How can anyone describe this book? It isn't a parable, a fairy story or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery. What we suppose we are trying fumblingly to say is, in a word, that it is Thurber. There are only a few reasons why everybody has always wanted to read this kind of story, but they are basic: Everybody has always wanted to love a Princess. Everybody has always wanted to be a Prince. Everybody has always wanted the wicked Duke to be punished. Everybody has always wanted to live happily ever after. Too little of this kind of thing is going on in the world today. But all of it is going on valorously in "The 13 Clocks.