The Bells of Old Tokyo

Meditations on Time and a City

By: Anna Sherman

Narrated by: Holly Palance

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.

Endearing view of Tokyo, with a few minor stumbles

The vast majority of the book is charming. As a foreign resident of Tokyo myself, I could appreciate a lot of the nuances of the outsider eagerly trying to learn the intricacies of the city, the language and the people. The author is at her best connecting the history of Edo with the complexity of modern life in Tokyo. My only wish is that it had done more strolling around the neighborhoods of Tokyo, a hobby I like to do myself, literally.

Only a few times does the book stray, primarily in the descriptions of parts of Roppongi and Kabukicho, love hotels and the seedier side of the city. These are certainly parts of the story, but don't neatly fit into her historical time narrative. Similarly, I'm not sure why she was surprised at the Japanese reaction to the foreigners who'd fled after 3/11. As one who stayed, I can entirely understand if a sense of abandonment and betrayal was felt, and later conveyed to those returnees. And, I'm not usually a stickler for pronunciation, but after hearing Asakusa and Tsukiji, (among others) repeatedly bruised, it made me wonder why there wasn't more preparation for the narration.

But ultimately, these few distractions are minor hiccups. it's an otherwise enchanting stroll around Tokyo..