There’s a lot of swooning, falling down, suffering heart palpitations and witnessing visions in this fantastical piece of Gothic fiction. And there’s only so much of that I can take before it becomes deeply irritating.
Binding is a process whereby a person’s distressing memories are removed from their mind by a binder and transformed into book form. The person who has been bound retains none of distressing memory. The binder is supposed to keep the book safe – guarded and unread- but unethical binders have been known to sell them for entertainment. As such – and because of their otherworldly powers- binders are regarded with suspicion and hostility.
Young Emmett, a farm boy, has been through a binding himself and it seems his experience marks him out as suitable to become a binder. He is taken as an apprentice into the household of an old lady binder who seems remarkably reluctant to teach him anything useful about his trade. And then she dies, and the real trouble begins.
This book is essentially a love story, but a very long drawn out one involving an uneccesary amount of swooning, confusion, shirt tearing and staggering about. It’s beautiful to look at and to touch and deeply original, but really, what’s it all for? Fans of Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpeant will probably appreciate it, but the Brontes remain my top girls as far as Gothic fiction goes.
