"There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock."
(Astronomic clock on the city hall of Ulm, Germany)
Hi Art,
I tried to figure out, what the author wants to tell me with this sentence, but I did not get it.
Obviously the slow movement of the watch hands seems to illustrate the great loneliness in this world to him.
But I do not really understand this metaphor, although I like that it makes use of a watch image.
The slow movement of the watch hands might illustrate our fugacity, the steady and slow, yet constant loss of life time, the importance of a moment or its insignificnace, but how shall this slow movement be an image for the great loneliness in this world (if there really is one)?
As a matter of fact the hands are not lonely at all, but linked to gears, pinions and arbors and they move in accordance with these parts and one another. They are meaningfully connected to the dial so that their movement has a significance. There is a driving force behind the mechanism which propels their movement, not leaving them "lonely" in the sense of a standstill for lack of power.
Probably you or someone else is able to explain this metaphor to me?
Kind regards from a clueless non-Bukowsky reader,
anaesdoc