The book binding itself raises some thought-provoking questions about consent, and the characters do discuss the ethics of erasing someone’s memory. I liked the ambiguity created by Emmett’s not knowing what happened to him or why Lucian Darnay’s face haunts him so. The second and third section of the book take us down slightly different paths, although I must admit that the final part of the novel felt like a rehash of the first part. When Seredith finally reveals Emmett what ‘book binding’ truly is, he’s uneasy about the whole thing. While working under Seredith’s roof Emmett briefly meets a young man whose appearance and behaviour stick to his mind. When Seredith, an old and secluded binder, requests that he become her apprentice, Emmett is left no choice and has to leave his parents’ farm. We gather that the setting is in an alternative 19th-century England and that our narrator, Emmett Farmer, has just recovered from a mysterious illness. Throughout the first section of The Binding Bridget Collins’ keeps her cards close to her chest. I was genuinely intrigued by the premise (an alternative history in which book binders get rid of people’s ‘bad’ memories?) even if I know that the whole ‘memory-erasing’ idea isn’t wholly original ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, More Happy Than Not). Surprising, occasionally frustrating, and relentlessly sad, The Binding never seemed to reach its full potential.
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