Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker and writing outside the constraints of time

Robert Gilhooly / Alamy Anna Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. When the 2022 Booker shortlist was announced in September, 87-year-old Alan Garner was highlighted as the oldest-ever shortlisted author. On the day the prize was announced he turned 88. That said, his nominated novel, Treacle Walker , begins with a quote from Italian quantum physicist, Carlo Rovelli : “Time is ignorance.” Age is, of course, an aspect of time. But Garner, older as he might be getting, has a photo of himself aged six (grinning very fully and twinkly-eyed at something distant), which he has stated most captures who he is “ then and now ”. Treacle Walker has been described by the Booker committee as “fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent [that] brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him.” It is more than that, it is about how we take care of the Earth and understand it in relation to the universe. It feels to me, as a lifelong reader of Alan Garner, that this is where he has been leading us all along. A boy in his own time will add a line here on what the Booker says why it won. Treacle Walker features a modern improbability – a child who lives alone in their own house with nothing […]

Click here to view original web page at Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker and writing outside the constraints of time

© 2022, wcadmin. All rights reserved, Writers Critique, LLC Unless otherwise noted, all posts remain copyright of their respective authors.