September 1, 2023
A brief, cryptic, often charming fable about the convolutions of time and magic. In ways, this book looks like a YA novel of the type its octogenarian author is well known for: It features a solitary boy named Joseph Coppock who wears a patch to combat lazy eye and lives, alone, in a rural house. Joseph seems to spend his days reading comics, wandering the marsh, and marking the passage of the noon train. At the beginning the boy encounters a rag-and-bone man, the eponymous Treacle Walker, and trades ratty pajamas and a lamb bone for a cup and a sort of pumice stone. Soon he's dealing with incursions of and excursions into magic: interacting with characters who've emerged from his comics, bartering with a bog-dwelling time lord named Thin Amren, even receiving a Latin incantation by way of an eye chart only he can see. Amren tells him he has the "glamourie," which seems at times to mean literally that he has one eye that sees ordinary reality and another that focuses on the mysterious and otherworldly. But in a way such a reading misses the point; the main adult pleasure here is in the book's fresh, playful twisted vernacular, the way Garner uses English folklore and old-fashioned linguistic legerdemain to get at big ideas. "Time is ignorance," reads the epigraph, and Garner seems to imply that tedious adult ideas like plot and chronology hold no sway here. This is a book that takes place before the binocular vision of youth and the child's comfort with mystery have fully faded or flattened (though the through-line, if there is one, has to do with Joseph's desire to grow up and set magic aside). Alluring, elusive, and quick--a fable for adolescents, and for those willing to revisit the murk and jumble of adolescence.
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September 11, 2023
English author Garner, known primarily for children’s fantasies such as Red Shift, offers a hypnotic and surreal adventure in this Booker-shortlisted outing. Joe Coppock, a child of unspecified age, wears a patch over his lazy eye and spends his time reading comic books. One day, he hears a rag-and-bone man named Treacle Walker calling through the window and trades Treacle his pajamas and a lamb bone for a pot and a donkey stone. After Joe accidentally gets some of the paste from the pot on his good eye, he has a series of strange encounters, including one with Thin Amren, a naked man in a bog, who explains how Joe can see magic. He finds the power distressing and asks for guidance from Treacle, who often speaks in riddles. As details from Joe’s life bleed into his comic books, he longs for his previous, simpler existence, and near the end he takes a bold fantastical leap in hopes of returning. Garner blends accessible prose with elliptical references to Northern England mythology (“put the clout to the glamourie and use the glim that’s in the mirlingoes”), which will send curious readers down a rabbit hole. This is alluring and elusive in equal measure. Agent: Karolina Sutton, Curtis Brown.
October 15, 2023
Remarkably, Garner is still producing great work as he nears his ninth decade. This slight, creative, and highly enjoyable work is typical of this elder statesperson of British literature. Set in a fable-like version of Garner's native Cheshire, it begins with Joseph Coppock, a young boy worried about his lazy eye, trading his old pajamas and an animal skull with a rag-and-bone man for a jar and a stone. The rag-and-bone man is Treacle Walker, who claims he can cure anything but jealousy. This joyful but stinky mystical entity is the trigger for the rest of the story, which is captivatingly inventive as comic books come to life, mirrors become windows to other worlds, and Joe converses with a magical being who lives in a bog. Somehow breathlessly paced without feeling rushed, this excellent novella features the trademark Cheshire accents and dialogue found in Garner's tales throughout his career as well as wondrously evocative descriptions of the area. This Italo Calvino-like feat of imagination is nourishing in the way all great stories are.
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