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Shaman's Story
Jul. 12th, 2012 10:16 pmDec 2011
Strandloper - Alan Garner - Harvill Press, 1997
* * * *
Despite my huge admiration for the author, I somehow missed this novel when it first came out, so was glad when a friend kindly bought it for me (thanks Dave!). Reading it after Thursbitch is, however, a disconcerting experience, like listening to the movements of a symphony in the wrong order. For if Thursbitch is a grand finale, this is definitely the preceding adagio - slow, technically simple, and for me, as someone who responds more to up-tempo sophistication than to deep feeling, relatively uninteresting. Its plot, based (apparently) on the life of a real person, is more straightforward than most Alan Garner novels, with no clever parallel stories or crossovers in time or space (except in one important respect, to which I'll return). And to be honest, I miss them.
( Read more... )
Strandloper - Alan Garner - Harvill Press, 1997
* * * *
Despite my huge admiration for the author, I somehow missed this novel when it first came out, so was glad when a friend kindly bought it for me (thanks Dave!). Reading it after Thursbitch is, however, a disconcerting experience, like listening to the movements of a symphony in the wrong order. For if Thursbitch is a grand finale, this is definitely the preceding adagio - slow, technically simple, and for me, as someone who responds more to up-tempo sophistication than to deep feeling, relatively uninteresting. Its plot, based (apparently) on the life of a real person, is more straightforward than most Alan Garner novels, with no clever parallel stories or crossovers in time or space (except in one important respect, to which I'll return). And to be honest, I miss them.
( Read more... )