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Timekeepers:How the World Became Obsessed with Time by Simon Garfield – review

At the begiing of Easy Rider,Wyatt – played by Peter Fonda – removes his watch, gives it a brief contemptuouslook and flings it into the dust by the side of the road. Then he and hissidekick Billy (Deis Hopper) rev up their motorbikes and head off “lookingfor adventure”. The act is symbolic. The pair have decided they will no longerbe constrained by schedules or deadlines imposed by others. They will directtheir own destiny. By discarding his timepiece, Wyatt is seeking the ultimatetemporal freedom.

It is a goal with which SimonGarfield sympathises. As he makes clear in this intriguing investigation of ourobsession with timekeeping, we have become slaves to the watch and thecalendar. “Time, once passive, is now aggressive,” he tells us. “It dominatesour lives in ways that the earliest clockmakers would have surely foundunbearable.”

Indeed, we have become so obsessedwith keeping to deadlines, the word “time” is now the most commonly used nounin the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary. (“Year” and“day” are also in the top five, further underlining our fetish for keeping toschedules.) Similarly, phrases like “last time”, “reading time” and “qualitytime” pepper our speech. “It leaves us in no doubt about time’s unassailablepresence in our lives,” states Garfield.

This point was made even moreforcibly by comedian Dave Allen, who triggered hundreds of complaint calls withthistelevision diatribe about time. “You clock in to the clock. You clock outto the clock. You come home to the clock. You eat to the clock, you drink tothe clock, you go to bed to the clock… You do that for 40 years of your life,you retire, what do they fucking give you? A clock!”

Garfield’s Timekeepers has twosimple intentions, he tells us: “To tell some illuminating stories and to askwhether we have all gone completely nuts”. This latter question is a fair one.We live in a world in which digital clocks are fitted for free on our phones,computers and domestic devices. Yet there are individuals – most of themoverachieving men, says Garfield – who are only too willing to shell outhundreds of thousands of pounds on watches made by Mont Blanc, TAG Heuer, IWCand the like. Some of these horological masterpieces are crusted in diamonds.Others have dials made from fossil bones. All are marketed with incrediblesophistication. However, when displayed in shops, nearly all these timepiecesare set at around 10 past 10. “Why? Because a watch set at 10.10 appears to be‘smiling’,” says Garfield. Subtle isn’t the word.

Or consider our enjoyment of music.Great works may seem timeless but they are constrained tightly by ourchronological capacities. Last century, two key technologies dictated how weenjoyed our music: the 7in, 45rpm vinyl single and later the compact disc. Thetrouble with the earliest singles was that if you wanted to record more thanabout three minutes to a side, the grooves had to be wound so tight that theneedle would skip. Thus popular music was limited to the 180-second pop song.(Later, with advances in technology, the likes of Bob Dylan and Don McLeanwould release six-minute epics while the arrival of the 33rpm LP allowed thedubious delights of 30-minute offerings by Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield.)

Then came the CD. Philips haddesigned a disc that would replace old scratchy vinyl and could be operatedremotely. They sought a deal with Sony whose vice-chairman Norio Ohga wasenthusiastic but – according to rumour – only agreed once the basic disc wasincreased from 11.5 to 12cm. The reason? To allow Ohga’s favourite recording ofBeethoven’s Ninth Symphony – which had a length of 74 minutes – to fit on onedisc. The 12cm disc then became a global standard.

It is all enjoyable fare. Garfieldis an engaging writer who has stuffed Timekeeperswith some fascinatingmaterial. Sometimes he strays from his topic – Prince Charles’s Poundbury estateand the joys of slow food are rather unwelcome intrusions – but the overallimpact is thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating. Timely, you could even say.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/03/timekeepers-how-the-world-became-obsessed-with-time-review-simon-garfield