while since I read The Mortal Instruments.
In Clockwork Prince, Will talked a lot about his admiration of Sydney but I think that Jem acutally ended up being Sydney in away so that Will and Tessa could be together. What do you think?
Bath Chair
Henry ends up needing a way to get around and he builds a sort of wheel-chair that he describes like this:
“…like a sort of Bath chair but better, with self-propelling wheels and all manner of other accoutrements.”
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (p. 469)
Of course I wanted to know what it looked like. I can totally see Henry motorizing this. :)
END SPOILERS
Favorite Quotes
Hail and farewell. He had not given much thought to the words before, had never thought about why they were not just a farewell but also a greeting. Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well.
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (p. 507)
“Have you been reading to Henry, Will?”
“Yes, some dreadful thing, all full of poetry,” Henry [said].
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (p. 468).
This poem shows up in the narrative and it is so beautiful. I found it interesting that it makes life sound more like death.
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—
He hath awakened from the dream of life—
’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings.—We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats”
Places
Cadair Idris
He remembered climbing Cadair Idris with his father, years ago. There were many legends about the mountain: that it had been a chair for a giant, who had sat upon it and regarded the stars; that King Arthur and his knights slept beneath the hill, waiting for the time when Britain would awake and need them again; that anyone who spent the night on the mountainside would awake a poet or a madman.
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (p. 401)
This is gorgeous. There’s even a lake in real life!!! I want to visit and become a poet/madman (they’re probably the same thing).
Books Mentioned
All links take you to Goodreads in case you want to build your TBR from Tessa’s taste in books :)
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Sermons to Young Women by James Fordyce
I couldn’t find this book on Goodreads. But I did find out that this book is also mentioned in Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Collins tries to read it to the Bennet girls but Lydia interrupts him and then just has him stop. I found that SO funny :) (Source)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I’ve read this and it’s good!)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Also read this! It’s soooo good!)
Angels
Ithuriel is an important angel in Clockwork Princess (I won’t say more than that!) Ithuriel is an angel also mentioned in Paradise Lost. He helps Gabriel try and find Satan in the Garden of Eden. I found that kind of interesting considering his role in Clockwork Princess. (Source)
Ithuriel also appears again in the Mortal Instrument Series. Click here to read about who he is on the Shadowhunter wiki.
Paintings
Alma-Tadema
“Magnus moved toward the fireplace and leaned against the mantel, the very picture of a young gentleman at leisure. The room was painted a pale blue, and decorated with paintings that featured vast fields of granite, gleaming blue seas, and men and women in classical dress. Will thought he recognized a reproduction of an Alma-Tadema— or at least it must have been a reproduction, mustn’t it?”
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (pp. 110-111).
Above picture is Ask Me No More by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from 1906. I thought it fit the one descirbed in Magnus’ house pretty well.
Birth of Venus
Gabriel rolled his eyes as his brother took firm hold of his elbow and propelled him into what was clearly the grand salon— a massive room whose ceiling was painted with reproductions of the Italian Great Masters, including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, now rather smoke-stained and the worse for wear.
-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess (p. 142).
Book Trailer
About Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.
Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever. 
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