0007127898 
Paperback The owl service / Alan Garner.
Publication year: 2002
Language: English
Media class: Paperback
Edition: New ed.
Publisher: Voyager : [distributor] HarperCollins Distribution Services : [d
Resource type: Physical
ISBN: 9780007127894 (pbk.) : 0007127898 (pbk.) :
Notes:
Paperback. B-format paperback.
Extent: 224 p. ; 20x13 cm.
Available: 3
Total number of loans: 3
Loans this year: 0
Number of reservations: 0
Description:
Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships. Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships. It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody's lives. Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend -- a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.
"!A rare imaginative feat and the taste that it leaves is haunting." The Observer "This book is a superb piece of architecture in which every detail plays its proper part." Growing Point "Alan Garner's The Owl Service is not meant only for children or anyone else; it's a novel; and not many better novels will be published this year!The power grows, throbs nearer, builds to unbearable tension, and comes to wild release in the last few pages." The Guardian.
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Alan Garner's masterpiece (from 1967, not 2002) places a middle-class English family on a long summer holiday in deepest mid-Wales with working-class locals looking after the place. What the three teenagers thrown together don't know is that this is the place where the legend of Blodeuwedd from the Welsh medieval collection of myths, the Mabinogian, must play out once a generation. Garner packs a huge story into a short book, throwing English / Welsh rivalry and class issues into the mythic mix. Brilliantly imagined and written, with a last sentence which is one of the most satisfying in literature. I read this in one sitting on a train when I was seventeen and fifty years later have found fewer better books.
28/12/22