He walked along the brink, along the line of nothing, between sky and ancient river

[sovay]

I seem to have celebrated the solstice this year by reading Alan Garner's Boneland (2012) and singing "Fairytale of New York" with derspatchel .

Works for me.

Comments

[sovay]

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Boneland at some point.

It reminded me most of Red Shift (1973), slightly of Strandloper (1996); I read it without re-reading either of the first two novels to see whether it would stand on its own, which it does. The idea of tracking the psychological damage of being the hero of a children's fantasy is one which has interested me for years and Alan Garner does it in a way which isn't strictly any more realist than being the hero of a children's fantasy in the first place (or at least intermittently non-realist: I believe all the fractured layers of Colin's self that grind up against each other and refuse to integrate or even let him near the last unsplintered place in his life when he was thirteen, and I believe the ways the psychotherapist doesn't let him off the hook for it, but she herself is only a believable character if she's really something else entirely), but I think it works. He writes ritual beautifully, patterning. He has since The Owl Service (1967). There are ways in which Boneland is what I wanted from the second half of Robert Holdstock's Lavondyss (1988), only more so. There are also ways in which it completely failed to come together at the end for me, but I think it's doing so deliberately: it resolves in another key. If it weren't for the second storyline with the shaman, I'd say it wasn't a genre book at all.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, have you read its immediate predecessor, Thursbitch? That seems closer to Boneland in spirit than does Strandloper, for my money.

[sovay]

its immediate predecessor, Thursbitch? That seems closer to Boneland in spirit than does Strandloper, for my money.

No; that's the Garner I haven't read! I have a copy of The Guizer (1975) I discovered in a used book store in grad school, but I never found that one.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The Guizer is the rarer book, I'd say! Thursbitch is at least still in print. I think it's my favourite of his adult novels. I hope it won't be spoilery (because it's not that sort of book) if I give you the last few lines of it, which I love:

“Bryn. If I’m to rest tonight in this flowery valley, tell them to put me in me own fold, so as I’m close to you. Then, tell them, put at me head a pipe of hornbeam, for sweetness; a pipe of holly, for sadness; a pipe of oak, for wildness. Then when the wind blows it must play. And tell them in good truth as how I wed the wench of this world; and a star fell.

“Tell them as how Sun and Moon held crown for me; as how Cats Tor and Shining Tor were me parsons; quickthorns me witness; and all to the singing of a thousand brids and the sky my torches.”

And out over Throon above Bully Thrumble the high lord hanging holy under heaven. And Crom asleep in the ground.

[sovay]

The Guizer is the rarer book, I'd say!

Well, it's in a box somewhere, like far too many of my books. But at least I know it's there.

And out over Throon above Bully Thrumble the high lord hanging holy under heaven. And Crom asleep in the ground.

Yes, I will like this very much.