Review By AZ, a reader/teacher
The women’s side did the invisible work – folding, gathering, and sewing the sheets of paper into sections, while the ‘men’s side’ bound the books and gilded the covers.
What a delightful find. Many publishers traditionally highlight writers, critics, and commentators but no one talks about the actual workers behind the making of the books–people in the bookbindery.
Set in the backdrop of the 1914 World War, the story is about Peggy, her twin sister Maude, and their friends in the bookbindery. All the men either volunteered or were conscripted in the war, leaving many openings for women in this dismal atmosphere.
However, women were not only participants in the war as nurses, drivers, etc., they were also left with the task of running their homes, earning bread, and taking over duties normally delegated to their men.
Peggy is introduced as the young bookbinder whose dreams have been on hold since she had to be the caretaker for her autistic twin. Their mother passed away and both girls had to work in her profession to make ends meet.
Living on a houseboat, surrounded by books and unbound papers that could not be sold in the market due to flaws in their spine, paper edges, or other issues, Peggy’s dream was to study at Oxford. These old books and damaged papers were the only way she could keep up with her reading.
Jericho, the setting of the novel, is an old suburb of Oxford outside the town walls. It was an industrial area along the Oxford Canal (the Oxford University Press was just one of the factories to be found there) known for its poor drainage, open gutters, and overpopulation. Housing consisted of working-class slums, worker’s cottages, and houseboats on the canal. Pip William’s novel brings these images alive for her readers.
The story is of her gradually increasing her social network, unknowingly mustering support from her boss and friends who push her into reaching out for a scholarship at the university. Refugees from Belgium mark a new step as the British girls learn to accommodate foreigners with empathy and love.
Not only does Peggy find love in the Belgian Officer Bastiaan, but also transcends social boundaries with the politically motivated wealthy Gwen, who then becomes a powerful factor in her decision to sit for the entrance exams at Oxford. Her sister, neighbours, and Tilda, her mom’s friend push her to reach out for her dream of becoming an actual scholar and not remain a bookbinder which would keep her knowledge and aspirations limited.
Peggy’s struggle to empower herself in a socially/historically limited context is what makes the book remarkable. Women’s right to vote is being discussed as are the limitations in access to education, work, and economic enablement. Loss is a huge theme for men, women, and children who vanished in war. The lamentable state of soldiers, the miserable conditions in hospitals, and the overworked, hollow-eyed staff are poignant scenes that come alive through Peggy and Gwen’s voluntary work and Tilda’s letters. Spanish flu had added to the misery, and deaths multiplied at home as well as on the war front. Despite this, what is admirable is the way Peggy reflects on the limits of language in the face of such experiences.
Loss. The Concise Dictionary simply defined it as: Detriment, disadvantage. See lose, the entry said. I turned back a few pages. Lose: Be deprived of, cease by negligence, misadventure, separation, death. It didn’t quite explain the feeling I had.
That ‘feeling’ remains throughout the novel, because Peggy’s innate wisdom combined with her illegitimate birth and her lack of resources add up to a life of dismal prospects. What is then inspiring is the transition of Peggy from a bookbinder to a reader, a scholar—a role not considered ideal for women in 1914, certainly not from her economic group.
This novel is mostly a tribute to the poetic materiality of books. It makes visible the long, slow, skilful labour involved in building a book; it traces the life that a book might lead through decades or more of use: of instructing and distracting, entertaining and creating empathy. The bookbinder’s view is transferred to us, the readers as material existences which give us an in-depth look at their lives and reveries.
