Reading Beneath the Surface

The Binding, by Bridget Collins

The Binding, by Bridget Collins, is a dark novel in whose darkness the light of an innocent love flickers – an innocent love that takes time to for it to be recognised as such.

Learning “to make endpapers, to pare leather, to finish with blind or gold tooling,” (p.29) painstakingly preparing one paper at a time, only for it to end up thrown away, and work to be started all over again – this is what learning the craft of binding is about. But isn’t this what learning craft more broadly is about?

More than about craft, this book is about art. What are the powers and the responsibilities of artists? For, are craft and art to be used for the means of the wealthier ones, the more powerful ones who afford to buy lives as if they buy books? “There are binders who only think to turn a profit, who care about nothing but their bank balance, who, yes, sell books” who think binding is about power, about money, who have “no... reverence”, a binder tells us. But one could think of craft and artistry as something sacred. Is craft interlinked with sacred art – almost priceless, only to secure the artists’ living – or is craft interlinked with trade, and is it meant to bring bounty, luxury in one’s life?

More poignantly, the craft of binding is about capturing memories, storing them away. It is as much about storing forgotten memories of an impossible love as it is about erasing disturbing memories of lustfully being possessed by the more powerful one against one’s own will.

What about after we let our memories be bound, or erased and stored ‘safely’ away? Can sickness, alcohol, or even death cover up the “bound” deep wounds inflicted upon us by our companions?

The Binding is a comment on social the struggles of our generation, who lead itself and allowed others to lead it into forgetting those things most important to us. It describes the darkness of losing oneself, one’s memories, one’s identity.

One can attempt to cover up painful erasures through sickness or through addictions, but ultimately, as the binder tells us, “deep down [one] know[s] something is missing.” Hence the torment, described in a poetic, melodic, enchanting prose that lures you inside the pain until you feel one with the bound one.