Red Shift

A bitter, dense, vigorous book about the violence and betrayals we inflict on each other. So much is lost along the way - and although there is some survival at the end, what kind of survival is it? There are three interwoven stories, spanning three points in time and one in space - the times are the later Roman Empire in Britain, the British Civil War of the 17th century, and the modern age. The space is a part of Cheshire around an iconic hill, Mow Cop. And the three are linked - apart from their biting emotional motifs - by an object, a prehistoric axe head, that appears in all, a talisman of the ages. In the earliest thread, a ragged remnant of a Roman legion - just a few soldiers, conscripts from who-knows-where - have to deal with the wild and ancient tribes, as vicious and crafty as the soldiers. Wonderfully, Garner has made them talk the lingo of modern squaddies, because that's how they would have sounded to each other. In the Civil War, villagers take refuge in a church from the prowling band of enemy - but not all the hatred is political...In today's world, a near-genius innocent, a sacred fool (who quotes Lear's lines for Tom the fool) is paired with a girl above his social level and distrusted by his parents: there are no swords here, but "words" is an anagram of "sword" and the pain is the same. Incredible tight, elliptical exchanges: you may have to read a page twice to "get" everything that is happening (and then you won't be sure). American readers may have a problem with the British idiom of the 70's and some archaic words of the Civil War times, and the Cheshire idiom, but it's worth it.

It was dark and I was lost driving home. I tried to take a shortcut across the Staffordshire Moorlands. Something said I should turn left to cross the ridge to the next valley. I climbed a hill, then silhouetted against the moonlit sky was a shape I knew from this book jacket: Mow Cop. I had to leave the car and venture on foot into the gloom, stomach turning, mouth dry. The point of Red Shift is, perhaps, that our destiny is in some part the essence of the soil under our feet. This book succeeds so well in implanting this feeling that words were not needed to create in me the emotion of meeting Mow Cop that night.

Ursula Le Guin described this as: "a bitter, complex, brilliant book". I've nothing to add to that. Except this: try to find a copy at all costs. It is one of the best fantasies ever written. Oh, and if you're wondering: it's all of 155 pages long.

My review of this book will never be as articulate as the one written before mine, but I would like to express my opinion of "Red Shift". I have recommended it to so many friends who have all given up before they have reached 50 pages in. I must admit that I was tempted to do the same, though I cannot be more glad to have persevered. The story finds clarity in the last few pages (and in the wonderful encoded passage at the end!) If you have time to devote to this book, it is worth all the effort. Truly greater than "The Wierdstone".

I am amazed that Alan Garner's "Red Shift" is out of print, and also that I am the first reviewer of it on Amamzon.comGarner's "Red Shift" is a culmination of his development as a novelist, starting with the fantasy adventure "The Weirdstone of Brisingamen", before he completely changed, and wrote his "Stone Book" quartet, stories of his ancestors, stonemason, blacksmith, and others. Increasingly, from "Weirdstone" to "Red Shift", Garner's use of fantasy moves from overt to inner. In his first books ancient forces, old gods and creatures, co-exist in our own modern world. Although Garner was not entirely original in writing such stories, it seems that his were the first that spawned many similar stories for children and adults. But the Merlin-like magician in "Weirdstone" develops into the psychological presence, a form of possession, in the modern characters of "The Owl Service" (the novel immediately before "Red Shift") who find themselves repeating the actions of love, lust, murder and revenge which are told in the Welsh myth of Llew Llaw Gyffes and Gronw Pebwyr in "The Mabingogion".In "red Shift" the move from outer fantasy of "Weirdstone" to inner possession of modern characters in "Owl Service" becomes the shared consciousness, at moments of trancelike crisis for sets of characters living in three separate eras: post-Roman Britain, the English Civil War, and modern Manchester. An ancient Stone Age axe head is the focus of this possession-like shared consciousness. Through "Red Shift" Garner tells three stories, each from a different time, but each set in the shared location, and each mirroring the pattern of relationships of the others. Through this book, a fourth relationship is demanded by Garner, namely the reader piecing together what is happening, and how each story connects with the others.Few other writers attempt such complex, powerful narratives. Perhaps Robert Cormier, another difficult Young Adult writer, or William Mayne, come closest, with stories of similar narrative tangling, and emotional intensity: "I Am the Cheese" and "After the First Death" by Cormier, or "A Game of Dark" and "The Jersey Shore" by Mayne.The experience of reading Garner, in "Red Shift", and later through the "Stone Quartet", is like that of reading poetry, or listening to music, where images, words, feelings and experiences resonate and connect, an event in one story chiming like an echo of another, forcing the reader to reconsider what has already been experenced in the light of new facets of similar actions.Neil Philip's study of Garner "A Fine Anger" is an excellent introduction to Garner's work, and his fascinating use of literary and mythic sources.What is "Red Shift" about? Imagine a story of a boy and girl, on the edge of falling in love, each trapped in their own cage made of different family background, tormented by the differences between one another, and by their mutual betrayals. Meanwhile in post-Rom