The vicar links them to the bells and the music in a way akin to leading the parish in prayer. The bell-ringers are men of the village, with a hierarchy of their own when in the bell tower. Think of losing yourself in the sound for that long but never letting go of your concentration and constantly having to use your muscle and your wit. The book starts with nine hours of bell-ringing. The sound of the bells is so strong and so rich that you can lose yourself in it. Ringing the bells is a disciplined, collaborative act that requires skill and stamina. The peals the bell-ringers pull are marvels of mathematics, a sort of Bach in sounding bronze, and yet they are mastered by men with no education but a great deal of commitment. They’ve stood at the centre of the village, marking all the significant events of village life, for generations.

The bells and the church are hundreds of years old. A picture emerged of bell-ringing as something that binds a village together.

I could follow the lengthy descriptions of church architecture more easily because I love to visit old churches but even so, it was a lot to take in.Įventually, I let go of trying to understand the detail of bells and church and focus on the meaning behind them. At the start, I was a bit overwhelmed by a tide of technical details of bell-ringing that I couldn’t follow and which, especially in the audiobook version, became tedious. I didn’t always find it an easy book to read. ‘The Nine Tailors’ is a story lacquered with lots of layers of imagery and inquiry but, at its heart, I think it’s about Sayers’ love of the Fens and its people and her understanding, expressed through Wimsey, of her arms-length relationship to it. I got all those things but they weren’t really what the book was about. I wasn’t expecting anything more than some colourful scenery, a bit of wit and an engaging puzzle. I was curious to see Peter Wimsey without Harriet Vane as a balance. I went into ‘The Nine Tailors’ expecting a well-written golden-age mystery.

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers