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    Boneland
    Boneland
    Boneland
    Audiobook4 hours

    Boneland

    Written by Alan Garner

    Narrated by Robert Powell

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Boneland is Alan Garner’s continuation of the story thread which began in his first and enduringly popular fantasy children’s novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, published in 1960, it has never been out of print. The Moon of Gomrath followed in 1963 taking the story further with the same two children, Colin and Susan. But Boneland is particularly fascinating because it takes the story into adulthood, with Colin again the main proponent. Boneland is read by the experienced actor Robert Powell, at the request of Alan Garner himself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateSep 1, 2012
    ISBN9781843796374
    Boneland
    Author

    Alan Garner

    Alan Garner is an English novelist best known for his  fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. He was born in Cheshire in 1934 and his childhood was spent in Alderley Edge, where his family has lived for more than four hundred years. His fourth book, The Owl Service, won The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, and was made into a TV series. It has established itself as a contemporary classic and Garner as a writer of distinction. He was awarded the OBE in 2001 for his services to literature.

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    Reviews for Boneland

    3.5/5

    73 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Colin Whisterfield is an astrophysicist but he is losing his mind. His waking dreams are permeated with mythic activities associated with the landscape. He despairs and seeks help in both worlds. This is a story of mental illness, and slow healing. The landscape is also a character in this book, every rock, every farm, every ancient slope, the telescopes and the old stars. This is also a sequel of sorts to the Weirdstone of Brinsingamen. It has the same landscape and the same character, at least in name. This book alludes to events in that one without ever looking directly. I have read it a long time ago, and I might seek it out again.
    • 3/5
      This is third book in a trilogy begun with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, a book I remember from my childhood as a quintessential English fantasy, completed nearly half a century after the second book, The Moon of Gomrath, was published, because Garner had grown to dislike his characters. Boneland is also not a children’s book. The protagonist is Colin, the boy from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, but he has forgotten all the events of that book – in fact, he can’t remember anything that happened to him before the age of thirteen. He’s now a radio astronomer, working at Jodrell Bank, and living in a hut in a nearby wood. He’s hugely intelligent, but has problems socialising. He visits a psychotherapist, and she more or less teases him into being sociable with him. It’s a relationship that feels like to belongs in a genre novel from fifty years ago – and not a genre novel like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. There’s something of the fell of a mouthpiece character to her – certainly, she seems to carry more weight in the story than her role would indicate. Colin’s story is crosscut with that of a shaman living in the same area thousands of years previously. Both are protecting something, although neither seem entirely sure what. Boneland is not an easy read. Even by the end, it’s not entirely clear what role each of the main trio of characters play. But the writing is really good – Garner is a master at writing about landscape – (but it’s also very talky) and though it’s only a thin novel of 149 pages, there’s a great deal in it. It probably needs a reread.
    • 3/5
      This is definitely a book for adults despite it being a follow on from the 'Weirdstone' books. Or is it? Myth and physics are mixed together in a sometimes confused mixture as is the time you are reading about as we travel between now and the distant past.
    • 2/5
      I waited for something to happen. I waited for something to be explained. I waited for a story. None of these things were there. It was weird without being interesting, and wordy without having anything to say.
    • 4/5
      As a writer of children's fiction, Alan Garner has entertained a generation with his magical and original fantasy stories. That's not surprising, because he is an astonishingly good writer. Boneland is typical Garner, his writing is sparse, spare and playful, and there are few concessions to the reader who isn't paying attention. Garner expects you to keep up, and to take things on trust.Garner's confidence and his style absolutely shine in this book. At times his writing is lyrical, transcendently poetic, breathtakingly good. On the other hand this sparseness, the bare-bones minimalism of his storytelling can leave you confused, and at times bemused. What is the relationships between the troubled modern-day astronomer, Colin Whistlefield, struggling to come to terms with his past and his dreams; and the Neolithic Watcher, mythic delver after ancient mystery, and preserver of, perhaps, all that we know and feel?In the end I could not reconcile those two stories. To do so I would need to re-read this book, pay more attention, and deconstruct the narrative, tasks I have little time or enthusiasm for.An intriguing, fascinating book, flawed in its brilliance, like its main character. Or perhaps that flaw really lies with this reader.
    • 4/5
      Excellent finish for the Weirdstone and the Moon. When I heard it was being published I re-read the Weirdstone of Brisingamen which was always one of my favorite books as a child. I did not re-read the Moon of Gomrath which had always come very much a second to the Weirdstone, and on finishing Boneland I had to re-read it immediately. I am astonished at my lack of insight. In my memories it was always Colin I identified with and thought of as the mover and shaker of the pair - but while the author's perspective is from Colin's point of view in fact it is Susan at the centre of the action. I won't pretend to have pieced a coherent narrative together for this last book, but I'm happy to have the emotional coherence.
    • 4/5
      I am going to have to re-read this. I thought it was amazing, but I don't think I understand it. Like 'Red Shift' which I read a long time ago, it plays with ideas of time and space, and is remarkably short on narrative closure. It is the antithesis of the first two books in the series, which I read as a child and re-read many times. Anyone expecting the same rich story-telling and traditional narrative structure will have been disappointed. I've only given it four stars when maybe it deserves five because I found the lack of transparency frustrating. It reminds me a bit of 'The Waste Land': a literary work that needs extreme erudition or plenty of footnotes to understand. Though I persisted to the end, there were times when I longed for the transparency of Garner's early work. It does make me want to visit Alderley Edge and see if I can find the places described in the book; I also need to find someone else who has read it to see whether I was in any way close to understanding what it meant.
      Bluesilver, Baby!
    • 4/5
      For anyone expecting closure - or a novel in a similar vein to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen or The Moon of Gomrath - Boneland will come as a bit of a shock. Here Garner is in his lyrical adult mode, with time having passed and an adult Colin still shattered by his sister's long-past disappearance. As with many of Garner's adult novels, the reader is expected to do a lot of work - the novel is symbolic, suggestive, poetic and surreal, shattered into multiple narratives that inform one another without providing easy answers. Love it or hate it, unless you are extremely well read (of Garner and of his influences), you're likely to need to reach for reference to get to the deeper readings here - but there's a satisfying (and incredibly sad) story floating within easy reach of the casual reader. I struggle with the nonsense rhyming here as in so many of Garner's adult novels, but otherwise - magical, moving, if slightly frustrating (I was always more interested in Susan).