BOOKSHIP

Reading the Novels of Alan Garner

Reading the Novels of Alan Garner by Murray Ewing book cover
by Murray Ewing
Series: Invocations
Literary Criticism

Alan Garner’s writing has the heft of an ancient hand-axe: deceptively simple in form, a marriage of the natural, the ancient, and the human, perfectly balanced, perfectly honed. It feels right in the hand; it reads right on the page. It’s a body of work worth reading, re-reading, and pondering. This monograph is the result of one such reading.

Looking at eight novels and a collection of four novellas, and covering a span of fifty-two years in which Garner’s consistent and uncompromising creative integrity has taken him from YA fantasies to adult novels that explore the links between people and landscapes, between vision and trauma and healing, this monograph is both a personal response to Garner’s work, and an examination of its key themes as they emerge, clearer and clearer, as the work progresses.

Invocations is a series of short monographs on the works of great fantasy writers.

return to BOOKSHIP main page