Alan Garner - The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

I thought it was time to revisit this ahead of the imminent arrival of 'Boneland', a third 'Tale of Alderley' a mere 42 years after the first.

My first problem was nothing to do with Garner at all, it was the dreadful edition of the book that I have.  For me, the image above 'is' the cover to this book, not this monstrosity;



I have, it appears, a US young adult edition that commits a heinous sin in the blurb on the back cover. It describes the action as taking place in 'the mountains of Wales', because some good citizen of the States has picked up that it is riffing on Celtic myth, put two and two together and got it very wrong indeed.  Alderley Edge, Mobberley, Macclesfield and the like are all in Cheshire, a very great distance from the Welsh border.

On to the book itself, I raced through it and it was like meeting an old friend again.  When Cadellin exhorts the 'Maggot breed of Ymir' to scarper, I found myself wondering why this never made it on to the big (or even small) screen, it's gripping stuff.

The early sequences with Selina Place are unsettling and the general sense of foreboding is palpable.  I enjoyed the scenes in the mines with the Svarts but thought they went on a bit too long and lost the tension a little.

The second half of the book is essentially the 'quest', when they travel from A to B with X to give it to Y with many exciting events on the way.  So far, so Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but the difference here is that the fantastical events are grounded in a very real bit of British countryside, not a weird otherworldly realm.

Another thing that always puzzled me was why Gowther went along with them.  The usual deal for children's fiction is that their 'appropriate adults' are in the dark about what is going on, whereas he literally goes for the journey.

The various episodes of peril are well done and who could fail to appreciate a character called 'Angharad Goldenhand'?  We go along for a bumpy ride and then, all of a sudden, it's all over.  The ending comes as bit of a jolt and we are reminded that this is a very slim volume for those brought up in the Harry Potter generation.

Overall, is it a classic of its genre? Yes.  Is it well-written? Up to a point.  Some of Garner's other work I would rate more highly - particularly 'The Owl Service', but this book is far better than the second volume 'The Moon of Gomrath'.

I look forward to reading 'Boneland', which much surely be the last Alderley Tale that he will write.  I'm still hoping for that film adaptation though; perhaps 'Weirdstone: Closer to The Edge' would appeal to the younger cinema-goer today?