Tag: Alan Garner

‘Let words be nice’ – reflections on Alan Garner’s ‘Treacle Walker’

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[NB: this article assumes that you have read the book] All writing, it might be said, works by synecdoche: the writer supplies the part and from it we infer the whole to fill the space the writer leaves. Alan Garner is a master of omission: what makes it onto the page is spare and lean … Continue reading ‘Let words be nice’ – reflections on Alan Garner’s ‘Treacle Walker’

Why Colin can’t remember – reflections on Alan Garner’s ‘Boneland’

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Boneland must be one of the strangest sequels ever written. It is not Alan Garner’s best book, but for the questions it poses, it is of great interest to all of us who write for children. It purports to complete the trilogy begun fifty years ago with his earliest books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and … Continue reading Why Colin can’t remember – reflections on Alan Garner’s ‘Boneland’

‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth

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‘Metaphor: a figure of speech by which a thing is spoken of as being that which it only resembles, as when a ferocious person is called a tiger‘ – Chambers Dictionary Saddling metaphor with a definition like that (which is typical, even down to the threadbare example) is akin to giving it a criminal record … Continue reading ‘Is there light in Gorias?’ – reflections on metaphor and truth

The Cartography of Childhood 2: a recanting

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'Blog in haste, repent at leisure.' (old proverb, probably attributed to Albert Einstein/Dr Seuss/Abraham Lincoln) When I said ‘the fantasy element in fantasy literature is the embodiment of the child’s expectations of the grown-up world’ I felt I had pinned down an idea that I have been moving towards for some time - years, in … Continue reading The Cartography of Childhood 2: a recanting