BELLS OF OLD TOKYO

An elegant and absorbing tour of Tokyo and its residents

From 1632 until 1854, Japan’s rulers restricted contact with foreign countries, a near isolation that fostered a remarkable and unique culture that endures to this day. In hypnotic prose and sensual detail, Anna Sherman describes searching for the great bells by which the inhabitants of Edo, later called Tokyo, kept the hours in the shoguns’ city.

An exploration of Tokyo becomes a meditation not just on time, but on history, memory, and impermanence. Through Sherman’s journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo follows haunting voices through the labyrinth that is the Japanese capital: an old woman remembers escaping from the American firebombs of World War II. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. The head of the Tokugawa shogunal house reflects on the destruction of his grandfathers’ city: “A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness.”

The Bells of Old Tokyo marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer who presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life in the guise of a tour through a city and its people.

Un tur elegant si absorbant din Tokyo si rezidentii sai Din 1632 pana in 1854, conducatorii Japoniei au restrictionat contactul cu tarile straine, o izolare aproape care a favorizat o cultura remarcabila si unica care persista pana in prezent. In proza hipnotica si detalii senzoriale, Anna Sherman descrie cautarea marilor clopote prin care locuitorii din Edo, numit ulterior Tokyo, pastrau orele in orasul shogunilor. O explorare a Tokyoului devine o meditatie nu doar la timp, ci si asupra istoriei , memorie si impermanenta.