Welcome to the comments section! Please remember that this is an inclusive space with a diverse community. Respect others and their opinions, and help keep this a welcome space for everyone.
You may start one thread in the comments section. If you would like to make additional comments, please add to your thread or reply to other readers' threads.
Footnotes & Tangents is an AI-free space where we celebrate human reading, writing and research. Please do not copy & paste AI research in your comments.
What an interesting thing to pick up after The Inheritors! Again we are seeing through eyes in unfamiliar ways and working our way through unfamiliar thickets of words. I'm loving the rather Jabberwockian terminology.
I remember loving the Weirdstone of Brisingamen as a child, although I don't remember any details. I'm happy to re-encounter Garner!
It is funny you should mention Jabberwocky. In “Powsels and Thrums”, Alan Garner writes about Lewis Carroll’s nonsense and Jabberwocky in particular. He argues that it is relatively easy to translate the poem from Cheshire dialect into modern English, and that Carroll was drawing (consciously or unconsciously) on the language he heard as a child (Carroll was also raised in Cheshire).
I listened to the Weirdstone of Brisingamen again last year! Garner describes it as a “bad book”, and having now read most of his other books you can see how he moved away from it. But readers have a strong affection for it, which is why they kept asking him whether he was going to write another in the series.
I assumed there was probably a connection between Jabberwocky and the language here but it's very hot here and I was too lazy to look it up, so thank you for that!
It's cooled down here, for which I am very grateful! Garner writes quite a bit about the importance of local dialects, and the difficulty of putting them on the page without barbarising them. He was really one of the first writers to do that in children's literature and it was quite controversial at the time.
What a rich treasury of notes and knowledge to deepen the pleasure of re-reading this marvellous book. Thank you Simon; I'll spend the rest of the week enjoying them. Lots I didn't know. My first thought was my own memory of a horse-drawn rag and bone man in 1970s Cambridge, and the sense of excitement and magic his call gave me as a young child.
The passage you quote at the start of winter night rampaging around the house is breathtaking in its vivid imagery and energy. What a writer!
In the 1990s I don't remember rag-and-bone men, but we had a scrap metal man who came around our way shouting "Any old iron!" With repeation the words had welded together like hot metal so what you heard was "Anyoiron!" ... These sounds are so evocative.
I grew up very familiar with Rag and Bone men, who also sharpened knives and fixed pots (usually by reattaching handles), but they seemed to disappear by the time I was out of grammar school. Very interesting to read this section of the book and think of those R&B men again.
I am completely unfamiliar with rag & bone men -- but when I came to Toronto/the Toronto area some 40 years ago, there were men who would drive slowly through the neighbourhood in little vans, ringing a bell, and people would come out of their houses with knives to be sharpened. One of our neighbours had his lawnmower blade sharpened! This was completely outside of my experience, growing up in small Canadian Prairie towns. There are still people doing this today, although I haven't seen as many of them in recent years.
Such a fascinating summary this week! As a Canadian reader, I knew I was missing a number of references, so your detailed explanations really helped. I'm going to go back and reread this first week's chapters. In the meantime, a few things came to mind for me. All of what I thought on my initial read was gibberish reminded me of the magnificent, inventive language in the books by Dr. Seuss that were read to me as a child (and generations of children here in North America). Garner's language seems somewhat magical to me. The second thing I kept thinking about was the theme of vision, and specifically what we truly can and cannot see, and how important one's inner world can be when the outer world is a blur. As someone who has experienced cataracts, I couldn't help but think of the period of time when my eyesight was deteriorating as I read about Joe's vision issues. His eye checkup actually made me a bit anxious! I'm guessing there may be more in the book about the mysteries of perception, and perhaps Joe's inner world will become increasingly important. The third thing that came up for me relates to rag and bone men. I was reminded of a particular homeless man here in my city, who was actually a fascinating individual. We'd see him here and there on different occasions, along with the two very large and overflowing shopping carts he had tethered together with his possessions. He would occasionally sleep in bus shelters, which he left immaculately clean and swept each morning when he was on his way to wherever was next (he was also very clean and neatly dressed). I even saw him while I was out on a run once, and I heard him say that he wouldn't accept an item from a woman he was speaking with unless she accepted one from him in return. We haven't seen him for a year or so, so I'm hoping he no longer is unhoused. My imaginary picture of Treacle Walker is this man. He really captured my imagination at the time. Maybe he was a rag and bone man in a previous incarnation?
I will second your comments about missing references, Catherine (fellow Canadian here!)... a lot of this week's chapters went completely over my head, so yes, your explanations really helped, Simon!
First time reading (or even hearing of!) Alan Garner and I'm still getting my bearings, my very first impression was of reading Diana Wynne Jones with sprinkles of Carrol, Dahl and Lewis-- now I'm so very excited to find there's so much detail to explore and learn about in these first few pages. As a lover of myths and folklore I feel right at home, and this narrative paired with Rovelli's science are making me reflect on transcendence, how it can help us reach a place beyond the known and seen when applied to art. Being touched by the Muse, as the Greek would say.
Unsurprisingly, my tangent of the week was to learn all I can about rag-and-bone men, a concept I only very vaguely knew about (although my mother remembers meeting them). In Italy they're commonly referred to as "straccivendoli", rag-sellers, although every area and dialect has a specific name for them; and here's a statue of a straccivendolo in the village of Gambettola https://www.galassi.pro/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Monumento_Sraccivendolo.jpg And if you can read French, Baudelaire's poem is definitely worth some proper awe! "On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochant la tête, / Buttant, et se cognant aux murs comme un poëte, / Et, sans prendre souci des mouchards, ses sujets, / Épanche tout son cœur en glorieux projets." https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal_(1861)/Le_Vin_des_chiffonniers
Can't wait to read more. Simon, at this point I'm really looking forward every week to sit down and do some work while listening to your calm, warm voice!
Thanks for these links, Ellie. Tangents are like magic boxes that keep opening to reveal more wonders. While not directly related to Treacle Walker, I was fascinated by the figure of the ragpicker, and also I love stories of objects that have been kept and passed down through decades and centuries and finding new uses and new owners. Ha, even a man who is turned into a flute!
The jury is still out for me on this one, although I'm not getting the same negative vibes that I got first time round. I think there might have been a recent radio dramatisation or serialisation of something similar which meant it seemed a bit formulaic.
I'm in two minds about the language - although I'm amused that Simon provides a glossary for terms that I use on a daily basis! - it manages to suggest some period in the past, but it does seem a bit self-conscious.
As somebody with a dodgy eye, the sequence with the optician made me smile. (It also got me wondering when the book is set, presumably post-war, but no specific period.) The sequence with the trees really rings true: I sometimes have to close one eye to see clearly, and it can depend on which eye is 'winning'.
What I like much better this time round is the spookiness. Joe seeing his name on things is weird, and just sinister enough to suggest danger. You certainly don't get the feeling that Joe will be ending up in Narnia any time soon.
I don't know if it's something to do with the cover of the book, but my images for this are in shades of charcoal and pewter, with the occasional flash of silver. This definitely doesn't feel like rolling green hills, it's all mud and dirt.
Many children's books seem to be about growing up and the loss of innocence. I'm definitely getting that feeling here. (Yes, I've read it before and, yes, I've forgotten what happens!)
Yes, most of the terms are very familiar to me too - but conscious of our American cousins! Reviews at the time complained that it needed a glossary.
The question of when it is set is interesting. Of course, Garner is drawing on his childhood, so it has that early twentieth century feel. But also "time is ignorance", we are in a time set outside of time, a place that is both 10,000 years old and yesterday.
We also don't know whether he was really at the opticians!
Thanks so much for this Simon. For a Manchester lad now in Australia, Garner’s writing brings back so many memories and your expansion on these is fascinating.
I hadn’t noticed in the book the number of “translations” that are (obviously) needed as I read so much of the language easily and directly from the page. No wonder after thirty years in Aus that I still sound so different to my friends here!
And I remember our Rag and Bone as a kid, a figure to be nervous of but handy when needed; and indeed the odd Gypsy cart coming up the street, from which we were always told to keep well away.
That’s great. It must be nice getting all these memories from the book. If you are interested in reading more Garner, he wrote a book called Strandloper, about a Cheshire man who is sent to Australia and ends up living with aboriginal Australians. Based on a true story. I haven’t read it yet, but I think it deals with themes of language, place and time.
My first time reading Alan Garner, although I have some vague memory of seeing the Elidor BBC adaption on TV. I am enjoying it so far, not something I would have picked to read if not part of Footnotes and Tangents. It reminds me a bit of Skellig, by David Almond, especially with its rootedness in place and dialect, and strangely of Kes although clearly not of the kitchen sink realism. Looking forward to the rest of the book.
How wonderful to be here! And I love how your Notes describe Alan Garner's view of a story taking true form in the space between the Reader and the Book, or the Story and the Listener. [I am both, for this journey. I have joined Audible in order to listen to the beautiful voice of Robert Powell, and am reading along simultaneously. It's a really lovely experience.] This image of a story living uniquely in this shared space of dialogue reminds me of the author of the book I have just finished reading - Can Xue with her short story collection Mother River. These are stories which strangely and hypnotically [and deliberately] entice the reader to respond emotionally, the reading experience itself therefore being not only highly personal but also unrepeatable, as even a re-read directly afterwards would change as time has moved on, the reader's mood and mindset are different, the world has turned. This strikes me as delightfully relevant in the arena of Treacle Walker also.
Thanks Annie, I must check out this author. I'm not familiar with them. I love the idea that a book is never read twice, it is always different whenever and whoever reads it.
Also Robert Powell reads all of Alan Garner's work so beautifully. Garner chose him I believe because he felt Powell really understood where he was coming from, and they have a similar background.
This book is off to a great start! Both sunny and eerie, here, there and back again. You have amassed a great treasure trove of notes and tangents here, which I‘ll have to wade through this week.
So much depends on which eye you use to look at thing. I had never heard of donkey stones, and their use seems very ambivalent to me - pointless drudgery for women with one eye, a sign of pride and good housekeeping with the other.
The alder copse caught my imagination - coppices and hedges have this promise of immortality and timelessness and who knows who might live inside them. I spent an hour with Tollund Man last year when I was in Silkeborg on a trip for work. He has his own little building inside a museum and a room where you can sit with him, look at his improbably placid face and contemplate time and the mystery of humanity. It took your notes for me to associate him with Thin Amren, because I was thinking of Goethe‘s Erlkönig, the Alder King, who is of probably mistranslated Danish origin himself.
I‘m off to the old common next to the Autobahn and the dead industrial zone for a walk now. It has spectacular plants, bronze-age cumuli and a bit of wood that‘s being left alone to one day become a virgin forest. We want to catch the last of the birdsong for the year, but I doubt we‘ll hear a cuckoo. Who knows?
I would not have picked this up without your endorsement, but it‘s already working its magic.
So I hadn’t thought about Goethe‘s Erlkönig, the Alder King, but lets explore that later because we’ll need a whole footnote on alders before we’re done. Garner wrote an essay on the alder bog near his house, the essay is called The Carr I think, which was the inspiration for Treacle Walker.
Stephen Johnson‘s The Ghost Map, his book on how cholera affected London, has a stunning and spectacularly revolting first chapter on waste management in early 19th century London - the rag-and-bone men are by far the least smelly protagonists. I live in another city that has cholera written into its topography, so it was of great interest to me, but it‘s a splendid book, though at bit rambling in the later chapters.
I am with you that most of the language was easily read, more so if read aloud. But I grew up only a few miles south of Manchester. I remember playing at The Edge as a child, my uncle telling fantastical tales of things hidden in the caves - and visiting Jodrell Bank (school outing).
Garner’s tale reached across time, reawakening memories that had begun to fade. I remember Rag and Bone men with their horse and carts and women stoning steps (as a child in the 60s). In fact I last saw a rag and bone man in 1982 (when I was a student). I am pretty sure that the stones I recall being used on steps were called bluestones rather than donkey stones, but I was very young and time may have eroded that memory.
Reading these chapters I wondered if some of the imagery might have been lost on readers younger than myself.
And if I may end with a question: “Treacle Walker” - do you read it like “Joseph Walker” or “Night Walker”; Blackbird or black bird?
I think a lot of younger readers will have no reference points for a lot of what we find here, although some how the language still moves. Great that you got to explore the Edge as a kid …. did you read the Weirdstone?
I’m not sure how one should say Treacle Walker, but I think in my head it is more blackbird than black bird.
So much to look into after this first read and listen. I have definitely got more out of it after listening to this week’s footnotes and tangents but the book drew me in for many reasons, particularly its folktale quality and the use of language. I feel Tom Cox books have this similar style.
I love Garner’s attachment to place and how his writing focusing on this one area where he has lived all these years. My husband regularly talks about the connection he has to where we stay and the stories that come with it. My connection is not as strong but the longer we are here the stronger it grows.
I don’t know why that posted before I meant it to! In relation to time, it makes me think about a time my friend saw an old man in his blue boiler suit fixing a dyke, as she got closer she wondered why her dog did not acknowledge there was someone there and then she turned away, turned back and he was gone. She said it was like an overlap in time and this was an image from a time before replaying. I like that idea.
Finally the language interested me as there are words that we would use in Scots such as clout, thrums (used by JM Barrie to rename Kirriemuir in his stories), faffing, stramash .. I looked more into this and there is a connection with Scots and the dialects of Northern England with other words also be shared such as lass and bairn. I love all the interconnections.
Looking forward to looking into some of the tangents over the weekend and the next chapters.
I think clout is universal as it was used in the so called billets recording information about the babies admitted to London’s Foundling Hospital in the 18th century referring to what we would think of today as the baby’s nappy, but was essentially a piece of cloth.
Thank you for the footnotes, they give such depth to this extraordinary book. One thing I wondered or may have missed is the pyramid of letters that weren’t there at the opticians. I can see they make Latin and the first two words mean ‘this stone’ but I can’t understand any more.
this is an amazing essay Simon, thank you. I have my copy and hope to begin this evening.
jodrell bank is an hour from me, I visited last year, so interesting. In your words, I particularly love the dialect parts, my family is from Lancashire although that comes under Merseyside these days so I'm familiar with some of those phrases you write about.
These chapters were just amazing. They were like some old fairy tale that had been discovered and invited itself into Joe's home. The only thing that confused me was Joe's age: sometimes he seems so childlike, I wonder how he's living on his own, and then I wonder if it was really all a dream of his that we'd stumbled onto.
Discussion Code of Conduct
Welcome to the comments section! Please remember that this is an inclusive space with a diverse community. Respect others and their opinions, and help keep this a welcome space for everyone.
You may start one thread in the comments section. If you would like to make additional comments, please add to your thread or reply to other readers' threads.
Footnotes & Tangents is an AI-free space where we celebrate human reading, writing and research. Please do not copy & paste AI research in your comments.
Many thanks!
What an interesting thing to pick up after The Inheritors! Again we are seeing through eyes in unfamiliar ways and working our way through unfamiliar thickets of words. I'm loving the rather Jabberwockian terminology.
I remember loving the Weirdstone of Brisingamen as a child, although I don't remember any details. I'm happy to re-encounter Garner!
It is funny you should mention Jabberwocky. In “Powsels and Thrums”, Alan Garner writes about Lewis Carroll’s nonsense and Jabberwocky in particular. He argues that it is relatively easy to translate the poem from Cheshire dialect into modern English, and that Carroll was drawing (consciously or unconsciously) on the language he heard as a child (Carroll was also raised in Cheshire).
I listened to the Weirdstone of Brisingamen again last year! Garner describes it as a “bad book”, and having now read most of his other books you can see how he moved away from it. But readers have a strong affection for it, which is why they kept asking him whether he was going to write another in the series.
I assumed there was probably a connection between Jabberwocky and the language here but it's very hot here and I was too lazy to look it up, so thank you for that!
It's cooled down here, for which I am very grateful! Garner writes quite a bit about the importance of local dialects, and the difficulty of putting them on the page without barbarising them. He was really one of the first writers to do that in children's literature and it was quite controversial at the time.
What a rich treasury of notes and knowledge to deepen the pleasure of re-reading this marvellous book. Thank you Simon; I'll spend the rest of the week enjoying them. Lots I didn't know. My first thought was my own memory of a horse-drawn rag and bone man in 1970s Cambridge, and the sense of excitement and magic his call gave me as a young child.
The passage you quote at the start of winter night rampaging around the house is breathtaking in its vivid imagery and energy. What a writer!
In the 1990s I don't remember rag-and-bone men, but we had a scrap metal man who came around our way shouting "Any old iron!" With repeation the words had welded together like hot metal so what you heard was "Anyoiron!" ... These sounds are so evocative.
I grew up very familiar with Rag and Bone men, who also sharpened knives and fixed pots (usually by reattaching handles), but they seemed to disappear by the time I was out of grammar school. Very interesting to read this section of the book and think of those R&B men again.
I am completely unfamiliar with rag & bone men -- but when I came to Toronto/the Toronto area some 40 years ago, there were men who would drive slowly through the neighbourhood in little vans, ringing a bell, and people would come out of their houses with knives to be sharpened. One of our neighbours had his lawnmower blade sharpened! This was completely outside of my experience, growing up in small Canadian Prairie towns. There are still people doing this today, although I haven't seen as many of them in recent years.
Such a fascinating summary this week! As a Canadian reader, I knew I was missing a number of references, so your detailed explanations really helped. I'm going to go back and reread this first week's chapters. In the meantime, a few things came to mind for me. All of what I thought on my initial read was gibberish reminded me of the magnificent, inventive language in the books by Dr. Seuss that were read to me as a child (and generations of children here in North America). Garner's language seems somewhat magical to me. The second thing I kept thinking about was the theme of vision, and specifically what we truly can and cannot see, and how important one's inner world can be when the outer world is a blur. As someone who has experienced cataracts, I couldn't help but think of the period of time when my eyesight was deteriorating as I read about Joe's vision issues. His eye checkup actually made me a bit anxious! I'm guessing there may be more in the book about the mysteries of perception, and perhaps Joe's inner world will become increasingly important. The third thing that came up for me relates to rag and bone men. I was reminded of a particular homeless man here in my city, who was actually a fascinating individual. We'd see him here and there on different occasions, along with the two very large and overflowing shopping carts he had tethered together with his possessions. He would occasionally sleep in bus shelters, which he left immaculately clean and swept each morning when he was on his way to wherever was next (he was also very clean and neatly dressed). I even saw him while I was out on a run once, and I heard him say that he wouldn't accept an item from a woman he was speaking with unless she accepted one from him in return. We haven't seen him for a year or so, so I'm hoping he no longer is unhoused. My imaginary picture of Treacle Walker is this man. He really captured my imagination at the time. Maybe he was a rag and bone man in a previous incarnation?
I will second your comments about missing references, Catherine (fellow Canadian here!)... a lot of this week's chapters went completely over my head, so yes, your explanations really helped, Simon!
Hello! 🇨🇦❤️🇨🇦
First time reading (or even hearing of!) Alan Garner and I'm still getting my bearings, my very first impression was of reading Diana Wynne Jones with sprinkles of Carrol, Dahl and Lewis-- now I'm so very excited to find there's so much detail to explore and learn about in these first few pages. As a lover of myths and folklore I feel right at home, and this narrative paired with Rovelli's science are making me reflect on transcendence, how it can help us reach a place beyond the known and seen when applied to art. Being touched by the Muse, as the Greek would say.
Unsurprisingly, my tangent of the week was to learn all I can about rag-and-bone men, a concept I only very vaguely knew about (although my mother remembers meeting them). In Italy they're commonly referred to as "straccivendoli", rag-sellers, although every area and dialect has a specific name for them; and here's a statue of a straccivendolo in the village of Gambettola https://www.galassi.pro/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Monumento_Sraccivendolo.jpg And if you can read French, Baudelaire's poem is definitely worth some proper awe! "On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochant la tête, / Buttant, et se cognant aux murs comme un poëte, / Et, sans prendre souci des mouchards, ses sujets, / Épanche tout son cœur en glorieux projets." https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal_(1861)/Le_Vin_des_chiffonniers
Can't wait to read more. Simon, at this point I'm really looking forward every week to sit down and do some work while listening to your calm, warm voice!
Thanks for these links, Ellie. Tangents are like magic boxes that keep opening to reveal more wonders. While not directly related to Treacle Walker, I was fascinated by the figure of the ragpicker, and also I love stories of objects that have been kept and passed down through decades and centuries and finding new uses and new owners. Ha, even a man who is turned into a flute!
The jury is still out for me on this one, although I'm not getting the same negative vibes that I got first time round. I think there might have been a recent radio dramatisation or serialisation of something similar which meant it seemed a bit formulaic.
I'm in two minds about the language - although I'm amused that Simon provides a glossary for terms that I use on a daily basis! - it manages to suggest some period in the past, but it does seem a bit self-conscious.
As somebody with a dodgy eye, the sequence with the optician made me smile. (It also got me wondering when the book is set, presumably post-war, but no specific period.) The sequence with the trees really rings true: I sometimes have to close one eye to see clearly, and it can depend on which eye is 'winning'.
What I like much better this time round is the spookiness. Joe seeing his name on things is weird, and just sinister enough to suggest danger. You certainly don't get the feeling that Joe will be ending up in Narnia any time soon.
I don't know if it's something to do with the cover of the book, but my images for this are in shades of charcoal and pewter, with the occasional flash of silver. This definitely doesn't feel like rolling green hills, it's all mud and dirt.
Many children's books seem to be about growing up and the loss of innocence. I'm definitely getting that feeling here. (Yes, I've read it before and, yes, I've forgotten what happens!)
Yes, most of the terms are very familiar to me too - but conscious of our American cousins! Reviews at the time complained that it needed a glossary.
The question of when it is set is interesting. Of course, Garner is drawing on his childhood, so it has that early twentieth century feel. But also "time is ignorance", we are in a time set outside of time, a place that is both 10,000 years old and yesterday.
We also don't know whether he was really at the opticians!
True, but at least he has the concept of going to an optician.
It is quite a mix: water from a well not a tap, donkey stone and opticians. At least we can be pretty certain that he won’t pull out a mobile phone.
The bog man reminded me of the poem Antigonish. It's been stuck in my head all day.
Yesterday upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today,
I wish I wish he'd go away
Thanks so much for this Simon. For a Manchester lad now in Australia, Garner’s writing brings back so many memories and your expansion on these is fascinating.
I hadn’t noticed in the book the number of “translations” that are (obviously) needed as I read so much of the language easily and directly from the page. No wonder after thirty years in Aus that I still sound so different to my friends here!
And I remember our Rag and Bone as a kid, a figure to be nervous of but handy when needed; and indeed the odd Gypsy cart coming up the street, from which we were always told to keep well away.
That’s great. It must be nice getting all these memories from the book. If you are interested in reading more Garner, he wrote a book called Strandloper, about a Cheshire man who is sent to Australia and ends up living with aboriginal Australians. Based on a true story. I haven’t read it yet, but I think it deals with themes of language, place and time.
Wow! Didn’t know it was about this! On the list!
My first time reading Alan Garner, although I have some vague memory of seeing the Elidor BBC adaption on TV. I am enjoying it so far, not something I would have picked to read if not part of Footnotes and Tangents. It reminds me a bit of Skellig, by David Almond, especially with its rootedness in place and dialect, and strangely of Kes although clearly not of the kitchen sink realism. Looking forward to the rest of the book.
How wonderful to be here! And I love how your Notes describe Alan Garner's view of a story taking true form in the space between the Reader and the Book, or the Story and the Listener. [I am both, for this journey. I have joined Audible in order to listen to the beautiful voice of Robert Powell, and am reading along simultaneously. It's a really lovely experience.] This image of a story living uniquely in this shared space of dialogue reminds me of the author of the book I have just finished reading - Can Xue with her short story collection Mother River. These are stories which strangely and hypnotically [and deliberately] entice the reader to respond emotionally, the reading experience itself therefore being not only highly personal but also unrepeatable, as even a re-read directly afterwards would change as time has moved on, the reader's mood and mindset are different, the world has turned. This strikes me as delightfully relevant in the arena of Treacle Walker also.
Thanks Annie, I must check out this author. I'm not familiar with them. I love the idea that a book is never read twice, it is always different whenever and whoever reads it.
Also Robert Powell reads all of Alan Garner's work so beautifully. Garner chose him I believe because he felt Powell really understood where he was coming from, and they have a similar background.
This book is off to a great start! Both sunny and eerie, here, there and back again. You have amassed a great treasure trove of notes and tangents here, which I‘ll have to wade through this week.
So much depends on which eye you use to look at thing. I had never heard of donkey stones, and their use seems very ambivalent to me - pointless drudgery for women with one eye, a sign of pride and good housekeeping with the other.
The alder copse caught my imagination - coppices and hedges have this promise of immortality and timelessness and who knows who might live inside them. I spent an hour with Tollund Man last year when I was in Silkeborg on a trip for work. He has his own little building inside a museum and a room where you can sit with him, look at his improbably placid face and contemplate time and the mystery of humanity. It took your notes for me to associate him with Thin Amren, because I was thinking of Goethe‘s Erlkönig, the Alder King, who is of probably mistranslated Danish origin himself.
I‘m off to the old common next to the Autobahn and the dead industrial zone for a walk now. It has spectacular plants, bronze-age cumuli and a bit of wood that‘s being left alone to one day become a virgin forest. We want to catch the last of the birdsong for the year, but I doubt we‘ll hear a cuckoo. Who knows?
I would not have picked this up without your endorsement, but it‘s already working its magic.
So I hadn’t thought about Goethe‘s Erlkönig, the Alder King, but lets explore that later because we’ll need a whole footnote on alders before we’re done. Garner wrote an essay on the alder bog near his house, the essay is called The Carr I think, which was the inspiration for Treacle Walker.
Stephen Johnson‘s The Ghost Map, his book on how cholera affected London, has a stunning and spectacularly revolting first chapter on waste management in early 19th century London - the rag-and-bone men are by far the least smelly protagonists. I live in another city that has cholera written into its topography, so it was of great interest to me, but it‘s a splendid book, though at bit rambling in the later chapters.
I am with you that most of the language was easily read, more so if read aloud. But I grew up only a few miles south of Manchester. I remember playing at The Edge as a child, my uncle telling fantastical tales of things hidden in the caves - and visiting Jodrell Bank (school outing).
Garner’s tale reached across time, reawakening memories that had begun to fade. I remember Rag and Bone men with their horse and carts and women stoning steps (as a child in the 60s). In fact I last saw a rag and bone man in 1982 (when I was a student). I am pretty sure that the stones I recall being used on steps were called bluestones rather than donkey stones, but I was very young and time may have eroded that memory.
Reading these chapters I wondered if some of the imagery might have been lost on readers younger than myself.
And if I may end with a question: “Treacle Walker” - do you read it like “Joseph Walker” or “Night Walker”; Blackbird or black bird?
I think a lot of younger readers will have no reference points for a lot of what we find here, although some how the language still moves. Great that you got to explore the Edge as a kid …. did you read the Weirdstone?
I’m not sure how one should say Treacle Walker, but I think in my head it is more blackbird than black bird.
So much to look into after this first read and listen. I have definitely got more out of it after listening to this week’s footnotes and tangents but the book drew me in for many reasons, particularly its folktale quality and the use of language. I feel Tom Cox books have this similar style.
I love Garner’s attachment to place and how his writing focusing on this one area where he has lived all these years. My husband regularly talks about the connection he has to where we stay and the stories that come with it. My connection is not as strong but the longer we are here the stronger it grows.
I also like the discussion about time
I don’t know why that posted before I meant it to! In relation to time, it makes me think about a time my friend saw an old man in his blue boiler suit fixing a dyke, as she got closer she wondered why her dog did not acknowledge there was someone there and then she turned away, turned back and he was gone. She said it was like an overlap in time and this was an image from a time before replaying. I like that idea.
Finally the language interested me as there are words that we would use in Scots such as clout, thrums (used by JM Barrie to rename Kirriemuir in his stories), faffing, stramash .. I looked more into this and there is a connection with Scots and the dialects of Northern England with other words also be shared such as lass and bairn. I love all the interconnections.
Looking forward to looking into some of the tangents over the weekend and the next chapters.
I'm pretty sure Tom Cox read Garner. Love your friend's time overlap, or timeslip. I think there's mention of something similar in Powsels and Thrums.
Yes, lots of overlaps as well in the language. Asda has a "bairn" aisle here in Newcastle!
I think clout is universal as it was used in the so called billets recording information about the babies admitted to London’s Foundling Hospital in the 18th century referring to what we would think of today as the baby’s nappy, but was essentially a piece of cloth.
I could see that as definitely feel there is a similar feel, otherworldly and a bit magical.
Oh! That will be interesting see what Garner’s thoughts on that are, the more I think about it the more feasible it sounds.
Love that! Personally I was brought up saying wean but when I moved to Angus bairn it is 🤣
Thank you for the footnotes, they give such depth to this extraordinary book. One thing I wondered or may have missed is the pyramid of letters that weren’t there at the opticians. I can see they make Latin and the first two words mean ‘this stone’ but I can’t understand any more.
We will get a full translation of that message next week.
this is an amazing essay Simon, thank you. I have my copy and hope to begin this evening.
jodrell bank is an hour from me, I visited last year, so interesting. In your words, I particularly love the dialect parts, my family is from Lancashire although that comes under Merseyside these days so I'm familiar with some of those phrases you write about.
After writing so much about this, and reading, I should really visit Blackden, Jodrell and Alderley Edge at some point!
These chapters were just amazing. They were like some old fairy tale that had been discovered and invited itself into Joe's home. The only thing that confused me was Joe's age: sometimes he seems so childlike, I wonder how he's living on his own, and then I wonder if it was really all a dream of his that we'd stumbled onto.
Yes, he seems ten or under to me. That’s how I picture him. But what he’s doing home alone, who can say!
That's about the age I pictured him.