A review by nicktomjoe
Bone Music by David Almond
5.0
David Almond takes his readers into the themes closely associated with Lucy Boston and Alan Garner: the deeply felt connection of place and history with the present. In doing so he does not disappoint: when the protagonist, shy, uprooted Sylvia (the woodland roots of her name indicate her mother’s past connections with the place) “dreamed that the living and the dead and the still-to-be-born danced together in the forest clearings,” we are with her as her discovery of the connectedness of pasts and the present deepen. Pasts? Yes: Sylvia discovers her new friend Gabriel’s painful history, confronts the shadows surrounding ancient Andreas, links to the changing landscapes of Northumbria - and the present, the pull of the city and friends, the frustration at not getting ‘phone signal, the urgency of youthful eco-protesters. And through it all, the mysterious music of the bone flute, Sylvia’s detailed making of her own, and the transcendent insights she gains.
There are connections to other Almond works all over - notably in the turn-but-a-stone-and-start-a-wing mysticism reminiscent of Skellig, and the water of the Kielder reservoir he explores so well in The Dam. This is David Almond absolutely on form.
Bone Music is a thoughtful book, politically mature, intriguing in what it says and what it hints at, a painful story in its discussion of grief and isolation and self-harm, a triumph of friendship, and love and music and a hope built on a community that stretches back into the past and comes out bang up to date.
There are connections to other Almond works all over - notably in the turn-but-a-stone-and-start-a-wing mysticism reminiscent of Skellig, and the water of the Kielder reservoir he explores so well in The Dam. This is David Almond absolutely on form.
Bone Music is a thoughtful book, politically mature, intriguing in what it says and what it hints at, a painful story in its discussion of grief and isolation and self-harm, a triumph of friendship, and love and music and a hope built on a community that stretches back into the past and comes out bang up to date.