The Books That Made Me #2: Alan Garner
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- In which I extol the virtues of Alan Garner (the writer, not the actor)
Books mentioned:
- The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
- The Moon of Gomrath
- Boneland
- The Owl Service
- Red Shift
- First Light: a Celebration of Alan Garner - Erica Wagner (ed)
Find me on Twitter/Instagram @yokelbear
Great video. Loved Alan garner. A similar book is susan cooper The dark is rising. Brilliant.
I listened to the audio version of Boneland last night. And wow. They did it well. The reading voice fits so well!!
Love to know your theory as to what it all means and where Susan is.
Love Brisingamen and Gomroth. Just finished Boneland. Beautiful. Very sad at times. I keep reading the last four pages over and over because it's a little hard to grasp but every time I read it over...It is very touching and beautiful x
Just finished reading Thursbitch. Outstanding book. Alan Garner is a master of his craft.
I read all his books as a youngster. Totally addictive...Did not réalisé my family origins Viking from Cheshire while child in NZ.
Thanks for sharing all of these works by Alan Garner! I finished Red Shift this afternoon and was absolutely fascinated. The sense of time slipping was done so well. It’s nice to see how it fits in with his other works, particularly children’s books.
Boneland needs at least several readings to fully realise the quality of this book, though really a belated epilogue. it is ultimately an incredibly satisfying read for lovers of the first two books.
I still have my original paperback copy of TWOB, bought c1968 from the Co-op with two weeks pocket money one Friday evening. I've subsequently read all Garner's novels and anthologies, most, repeatedly. It was about the time I bought my copy that Alan Garner dismissed Weirdstone as "a fairly bad book", though I didn't learn this until many years later. As a reader, he was mistaken in that conclusion. Firstly, children do not care about character motivation and psychological complexity, they want a ripping yarn. Colin and Susan may be cyphers who'd fit into any number of boarding school romps, but the main character is the land, and it lacks nothing in complexity or motive.
The rejection of his earlier work is telling. My suspicion is Garner wanted to be taken seriously, and has spent the intervening years developing an approach which fits the criterion but has lost something in the telling. His later books are excellent in their own right, stylistically beautiful but essentially interior locutions, opaque and self-referential. The intimate relationship with the land which was drawn out so elegantly in those books was always fully developed in Brisingamen and Gomrath, only the language had changed.
Boneland was a very good novel, and I disagree with the claim that he disappointed his old readers. However it was an attempt at laying the ghost of his old self, IMO. The old Colin, an earnest simpleton in the long shadow of his sister's amulet, her guile and burgeoning adulthood, grew a name and a backstory. Growing a psychology nearly killed him, which is a lesson to writers and readers everywhere.
I found Red Shift quite hard to read but I loved it!
I love your contribution on Garner. The Brisingamen Trilogy was and still is my favourite piece of writing, and I read it over and over again. Boneland makes so much sense as an ending to what always frightened me as a child. After it came out I made a song about it as I was so delighted the way the Morrigan was tamed, Colin found Susan and the story did not complete. Here's the video of it.
czcams.com/video/szKjR_V-RGE/video.html
HI, GREAT REVIEWS. I HAVE JUST ORDERED BONELAND THE WEIED STONE AND GOMRATH ARE THE BOOKS WHOM ARE REASON I LEARNED HOW TO READ.BY MY JUNIOR SCHOOL TEACHER .MRS SCAMAL; NOT SURE I HAVE SPELT HER NAME CORRECTLY. I SAY THIS BECAUSE SHE ONCE COMMENTED TO MY MUM AND DAD IT IS A WONDERFUL THING FOR A TEACHER 'WHEN THEY INSPIRE A CHILD TO READ AND ENJOY BOOKS.' SO THANK YOU MRS SCAMEL AND MRS SAYGAR YOU ARE BOTH IN MY THOURGHTS AND THANKS FOREVER. GREAT REVIEW MARK THANK YOU AND AM LOOKING FORWARD TO 'BONELAND'.