I (finally!) read Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. And I loved it because it was by Alan Garner. And I understood almost nothing of it despite its being by Alan Garner.
It felt like a hodgepodge of motifs which readers are meant to appreciate which, it seemed to me, it's hard to do because there's no clear narrative arc. Instead the book feels like those adventure books of the 80s where readers choose what characters will do next, thus creating their own story, as readers must do to make sense of Treacle Walker. (I loved those books but I wasn't expecting this book to be like them.)
It brought childhood memories to the fore — ranging from Treacle Walker (from Macclesfield, Treacle Town, was my first thought although it's more likely to be a reference to triacle, I think) to the bog man: Lindow man, one of my most uncomfortable childhood memories. And it had far too many unanswered questions not least of which were: who's dead, who's not, is all life illusory? What anchored the book to reality, such as it is, was its insistence that magical realism or life cocooned in myth or not, none of us escape doing the dishes at the end of the day, so to speak.
There is always the hard grind of daily life.
Understanding so little of the book doesn't especially bother me; I don't think it's an awful thought with which to end the year — Question Everything!