The Official Book Club Guide: The Binding. Kathryn Cope

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СКАЧАТЬ Nell’s is one of them.

      Unsure what to do next, Lucian roams around Castleford. Spotting de Havilland in the street, he sees that the binder is being followed by Acre and Wright. As he watches, Wright hits de Havilland over the head with a cosh and the two men drag him into an alleyway. Realising that his father has ordered the attack, Lucian approaches the men and pretends that he is in on the plan. Wright reveals that they plan to set fire to de Havilland’s bindery with the binder drugged inside. Claiming that he has his father’s prior approval, Lucian removes a key from de Havilland’s pocket.

      XXV

      Lucian meets Emmett and reveals that he has de Havilland’s key. They travel to Seredith’s bindery but when they unlock the vault, find it empty. When Emmett notices that Lucian’s hand is bleeding, Lucian tells him about Nell’s suicide and how he injured himself cutting her body down. Emmett gently tends to the wound and Lucian gives in to his impulse to lean against the other man.

      XXVI

      After spending the night with Emmett, Lucian persuades himself that the sexual encounter meant nothing. Getting up while Emmett is still sleeping, he rides back to Castleford alone.

      Lucian returns home just in time for his wedding suit fitting. Then, during a hellish dinner party, he overhears guests gossiping about the fire at de Havilland’s bindery. Escaping into another room, he finds one of the guests – Lord Latworthy – already in situ. Latworthy’s manner is over-familiar and, without much preamble, he takes off Lucian’s tie and begins to unbutton his shirt. Lucian flees the room. Overwhelmed with self-disgust, he assumes that Lord Latworthy must have sensed his depraved nature and reflects on what terrible deeds must lie in his past.

      On the day of his wedding, Lucian stands in the Town Hall waiting for Honour to arrive. As he does so, he sees Lord Latworthy among the guests. When the aristocrat gives him a knowing look, Lucian suddenly realises that Latworthy has read his book. Running out of the building, he encounters Emmett, who has been watching the wedding party arrive from a distance. Lucian reveals his theory and Emmett confirms that he knows where Lord Latworthy lives.

      XXVII

      At Lord Latworthy’s home, the door is answered by a scullery maid. Despite Emmett’s claim that he is there on ‘binder’s business’, she refuses to let them in until Emmett threatens to take away her memories.

      Inside Latworthy’s library, there are thousands of books displayed in no obvious order. Eventually, Emmett spots Lucian’s book but cannot retrieve it as the shelf is protected by glass and an iron grille. When he suggests that they break the glass and place a burning coal through the grille to destroy the book, Lucian refuses, insisting that he does not wish to recover his memories. Unable to reason with him, Emmett disregards Lucian’s wishes and takes a coal from the fire with a pair of tongs. Lucian intercepts him, and they wrestle until Emmett falls and hits his head. Realising that the bookshelves are beginning to burn from a stray ember, Lucian grabs a poker and runs up the library staircase towards the fire.

      XXVIII

      As shouts from outside indicate Lord Latworthy’s return, Lucian tries to smash the grille that still stands between him and his book. Regaining consciousness, Emmett urges him to leave and let it burn, promising to bind him again if he wants him to do so. He kisses Lucian and tells him that he loves him. At that moment, the bookcase housing Lucian’s binding catches fire and Lucian’s memories return.

      Lucian wakes in a field near Latworthy’s house. Overwhelmed with happiness, he remembers the details of his former life with Emmett. As Lord Latworthy’s library burns, Lucian expresses concern for the many other people whose memories will be restored. When Emmett reassures him that most of the bindings were trade publications, they picture the joy of the books’ owners as their most cherished memories return to them.

       Style

      GENRE

       Historical Fantasy

      At no point in The Binding does Bridget Collins state when her novel is set. Readers, however, become aware that the author is exploring the realms of the past through little clues, dropped throughout the story. Many of these clues suggest that Collins’s characters are inhabiting nineteenth-century England. Emmett’s family have a mechanical reaping machine (first invented in the 1830s). As a child, Emmett pays for a book in farthings (a currency used in England from 1860-1956). Castleford, with its factories and haze of industrial smog, is clearly a product of the Industrial Revolution, and Hansom cabs (patented in 1834) are a regular form of transport. If characters commit a serious crime, then deportation (a form of criminal punishment used until the mid-nineteenth century) is their likely fate. Clothes are also something of a giveaway, as Alta refers to her restrictive stays, while Lucian’s sister suffers the embarrassment of a creaky corset.

      That being said, Collins’s fictional world is not entirely nineteenth-century history as we know it. At times, there are hints that this is an older, almost medieval culture – in the widespread belief in witches and the evocatively pagan-sounding ‘Wakening Fair’. In this era, instead of Christmas, characters celebrate ‘the Turning’, exchanging ye olde world greeting ‘May your darkness be quiet and the light come sooner than you need’.

      The novel builds on this sense of a similar, yet alternative history through the revelation of past events which readers will not find reflected in any history book. Although characters refer to the Crusades, it becomes apparent that this is not a reference to the Christian battle for the Middle East which took place in the Middle Ages. In The Binding, the Crusades are a recent historical event and Crusaders fought against books and the magical practice of binding.

      Collins’s invention of binding is the most glaring factual twist of all. Although it involves a magical process, binding is represented in the novel as a recognised trade. While characters differ in their opinions of its ethics, no one doubts it exists. Once she has established this ‘fact’, the author goes on to revise the history of literature itself. Not only does the popularity of binding lead to the emergence of fakes (i.e. novels), the British legal system is changed as laws such as ‘The Sale of Memories Act’ are passed in an attempt to regulate the morally dubious areas of the industry. Collins’s introduction of magic into historical fiction follows in the literary footsteps of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – a novel set during the Napoleon Wars where magic is shown to co-exist with the realities of the everyday world.

       Fairy Tale

      Classic fairy tales tend to leave a strong imprint on our imaginations, even as adults. Bridget Collins draws upon their mythic resonance by incorporating certain fairy tale tropes into The Binding.

      Emmett’s first meeting with Lucian bears many of the elements we might expect from a story by the Brothers Grimm. Returning from poaching, Emmett walks through the woods, loses his sister and, wandering into the ruins of a castle, encounters a man wearing a hooded cloak. Here, in one scenario, we have a whole bundle of images commonly found in fairy tales – a huntsman, a mysterious woodland setting, a disappearance, a castle and, to top it all off, a hooded figure.

      As the novel progresses, it seems that the author may have one fairy tale, in particular, in mind. Observant readers may have noticed some, or all, of the following similarities between ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (otherwise known as ‘Briar Rose’) and The Binding: -

      The Spell: In ‘Sleeping Beauty’, СКАЧАТЬ