HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Children's, Paperback, Alan Garner
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Price: £7.99
Brand: HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks
Description: From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children's Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time. HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Children's, Paperback, Alan Garner - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Harper Collins
Product ID: 9780007355211
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Dimensions: 129x198mm
Keywords: Booker Prize,Carnegie Medal,folklore,myths,magic,fantasy,history,nature
ISBN: 9780007355211
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Author: Victor
Rating: 5
Review: First published in 1960, this is the first novel from the pen of Alan Garner. 55 years on it still stands up as a masterpiece. It’s nearly thirty years since I first read the book. I am sad to say that until recently I have been unable to read it again, for reasons that I will mention later. The book made a huge impression on my 8 yr old self, and decades later whilst re-reading it I find that despite the gulf of years I could clearly remember the story line, characters and many of the events in the book. There are not many books from my childhood that have made that kind of impression. Garner has woven a rich tale, and tells the adventures of two children who become involved in the magical world around them and the quest of the wizard Cadellin to return the Weirdstone of Brisingamen to its rightful place in Fundindelve and to keep it from the evil Nastrond and the Morthbrood. The tale starts off as a normal everyday tale and Garner cleverly and subtly uses folklore to introduce magical elements, hinting at otherworldliness until one particular scene where the children suddenly realise uncontrovertibly that there is a lot more to the world than that which they know. Often compared to Tolkien, Garner takes inspiration (and indeed, many words) from the same sources that inspired Tolkien as they both share a deep interest in folklore. But whereas Tolkien invented a whole new world for his adventures, Garner roots his firmly in the here and now, weaving a tapestry from the myth and legend of the land with hanging it on the wall of real life. It feels a lot less fantastical and more naturalistic that Tolkein’s work, almost a continuation of ancient myths and an exploration of how they would appear if the old characters and creatures were to suddenly appear in today’s world. There is also a sense of two worlds running alongside each other, the everyday and the magical. At least once the question is asked – which is the real world and which is the dream world? This questioning of reality is something else that I remember strongly from my first reading of the book. Garner has a good story to tell, with many fascinating concepts, but what makes it really special is his writing style. He has a knack of describing places, people and adventure so clearly that you are instantly caught up in it. And it is his descriptive power that prevented me from reading the book again for so many years. There is a section in which the children and two dwarves must travel through a narrow tunnel, his descriptions of the journey in the dark squeezing through small cracks in the rock with the weight of the earth seeming to press down upon them touched a nerve, awakened a nascent claustrophobia within me and gave me nightmares for a week afterwards. It still inspires real fear in me when I re-read it today. It is extremely well written. Though the two protagonists are children, I read it first as a child and it is often sold as a children’s book, I would not describe it as such. It is a book for all ages, children will enjoy the adventure, adults may find more in the weaving of folklore and the questioning of reality (and enjoy the adventure!) There is something here for everyone. 5 stars for the book. This version is an unabridged reading by the late, great Philip Madoc. His rich tones do the tale full justice, racking up the dread and tension or bringing forth the excitement as necessary. I could listen to it all day (and indeed, I did!) There are short bits of music between chapters but no other sound effects. Liner notes are excellent, NAXOS do really well at this. There is a full list of chapter points, an essay from Garner about the genesis of the book and a short bio of Madoc. It’s on 5 discs and clocks in at 6 hours 20 minutes. The discs come in a cunning fold out double jewel case. It’s a great production of a great book, 5 stars.
Author: Ms Louise Wilford
Rating: 3
Review: I first read this book when I was eighteen (around 1982) and working in a library. Always on the lookout for good books, I read this because a colleague recommended it, saying she had read it at school and 'it was one of her favourite books'. I remember thinking that it had a distinctive atmosphere, which seemed at the time quite magical and unusual. Garner seemed to have done something exceptional - created a genuinely original work of fantasy which was exciting in a way other fantasy books I'd read at the time weren't. So, thirty years later, again on the look-out for a good read, and having listened to my husband raving about The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen which he recalled from his childhood, I decided to download it onto my kindle and have another read. And I'm afraid that somehow it no longer seems original or distinctive. In fact, it reads like a weak Tolkein knock-off, as if written by someone who wanted to do a 'Lord Of The Rings' but couldn't be arsed to do all that work, so decided to create a much shorter version. It has all the cliches: the elderly wise-man wizard, the weirdstone itself (not far from the notion of a ring of power), brave and slightly comical dwarfs, mysterious and beautiful elves who save the day when least expected. And its protagonists are two children called Colin and Susan (they even have boring middle-class names, not much better than 'Janet and John') who must surely be the most personality-less characters in children's literature. This was my most serious gripe: Colin and Susan are so under-developed as characters as to be utterly anonymous 'brave types' from the Sword and Sorcery Handbook Of Stereotypes. They don't behave like any children I know - they never complain, they are unfailingly brave, they never argue, they do their chores round the farm without question (even though we are led to believe that they aren't used to farm-work), they have no discernible inner lives whatsoever, they don't read or watch TV or stuff their faces with sweets or moan. Like Enid Blyton children (who actually have more personality), they appear to be accepted without question into a close-knit rural community where there appears to be no other children, and no one bullies them, except the supernatural characters. And of course they are allowed to roam around for hours and hours alone in a place they don't know at all and that they've been told is dangerous - I can't imagine my mum letting us do this as children. The dialogue they are given is unconvincingly wooden. They have no backstory; we learn nothing really about why their parents have dumped them with Bess, who seems peculiarly happy to take on two children she hasn't seen for years even though she is very busy with the daily drudgery of the farm. I'm sorry if I seem pedantic here but this stuff matters - or it does to me. The story had a lot of holes that weren't filled. The book has some real strengths as well. The journey underground is fabulous (and that is what stayed with me after my first reading, all those years ago), and the character of Gowther is also excellently drawn. I liked the villains - Grimnir, the Morthbrood, the scarecrow people, the mara, the goblins - and the harp-playing water people. These were all highly imaginative (if slightly derivative). The sense of place is still thrilling - I felt like I'd visited Alderley Edge after reading the book. But it left far too many questions unanswered. The ending was too sudden. I'm hoping the sequel will answer these questions, but I wouldn't be reading that if I wasn't currently bored. Diana Wynne Jones, who I believe was a contemporary of Garner and also wrote fantasy, seems to me to take a much more imaginative approach - what might be called a female-approach. I complained to my husband that Colin and Susan were cardboard cutouts and he said 'That's why I liked it when I was a kid. Boys don't want all that character-stuff clogging up the story', and maybe this is the problem. Wynne Jones seems to me to also manage to have plot-driven novels, which often cover the same ground (the morrigan in Time Of The Ghost, for instance), but the characters are much more believable, human and interesting, which makes a massive difference, to me at least. But male writers like Neil Gaiman can bring the magical and mysterious into the real world without losing sight of character. And let's face it, Tolkein made his characters some alive - at least substantially more than Garner does. In the end, I think you have to accept Garner on his own terms. He was a pioneer by all accounts, even though this book seems so derivative to me now - he was one of the writers who paved the way for others to do better, take it further. And he is very good at creating a sense of place and an air of mystery and magic. I could definitely do without the Tolkeinesque dialogue, however.
