Book: Five Bells by Gail Jones
Reviewed by: Lyn McErlean
Five Bells is a well written book, immensely intense with the stories of five people and one day on Sydney Harbour which connects them.This is a very Sydney book, if you are a regular visitor or local to Sydney you will almost feel there with the exquisite descriptions of the area. Some of those descriptors are so embedded in your mind that they feel too obvious to put in a book but Gail has brought the feeling of the area so forward that you feel like you were there yesterday. I felt like I really remembered the Aboriginal Didgeridoo performer when in fact when I was there I just simply past him but the image and memory embedded came back clearly. It’s almost like taking a bird’s eye tour of the area, including the train station and opera house. The book begins with each of the characters arriving at the Sydney Harbour on a beautiful sunny Sydney day.
Five Bells tells the story of four very different people, Catherine who has travelled, Pei Xing a Chinese immigrant, James who has failed to succeed as a doctor and struggles with his adult life and Ellie who is the optimist in the set.
Each of the four adults shares a complex story of loss and how each of these adults has been transformed or moulded by the loss. The issue of grief is the underlying theme and how each of these characters has been able to evolve and move on and others who have been frozen within the grief cycle. The background of the characters is rich and diverse and has been well researched and told in this story. Whilst the book could be written to be sad, it is not, it is opulent with the history of the people and well written.
I enjoyed the story of Pei Xing and how she came to live in Australia and the friendships she had forged out of very unlikely circumstances. Pei Xing shows an example of no matter how tragic your life might be that you should forgive and work towards enjoyment of being with people.
The story is complex and interwoven, it does not follow a linear format, you don’t find out what the significance is of the day to near the end when the fifth character is introduced. The story is ‘unresolved’ with no definite ending, just a feeling of how these people will move forward from what you know.
Whilst this is a very interesting story, rich with thoughts and character understanding, and the setting was inspiring, but I have to say that it was not my sort of book. This book takes a level of concentration to follow the linking stories and I enjoy books which satisfy me with a more solid ending. This book would be good to read at a book club where you could read, discuss and decide on how things work out.
