Strandloper (Harvill Panther) (Paperback)

by Alan Garner (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Based on the true story of William Buckley, an 18th-century man from rural England, this unique novel begins with a young William preparing for the annual festival known as Shick-Shack Day. William has been chosen as the village's Shick-Shack—an ancient fertility figure—but when the local landowner discovers the celebration in the church, William is arrested, tried, and banished to Australia. Arriving in the strange continent, he escapes and wanders for more than a year before he is discovered by a group of Aborigines who believe him to be Murrangurk, the great hero, lawgiver, and healer of their people. Later William is spotted by English colonialists, granted a full pardon, and allowed to return to England where me must encounter the life he left behind.

About the Author

Alan Garner has written novels for children and adults, among them The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service, and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.

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Product Details Paperback: 208 pages Publisher: Random House UK (July 3, 1997) Language: English ISBN-10: 1860461611 ISBN-13: 978-1860461613 Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,092,257 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	67% buy the item featured on this page: Strandloper (Harvill Panther) 4.5 out of 5 stars (11) $15.95
	14% buy The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley 4.7 out of 5 stars (40) $6.95
	12% buy The Owl Service 3.5 out of 5 stars (33) $6.95
	7% buy The Moon of Gomrath: A Tale of Alderley 4.4 out of 5 stars (9) $6.95

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews 5 star:  (7) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:  (2) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Unbearably beautiful, May 25, 2000 By  R. Griffiths "bookchoice" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Strandloper is an almost unbearably beautiful book which repays every moment of the fourteen or so years the author took to write it.(You can read about that process in The Voice that Thunders) Every word is in exactly the right place, every phrase consummately crafted. As a result Garner's novel reads like the purest essence of distilled prose. It may be an acquired taste, but it it is truly worth the effort to acquire it. If you are familiar with Garner's previous work you will know that he is concerned with the impact of legend and myth on human life, and with the links that exist across time and culture. In Australia, to say you've got 'Buckley's chance' is to hold out almost no hope at all. Garner's depiction of William Buckley, convict, setting out across the Outback with only the paper sketch of a compass to guide him is one of the most poignant scenes I've ever read. How Buckley survives... well, read it for yourself. 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Novel of the Century?, April 17, 2000 By  flying-monkey (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.) - See all my reviews Alan Garner's books for children were always favourites of mine (some kids do understand them!) - dark, edgy and able to fully immerse you in the textures of the worlds he created. He never patronised, never apologised, just created and allowed the reader to enter. Strandloper manages to do the same for 'adults'. This is a phenomenal book. He pitches the reader into an Eighteenth Century world that is like nothing we know but seems to resonate subconsciously within us. Language, thought patterns, religion are at once strange but understandable at the margins of the modern mind. After a few pages the reader is inside, immersed, before this perspective is upended again, first with the desperate, fearful passage on board a convict ship, and then with the deep mythic and symbolic language and imaginings of the native Australians. The resolution is elegaic, sad and full of a sense of the destructive change to come with the onset of the modern world. Garner's writing is utterly sparse, economic; there is no fat or wastage. Yet there could be no better evocation of not one but two cultures, which while they are superfically as different as could be, share a basis in that they both possess symbolic languages connected with the places and landscapes wherein they exist. These are both at odds with the soul-less, disconnected, modern world at which the ending points. My vote for english novel of the 1990s if not the entire Twentieth Century, it was criminally ignored by almost every major reviewer. 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Alan Garner's pinnacle, February 10, 1999 By A Customer This is, quite simply, the most astounding book I have read. In many ways it is a logical extension of Alan Garner's previous writing, but even so, to see someone reach the heights that he has with this novel is a spellbinding experience. From the Wierdstone onwards, Garner's books have increasingly shown confidence in the reader's ability to reshape a seemingly basic narrative into the full picture Garner seeks to convey, whilst consistently dealing with themes such as dislocation and the repetitive nature of history and folklore. I remember struggling as a child with Red Shift and The Owl Service, but each time managing to infer a little more from the rich but stark prose. And now, after over thirty years of writing, he is able, with little more than dialogue, to take the reader through the four stages of one man's journey, from bricklayer in 18th Century Cheshire through to Aboriginal spiritual leader in ... 18th Century Cheshire. The gaps are deliberate, they require perseverance to fill, but by doing so the reader has to see the world through Buckley's eyes. Maybe the Kirkus reviewer was busy that day, or maybe they just couldn't be bothered. I could be bothered, and I will never look at a book in the same way again.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and beautiful This book is both haunting and beautiful... it hung around and is staying with me far longer than most books do when I've finished them. Read more Published on June 20, 2007 by Lisa Applegate 4.0 out of 5 stars Buckley's Chance or None This is as brave an attempt as Garner has made to effect voices from other eras. It's achieved with consistently brilliant time and place shifts, and one can't conclude other... Read more Published on January 1, 2007 by R. J MOSS 5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable novel, but not for all readers ... I loved this book, like most of the other reviewers here. And I'll leave it to their reviews to try to convey the nature of the novel in a nutshell, so much as that is possible... Read more Published on December 7, 2006 by Jason Fisher 3.0 out of 5 stars Difficult read A book you know merits better understanding, if only it could be understood. Garner's language is very choppy and difficult to follow, but the catch-22 of the situation is that it... Read more Published on September 28, 2003 3.0 out of 5 stars Average "Deep" Work One reviewer has described Garner's writing as sparse but that's being too kind. Garner often leaves too much to our interpretation, going pages with dialogue only and barely... Read more Published on January 11, 2003 by Logan Daugherty 5.0 out of 5 stars The most difficult of Garner's books... ..and perhaps the most rewarding. Definitely NOT for children of any shape or size, STRANDLOPER is an amazing experiment in writing in which Garner mixes a variety of styles and... Read more Published on November 11, 2001 by John Anderson 4.0 out of 5 stars Madness and mythos meet The first sections of this book are the hardest to get through, being heavy on dialect and glimpsed only "through a glass, darkly. Read more Published on October 23, 2001 by Jane G. Beckman 5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant melting pot of narrative styles Alan Garner, who for many years has been publishing "children's" literature that no child could possibly understand, has finally given the world a full, frank... Read more Published on July 10, 1998 by deadmanjones Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (July 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860461611
• ISBN-13: 978-1860461613
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,092,257 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbearably beautiful, May 25, 2000

By	R. Griffiths "bookchoice" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Strandloper is an almost unbearably beautiful book which repays every moment of the fourteen or so years the author took to write it.(You can read about that process in The Voice that Thunders) Every word is in exactly the right place, every phrase consummately crafted. As a result Garner's novel reads like the purest essence of distilled prose. It may be an acquired taste, but it it is truly worth the effort to acquire it. If you are familiar with Garner's previous work you will know that he is concerned with the impact of legend and myth on human life, and with the links that exist across time and culture. In Australia, to say you've got 'Buckley's chance' is to hold out almost no hope at all. Garner's depiction of William Buckley, convict, setting out across the Outback with only the paper sketch of a compass to guide him is one of the most poignant scenes I've ever read. How Buckley survives... well, read it for yourself.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Novel of the Century?, April 17, 2000

By	flying-monkey (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.) - See all my reviews

Alan Garner's books for children were always favourites of mine (some kids do understand them!) - dark, edgy and able to fully immerse you in the textures of the worlds he created. He never patronised, never apologised, just created and allowed the reader to enter.

Strandloper manages to do the same for 'adults'.

This is a phenomenal book. He pitches the reader into an Eighteenth Century world that is like nothing we know but seems to resonate subconsciously within us. Language, thought patterns, religion are at once strange but understandable at the margins of the modern mind. After a few pages the reader is inside, immersed, before this perspective is upended again, first with the desperate, fearful passage on board a convict ship, and then with the deep mythic and symbolic language and imaginings of the native Australians. The resolution is elegaic, sad and full of a sense of the destructive change to come with the onset of the modern world.

Garner's writing is utterly sparse, economic; there is no fat or wastage. Yet there could be no better evocation of not one but two cultures, which while they are superfically as different as could be, share a basis in that they both possess symbolic languages connected with the places and landscapes wherein they exist. These are both at odds with the soul-less, disconnected, modern world at which the ending points.

My vote for english novel of the 1990s if not the entire Twentieth Century, it was criminally ignored by almost every major reviewer.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alan Garner's pinnacle, February 10, 1999

By A Customer

This is, quite simply, the most astounding book I have read. In many ways it is a logical extension of Alan Garner's previous writing, but even so, to see someone reach the heights that he has with this novel is a spellbinding experience.
From the Wierdstone onwards, Garner's books have increasingly shown confidence in the reader's ability to reshape a seemingly basic narrative into the full picture Garner seeks to convey, whilst consistently dealing with themes such as dislocation and the repetitive nature of history and folklore. I remember struggling as a child with Red Shift and The Owl Service, but each time managing to infer a little more from the rich but stark prose.
And now, after over thirty years of writing, he is able, with little more than dialogue, to take the reader through the four stages of one man's journey, from bricklayer in 18th Century Cheshire through to Aboriginal spiritual leader in ... 18th Century Cheshire.
The gaps are deliberate, they require perseverance to fill, but by doing so the reader has to see the world through Buckley's eyes. Maybe the Kirkus reviewer was busy that day, or maybe they just couldn't be bothered. I could be bothered, and I will never look at a book in the same way again.