In all of McKillip’s works, the emotion of the story and the evocative language carry the reader along through a tapestry of dreams. Her characterization is both rich and archetypal, and there are funny moments as well as a sense of deep magic always flowing in the background. McKillip never neglects story, but in The Bell at Sealey Head, the story moves more to the fore than in some of her other novels. Lady Eglantyne is aged and bedridden, barely hanging onto life in her chambers in Aislinn House, an old house overlooking the port town of Sealey Head. While the townsfolk wonder what the new heir is like, Emma, a maid in Aislinn House, is able to open doors onto another Aislinn House, where Princess Ysabo moves through a series of daily rituals that she must perform without question, lest she face punishment. Ysabo walks daily up and down the stairs accomplishing seemingly meaningless tasks, feeding the crows last night’s leavings each morning, lighting candles, turning the blank pages of a book. The question “why” is rewarded with a slap to the face from a man whose name she doesn’t even know. Meanwhile, in Sealey Head, a mysterious guest has arrived at Judd Cauley’s inn, and everyone wonders who Ridley Dow is and why he is so curious about the daily tolling of the bell.
Reading The Bell at Sealey Head, there was a moment when I finally understood what novels are for. I can’t recall exactly which moment it was, but reading Judd Cauley’s thoughts, experiencing what he experienced, made me certain that the purpose of reading fiction is to know others intimately, to get inside the heart and soul of another and know them as we can know few others in this life. Someone said McKillip writes the same characters over and over, but the human spirit is endlessly faceted, and exploring those facets, over and over, can be rewarding in a way that coming up with new quirks and unique backstory isn’t. Her characters are archetypes, yes, but it’s not because she can’t think of anything new to say; rather it’s that she never runs out of things to say about people, and certain types draw her back over and over with the questions and puzzles they present. I think this is where movies fail and books succeed: there is no other media in which language can be used so precisely to explore the inner landscape of another person, as well as the external events that effect that landscape. It’s like living another life, for a few hours or days.
While the townsfolk of Sealey Head plan parties and make matches, the rituals in that other Aislinn House go on and on, and it serves as the inner landscape to the story itself. If Sealey Head is the story’s body, Ysabo’s world is its mind. It would be easy to say that the rituals Ysabo moves through in a neverending cycle are a commentary by the author on the vanity of meaningless religious practice, imposed upon us by men and tradition, and perhaps that’s so. But I kept thinking of the way we sometimes accept meaningless ritual in our everyday lives, how we wake up to an alarm, shower, convey ourselves to our destinations, then sit in our cubicles or classrooms busying ourselves with pointless tasks for reasons we don’t fully understand, made use of by a system set into place long ago. I think many people’s lives are not that different from Ysabo’s, and that our rituals can be similarly imposed upon us by a mysterious source or mindless acceptance that “it must be good because everyone says so” or “it’s always been this way”.
Of course, narcissists, control-freaks and powers-that-be sometimes use ritual to mind-numbing effect upon others. Often the ritual in The Bell at Sealey Head reminded me of the controlling spouse who demands all labels in the kitchen cupboards face forward, or that the floor behind the refrigerator not harbour a speck of dust. Such arbitrary, whimsical rules are a prison for the person who must perform the rituals day after day, until their own thoughts are bound by this control mechanism. The constant cycling of Ysabo’s ritual, going up and down winding stairs, feeding the crows, lighting a candle, locking a door, echoes the misery of a mind locked in its own meaningless rituals, trapped in the prison of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the rituals must be performed over and over again without question lest evil befall the individual. The “body” that is the town of Sealey Head goes about its business, unaware of the cycling torment of its inner world, as the individual may go about their business giving no indication of their own inner turmoil.
But The Bell at Sealey Head is not a heavy book. It’s more story-driven than McKillip’s books usually are, but the writing is still beautiful, the characters still rich and the magic still deep. The plot of this book is fun and the relationships are charming; The Bell at Sealey Head has a light tone that makes for a slightly different sort of read than McKillip’s other works, though her signature use of repeated motifs is still present. Mostly though, the characters and McKillip’s humor—more apparent in this book than some of her others—really drew me in. Highly recommended.
