Another characteristic feature of his work is his drawing upon locally based historical incidents or myths and in this he has become extremely accomplished. Dickinson and in the earlier Miscellany (1967) edited by E. It was published as one of the stories in an anthology under the title of The Restless Ghost (1970) edited by one S. It has a paranormal element (which was used so successfully in The Owl Service and the television adaptation of that work) and makes use of slipped time (which also formed a part of Red Shift). A story, Feel Free, in several senses bridges the divide between those two novels in that it has elements found in both of the longer works. His innovative handling of time as an essential dramatic device, whether in the split time frame of Red Shift or in the interconnectedness of the past with the present in The Owl Service. His use of dialect, particularly the dialect of his home county – Cheshire – was increasingly more accomplished (even if his later works like The Stone Book Quartet were to eclipse the earlier experiments). By the time of that book certain elements in his work were clearly discernible. Prior to The Owl Service his prose lacked the tautness that was to exemplify his subsequent work but the clincher was Red Shift whose bare prose was a revelation.
The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973) were clear evidence of this, and they mark a turning point In Garner’s literary style. That examination of Garner’s work cogently argues the case that its subject is an original talent. One of Alan Garner’s quotes summing up his whole attitude to what might be described as the fantasy folly of the Sixties was used as an introduction to the review of Neil Philip’s A Fine Anger, (which appeared in the fifth issue of this magazine). Lewis and Tolkien, yet apart from superficial resemblances in form those books are poles apart. At the time of their appearance they were lumped with much of the fantasy writing so prized by admirers of C. Nevertheless those books laid down the rudiments of Garner’s writing style formative prose it may be but enjoyable for all that. The early fiction – The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960), The Moon of Gomrath (1963) and Elidor (1965) – with hindsight seems shaky in parts, yet reading them at the time, as they appeared, each book seemed far more forceful to a boy entering his teens. His books, when viewed chronologically, show a steady progression. Alan Garner is commonly regarded as a writer of children’s books – a description which undervalues his talents by a long chalk (without denigrating that profession) and which fails to take account of the main corpus of his work. There has been no attempt to impose updates on this interview.įinding an article on the English author Alan Garner in a magazine like this, the contents of which revolve around music, may appear a little unusual at first sight but Garner’s is a talent which fully justifies the inclusion of an article on him in any magazine with an interest in folk music and folklore. Any changes are so that the text conforms to our style guide and to contextualise and clarify matters. Hence the excuse to re-publish part of the first part of this interview. 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Alan Garner’s novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and HarperCollins has duly published a 50th anniversary edition.
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