Why a Booktrail?
Timeless: This is a journey into London like you have never heard before. Allow the music – each and every note to transport you there.
The Chimes
What you need to know before your trail
This is a world which you have never been to before. It is a world where memories are banned and where people are not allowed to form new ones. Previous ones weigh you down. The written word has been forbidden and destroyed.
With memories and writing both absent, the currency of the day is music.
In this apocalyptic and confusing world, Simon Wythern is a young man recently arrived in London in order to find out the truth about what really happened to his parents. He discovers he has a gift that if he knows how to use it, it could change everything.
He needs to access his memories, his words – the two very things that are banned. Strictly banned or there will be consequences…..
Travel Guide
The Chimes is set in a post-apocalyptic London. It is a London that you will recognise but in a very unique way. something like an apocalyptic event has occurred clearly for the landscape is changed. But the names of places, like names in a song have been changed by music for they have a new rhythm – Batter Sea for example is familiar yet strange – Mill Wall and South Walk – phonetically changed – New music to the ears…
For music is the real landscape here – what with the written word or any type of communication being banned. Only communication through music is allowed but certainly no unexpected creativity or individuality of any kind.
With such a barren and dry landscape, there are overtones of ‘1984’ especially when people try to hold on to their memories by keeping physical objects which represent that memory. Something that represents a memory without actually having a thought in your head.
This London is rather like a sheet of music with the black notes dotted all over the page, random and surprising, unexpected and shocking all at once. The London landscape has been recreated with musical overtones and pregnant pauses. As we move throughout this landscape the language changes – language has adapted to the new world; it starts off as the English we know but then music over takes it fast becomes presto and lento replaces slow. And bustling London?…. tacet.
Booktrailer Review
Susan:
A book, like learning to read music, that you have to work at a little and persevere with for the language and the words change and lead you further into this strange yet fascinating world. if you understand or read music then you will pick certain clues up quicker but there is handy key at the start of the book to introduce you slowly.
I can honestly say I’ve never read a book like this before. I knew it was set in London but the musical landscape was far stronger than the physical. I would even go as far to say that the plot of Simon and his world was not the main plot – for the music and landscape took over that too. But it was a fascinating world to be in and maybe it changes you as I stopped noticing the changes in spelling and place names – it all seemed so normal as I read.
Maybe that is the power of the Chimes…
Where Next?
