[The books in Alan Garner's quartet] are the longest short books I've ever read; and I mean that in their quite exhilarating concision they cover, and carry the delight of eighty years (from c1860 to c1940) in the life of a family in Alan Garner's own corner of the world, Alderly Edge in Cheshire. A succession of grandads, fathers, youths, Josephs and Roberts and Williams, they work in stone and wood and metal. Work, and the mysteries of work, are of supreme importance.
In the first book, The Stone Book, Mary's father is capping the steeple of the new St Philip's Church…. There's an account of working in stone, of the able magic of it, that's echoed in the last book, Tom Fobble's Day, with an account of working in wood and metal: a grandfather, to whom Mary's father is a grandfather, makes a sledge for William. And William uses this sledge to exceed all previous local records in sledging: and the description of his stunning runs from the top of Lizzie Leah's is an example of the element each book contains, alongside the element which consists of the fine description of working skills: I think of this other ingredient as an exhilaration. Something is always breathlessly and marvellously done. Mary climbs to the very weathercock of the new church and there whirls round, while her world turns with her. Your breath goes as you read…. There are exhilarations in all the books….
This is a free excerpt of 242 words. There are 552 words (approx.
2 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Garner, Alan 1935–: Critical Essay by Edward Blishen Access Pass.
