The Binding: A Novel
Geschrieben von Bridget Collins
Erzählt von Carl Prekopp
3.5/5
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Über dieses Hörbuch
Proclaimed as “truly spellbinding", a “great fable” that “functions as transporting romance” by The Guardian, the runaway number one international best seller arrives in America.
Imagine you could erase grief. Imagine you could remove pain. Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret. Forever.
Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a bookbinder — a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community, but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to handcraft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one, they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored.
But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends — and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: One of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten.
An unforgettable novel of enchantment, mystery, memory, and forbidden love, The Binding is a beautiful homage to the allure and life-changing power of books — and a reminder to us all that knowledge can be its own kind of magic.
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Rezensionen für The Binding
521 Bewertungen54 Rezensionen
- Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen4/5I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program. While this may not be the book for everyone, I found it to be written in such a lovely way, that it was hard to put down. The author is able to weave a wonderful fresh story. It is the story of what happens if you are given the power to wipe your worst memories clean by placing them in a book. Told in 3 parts, form different perspectives, it keeps a good pace and has a unique view of magic, love and the power of both over us. I recommend giving it a go.
- Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen3/5It started out as some type of high fantasy novel, and ended up as The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. I'm not sure how I feel about that. At first it seemed a little cliched, with a boy being sent as apprentice to the wise old woman with all the secrets he isn't ready to learn - shades of the beginning of The Black Cauldron, or any number of young master and apprentice stories. But something momentous happens in the book, and the boy is sent to the big city, launching the Gentleman's Guide portion. I was a little confused about what historical period we seemed to be in. I mean, it was clearly not set in our actual world, but it was kind of Victorian fantasy with medieval witchcraft. I liked the basic concept of binding, but hesitate to say more, since the main character's lack of knowledge about what binding entails drives the plot, particularly in the beginning. So, if you can imagine some sort of Prydain/Gentleman's Guide/Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore hybrid, you've got the idea. Pretty enjoyable.
- Bewertung: 5 von 5 Sternen5/5What if books were not meant to be read for pleasure but were instead a place to hide (and forget) your secrets?Emmett Farmer is apprenticed to an elderly lady to train as a binder, a person who is both destined and trained to capture people’s secrets and hide them away in a book. Emmett - and the reader - slowly discover that there is much more to his story than a simple apprenticeship. He also has secrets and there are powerful people who are very invested in keeping those secrets locked away forever. The Binding is a story about choices and consequences and, unexpectedly, love. It is a mesmerizing book, beautifully written and brilliantly executed. One of my Top Ten in 2018, I recommend it wholeheartedly to those who enjoy speculative fiction and/or historical fiction.
- Bewertung: 1 von 5 Sternen1/5I tried so hard to like this book but I could not finish it. It was very slow and had lots of difficult moments.
- Bewertung: 2 von 5 Sternen2/5I had such high hopes for this one and my dreams fell through by Part 2, which was about a third of the way in. This book has been advertised as historical fiction, literary fiction, and magical realism. The blurb on the inside cover gave me all those musty bookshop vibes, and I expected to be entirely wrapped up in the magical aspects of hiding people's memories away in these bound books. And then, after Part 1, it took a turn and led me deep into what I would call a YA romance that I was entirely not expecting nor really wanted. It was all the angsty teen romance that had me rolling my eyes, and it got so far away from its original blurb that I'm surprised I even finished the book. So, all-in-all, a bit disappointed to say the least.
- Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen3/5The Binding by Bridget Collins was an okay book, but it could have been better. In its defense, I confess I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more if my patience threshold hadn’t been so low when I started this; I’ve had a recent run of bad to mediocre reads lately which has made me extremely finicky, and unfortunately, there are many things about this one that make it a very mood-dependent book.But first, I did love the novel’s concept. I’ve always had a thing for “books about books”, and I thought The Binding deserves points for tackling the idea quite a bit differently. That’s because books in this world are nothing like the way we think of them, neither for knowledge or for pleasure. Instead, they are magical devices handcrafted by specially trained artisans called Bookbinders, who use books as vessels to take away and store a person’s worst memories. All the secrets and the pain and hurt and guilt that one can’t bear to live with, a Bookbinder has the mysterious power to erase and lock away, which has resulted in much fear and mistrust around the profession, and not surprisingly, books themselves are anathema and forbidden.This was a lesson protagonist Emmett Farmer learned early on, when he was a young boy punished by his father for bringing home a book from the Wakening Fair, not understanding the gravity of what he’d done. But for as long as he can remember, Emmett has always been drawn to books, and soon enough, we get to learn why. What he’s always thought of as a debilitating condition which has prevented him from working efficiently in his family’s fields actually turns out to be a sign of his potential to become a Bookbinder. Before long, a letter arrives from an elderly Bookbinder named Seredith with a demand for his apprenticeship, and despite his reluctance to leave the farm, Emmett knows deep in his heart that he has no choice.Under Seredith’s tutelage, Emmett learns the delicate art of binding. He also discovers the truth behind the books she creates, watching as customers arrive at her doorstep, beseeching the old Bookbinder to take away their memories and lock them up. But not everything is as they seem either. Soon, we get to see that the business of bookbinding is rife for abuse, with some engaging in the illegal trading of books while others misuse the services for their own nefarious purposes. Which brings us to Lucian, a wealthy young patron who visits Seredith’s shop one day. We won’t find out how until much later, but Emmett and Lucian’s lives are connected in some way, and in time we learn how a great disservice has been done to both of them.I have to say, The Binding was a deeply layered book. Again, I suspect that I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I had been in a better mood for a story like this, but there was also plenty about its execution I found aggravating. For one thing, the book is told in three parts, with some accompanying perspective and time shifts that I didn’t feel were written all that effectively. I liked the first part well enough, mostly due to Collins’ amazing characterization of both Emmett and Seredith, as well as the development of their master-apprentice relationship. This section also introduced a world of mystery that I found very enticing, making it hard to resist reading more. But then came the second act, told via a flashback. Emotionally, I found it challenging to connect with this section—very unfortunate, considering how so much of what was covered here would play directly into the crux of the novel, revealed in the third and final act. My enthusiasm already dampened at this point, my apathy only increased as we shift POVs for this concluding section, which felt a world away from the magic and allure of the first act. Instead, we mostly got a lot of drama and anguish. I don’t want to spoil things too much, even though many of the reviews have already mentioned the queer romance and the tale of star-crossed lovers (though honestly, it’s quite obvious that the book was setting up for it), but essentially, I felt this last act failed to deliver the emotional intensity such crucial dissemination of events required, or it’s possible I just felt too disconnected from the POV to feel much of it.My final verdict? I really thought I would love The Binding, given its fantastic premise. However, I struggled miserably with the shifts between the novel’s three parts, and as such, things did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. On a better day, I might have felt a little more magnanimous, but lately I’ve been burned by too many books that show early promise only to fizzle out by the end, and I was disappointed when this one followed the same trend. In all fairness, this wasn’t a bad book, but I do wish it had been more emotionally satisfying.
- Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen4/5The Binding is a beautifully written novel but it is a slow burn. It took me a while to get into the book and even after that the story line was fairly slow. If you keep reading though, you won’t be disappointed. The only complaint is that there could have been more about binding. What if you could remove memories from the mind? Memories such as grief, pain, sadness, horrifying events, and even dark secrets. In The Binding, that is exactly what people known as binders can do. Emmett Farmer works at his family’s farm but has always been drawn to books, even though they are forbidden. One day his family receives a letter requesting to have Emmett become a bookbinder’s apprentice. Emmett goes to live with Seredith, an older woman who will teach him her ways. Seredith is an artisan, a binder who takes great pride in her work but there are other binders that use their skill for dark purposes. Emmett will discover those types of binders and will uncover a secret about himself.Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
- Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen4/5The Binding by Bridget Collins is a beautifully told tale of forbidden love; and it comes with a nice twist. The idea that memory can be erased or re-written is not new, but Collins takes it and makes it her own. We meet Emmet Farmer, the son of a farmer, when he is very sick. And if that's not enough, he's packed off to apprentice with the local witch! His ignorance of books and binding (the "witchcraft" of choice here) is not only because he is a farmer; his parents have kept these things form their children, because books and binding are considered immoral. So Emmet ends up with the witch, who binds people's unwanted memories into books, leaving them ignorant of those particular memories. He has no clue why he's there, but he feels drawn to books. Everything seems to go OK, until his mistress the witch falls ill. From the beginning, it is not hard to guess that Emmet is ill because a binding. It's not obvious why the would be or what a farmer boy would need a binding for, but it is well hinted that there was some sort of attempt to bind him and he got ill because of it. This, I found, was done well, giving enough to make me feel smart for getting it, but keeping enough to make we want to keep reading to find out just what horrible thing could have made Emmet (or his family) get a binding.The one thing that did bother me in the plot was the extreme convenience of the very small world these characters lived in. How Emmet and Lucian come to meet is not such a stretch, but that Emmet later would end up being sent over to the Darnays is just a bit contrived. We're to accept the small world, the little village, the small town, the handful of moneyed lords who would have anything to do with books, and hence a binder inevitably ending up in one of their houses... The love affair between Emmet and Lucian has all the hallmarks of a hate-love relationship. Poor boy meets rich boy. It's sweet and tragic. The young men, despite the changes in their lives, seem to hold their character, their decisions and thoughts often well in range of how they would react in their station at the time. Perhaps another little problem was that all the rich and lordly men were depicted as evil. Perhaps this is not untrue in a sense, as we're learning from the #MeToo movement, that when someone has a lot of power, they will most likely abuse it. Still, Lord Darnay and a few of the other older men are just so extremely predatory without, it seems, any qualms, that it becomes a little unbelievable. In contrast, Emmet's father, a hard-working good farmer is pious and moral and, well, poor. So poor people are good, rich people are bad? It ends up being a bit like that, maybe a bit simplistic. Thankfully, Lucian Darnay manages to break this mold, showing a full range