Name: The Chimes
ISBN: 9781444794526

Anna Smaill

The Chimes is set in a reimagined London, in a world where people cannot form new memories, and the written word has been forbidden and destroyed. In the absence of both memory and writing is music. In a world where the past is a mystery, each new day feels the same as the last, and before is blasphony, all appears lost. But Simon Wythern, a young man who arrives in London seeking the truth about what really happened to his parents, discovers he has a gift that could change all of this forever. A stunning literary debut by poet and violinist Anna Smaill, The Chimes is a startlingly original work that combines beautiful, inventive prose with incredible imagination.

The Chimes

Amanda Wells

Wow. The Chimes starts slow, and it takes a while before you understand what is really going on. Once I began to understand though, it was beautiful and captivating. To me, the idea was very original, and the execution was very poetic. 

What was most effective for me though, was the themes and the thoughts it triggered in me as I read. How do we deal with inherited pain, remembered pain? How can we collectively deal with trauma? Who knows what is best for an individual, let alone the masses? The role of memory in love - of body memory, object memory, and fleeting memory...

It was interesting, too, reading this very soon after The Buried Giant, which deals with similar themes. And, to top it off, I recently began reading an article about artistic engagement with the concept of 'the archive' - in constructing, deconstructing, and inventing collective memory.

The book read a little like a YA novel, which was fine by me. It could have been rewritten in parts to make it less so, but I thought it fit the perspective of Simon, who is youthful and a bit naive. As happens at the end of a good book, I'll be wondering and imagining what will happen to him hereafter, and what will happen to the world around him.

The Chimes

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