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A review by arbieroo
Boneland by Alan Garner
4.0
This is a strange book - which came as no surprise, as Garner's novels have been going from strange to stranger since [b:The Owl Service|83829|The Owl Service |Alan Garner|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328875903s/83829.jpg|80927]. Here we have a third volume of a childrens' fantasy sequence ([b:The Weirdstone of Brisingamen|694997|The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Tales of Alderley, #1)|Alan Garner|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1177345171s/694997.jpg|279305] and [b:The Moon of Gomrath|694942|The Moon of Gomrath (Tales of Alderley, #2)|Alan Garner|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1177344653s/694942.jpg|1219230]) - but this is most definitely not aimed at the traditional childrens' market - it's squarely aimed at adult readers, perhaps the readers who read Garner's most famous works as kids, like me, and somehow or another turned into adults in the mean time. So that's pretty odd - I can't think of another trilogy where that happens! But that's just the start of the weirdness.
The book alternates narrative passages and dream sequences. I've read numerous novels with occasional dream sequences and heard of a few that are entirely dreams and read one or two dream-vision poems but I can think of no other novel where dreams occupy such a high proportion of the text without being a dream throughout. So that's unusual, too - but the dreams themselves are strange. Well, all dreams are strange when examined in the cold light of morning, having woken, right? But these are even stranger - they read like Shamanistic spirit journeys - which were generally induced hallucinations. And hallucinations and dreams aren't really the same thing. Then there's the ending. Garner endings have been getting progressively more bonkers, cryptic and inscrutable since [b:Red Shift|307220|Red Shift|Alan Garner|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1173593682s/307220.jpg|298190]. This one is somewhat different from those but no less shocking and baffling, though many things are also made clear. There are some clues that something even more weird than the obvious weirdness is going on - enough foreshadowing if you are paying attention to make it clear that Garner knew what he was doing from the outset - which is no surprise. Garner is a very intelligent writer and he is discussing something interesting here, about truth and story and science and myth and magic.
The story is a little difficult to get into - it took me about 40p - because initially there's no discernible plot and the dream sequences are surreal and a little difficult whilst occupying a higher proportion of the text earlier on - so it's necessary to persevere a bit if you want to find out what happened to Colin after the Moon of Gomrath has passed. But I strongly recommend you do, if you ever liked a Garner story when you were a child.
The book alternates narrative passages and dream sequences. I've read numerous novels with occasional dream sequences and heard of a few that are entirely dreams and read one or two dream-vision poems but I can think of no other novel where dreams occupy such a high proportion of the text without being a dream throughout. So that's unusual, too - but the dreams themselves are strange. Well, all dreams are strange when examined in the cold light of morning, having woken, right? But these are even stranger - they read like Shamanistic spirit journeys - which were generally induced hallucinations. And hallucinations and dreams aren't really the same thing. Then there's the ending. Garner endings have been getting progressively more bonkers, cryptic and inscrutable since [b:Red Shift|307220|Red Shift|Alan Garner|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1173593682s/307220.jpg|298190]. This one is somewhat different from those but no less shocking and baffling, though many things are also made clear. There are some clues that something even more weird than the obvious weirdness is going on - enough foreshadowing if you are paying attention to make it clear that Garner knew what he was doing from the outset - which is no surprise. Garner is a very intelligent writer and he is discussing something interesting here, about truth and story and science and myth and magic.
The story is a little difficult to get into - it took me about 40p - because initially there's no discernible plot and the dream sequences are surreal and a little difficult whilst occupying a higher proportion of the text earlier on - so it's necessary to persevere a bit if you want to find out what happened to Colin after the Moon of Gomrath has passed. But I strongly recommend you do, if you ever liked a Garner story when you were a child.