The Owl Service

by Alan Garner

Something is scratching around in the attic above Alison's room. Yet the only thing up there is a stack of grimy old plates. Alison and her stepbrother, Roger, discover that the flowery patterns on the plates, when traced onto paper, can be fitted together to create owls-owls that disappear when no one is watching. With each vanished owl, strange events begin to happen around Alison, Roger, and the caretaker's son, Gwyn. As the kids uncover the mystery of the owl service, they become trapped within a local legend, playing out roles in a tragic love story that has repeated itself for generations... a love story that has always ended in disaster.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Mythology, Classics, Middle Grade

202 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Alan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.

Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).

Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Sarah Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit I didn't 'get' this book the first time I read it. In fact it was not until the third or fourth reading that I really began to understand the plot and central themes. It also certainly helps if you have read the story in the 'Mabinogion' that this book is loosely based upon. Garner's economical style is also an initial obstacle. Reading through some of the reviews here, I can see that some people have found fault with the fact that he almost completely omits description of any kind in this novel; very little information is provided about how the characters feel. The reason why I kept re-reading this book is directly because it doesn't reveal its mysteries easily. It keeps them close to its chest, and the reader must make an effort to uncover them. Indeed, the novel is almost exclusively made up of dialogue. It certainly can take several reads of a conversation to work out that one of the characters is angry, or upset. There are none of those usual clues that authors normally provide to help their readers understand precisely what's happening. In this way I like to think of the novel as pseudo-play, akin to Shakespeare; lines of dialogue followed by minimal direction. And it is exactly this level of economy that makes the book work; the reader's confusion mirrors that of the main characters. They are just as much lost as we are.

Garner's sparse style also helps to build up an unprecedented level of tension that I have never since encountered in a supposed "children's" book. There are some parts of the book that are decidedly unnerving; the scratching in the ceiling, Alison's rage causing books to fly, Gwyn creeping through the eerie forest at night, being stalked by indeterminate streaks of light, the painting of a women surrounded by flowers whose petals are made of claws. It all comes together to create a story that makes your skin crawl.

It is difficult to describe this book. When I was asked at work what my favourite book was, without hesitation I replied 'The Owl Service' by Alan Garner. And yet when they asked me what it was about, all I could say was 'Well, it's about these three young people... on holiday in Wales... and they get caught up in a Welsh myth...'. And I suppose that's because on the surface, not an awful lot happens. And yet, in between nothing happening, everything happens. And that is precisely what makes this book so wonderful. There are so many layers, it's hard to know where to begin. Most obvious is the class conflict, coupled with English vs Welsh antagonism - Alison, Roger and their parents are English, and upper-middle class, while Gwyn and his mother are Welsh, and working class. The relationship between Alison and Gwyn causes reverberations within the perceived social hierarchy, to devastating effect. Then there is the mother-child dynamic; Roger, Gwyn and Alison all have difficult relationships with their mothers. In fact they are all neglected by their mothers in one way or another; Roger's (the 'Birmingham Belle') by running off with another man, Gwyn's by deserting the village and Alison's by being there but never really there. The sense of space and location; you get the feeling that this story happens because of the place that the characters inhabit. The Welsh valley they are caught within is almost a character within itself. Then there is the love triangle that threatens to engulf each generation, and lastly but most importantly, there is the eternal presence of the chillingly powerful force of nature. The characters have no will other than what nature dictates. Gwyn cannot escape the valley despite his best efforts; he is driven back by torrential rain and hounded by dogs. Alison feels compelled to trace the owl patterns from the plates, and hides them in the forest. Roger photographs the trees on the hill through the hole in the Stone of Gronw, and unwittingly captures a figure, holding something aloft...

There is one passage in the novel that in my mind completely encapsulates the main theme of the book:

'What is the power?' said Alison.
'I can't explain', said Gwyn. 'I once saw a nettle growing in an old garage in Aber. A pale little thing it was. It had split the concrete floor.'

This then, is what drives this book; the unstoppable power of nature, against which human beings are nothing but playthings.

[Phrynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes along the way you find a really special book in a very unexpected place. The Owl Service is something I picked up to satisfy the requirements of a challenge and I am so pleased I did. It is a remarkable book.

I would classify this as a children's book written for adults because it would need to be a very smart child to understand even half of what is happening. One of the criticisms often thrown at authors is that they do too much tell and not enough show. Well Garner is an author who does not worry about telling at all. Nothing is explained but everything can be understood if the reader listens carefully enough to the dialogue and the story.

And it is a very scary story. Characters are compelled to do things they do not understand. Objects are smashed by unseen sources. There are noises in the roof. When one character attempts to leave the village he is forced back by unnatural events. There is a sense of danger throughout the whole text. If I had read this as a child I would not have slept for weeks!

Alan Garner is a very skilful author. I loved the way the mother only ever made her presence felt by proxy. She was all pervasive to the story but never actually in the room. And the ending, which I see many people do not like, was amazing. Events culminated as they do at the end of a story and the author just stopped. No explanations, no follow up. Just the end. Sometimes it is really good to read something so refreshingly different.

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

an impressionistic tale of three teens reenacting a deadly eternal triangle in a welsh village. strange yearnings and mysterious motivations are anchored by enjoyably prosaic dialogue, the oddly off-kilter use of slang, and a sharp but subtle sense of warfare between the classes. a nicely clean and uncluttered narrative. one of the many endearing parts of this novel is the realization that the patterns of history and destiny that drive the characters forward are being reflected in the flowery patterns found on dinner plates and wallpaper. another charming thing: magical paper cut-outs of owls! but lest you think this is a cute story for tweens, know that the yarn being spun is one rooted in tragedy, violent possessiveness, and eternal regret. and it is a very mystical novel despite all of the expertly-done 'ordinariness'.

i've read that this low-key novel of the past tormenting the present is considered a classic by many. it even boasts a BBC adaptation. if you like Owl Service, you should find the tv series on dvd - it is actually pretty good. some very interesting and rather radical things happening in what is essentially a miniseries for kids. and the program keeps the mysticism intact, hurrah!

i am usually a little amused when i come across new agey 'anglo-saxon mysticism' in real life, in shops and in jewelry and in tattoos and whatnot. i can't help but roll my eyes a little at the cliché. is this mythology in some ways symbolic of the yearnings for mysticism and a rich warrior ancestry of the white middle class? but when i actually read about that mysticism, in places like this novel and in the Dark Is Rising series of susan cooper, it is a guilt-free pleasure. i love it. i guess i'm just a sucker for eerie destinies and mysterious ancestors.

perhaps i secretly yearn to replace my own muddy, goulash-like ancestry with something mystical, with ancient secrets flowing through my veins and a terrible destiny to be fulfilled! or perhaps not. i like goulash.

my real last name is molnar, a hungarian name just like goulash. and so in honor of my last name, here is a recipe:

TRANSYLVANIAN GOULASH even though transylvania is not even in hungary

4 tbsp. sunflower or canola oil
2 yellow onions, chopped
1 1⁄2 lbs. beef chuck, trimmed and cut into 1⁄2" cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1⁄4 cup sweet paprika
2 tsp. dried marjoram
2 tsp. caraway seeds
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, cut into 1⁄2" cubes
2 medium parsnips, cut into 1⁄2" cubes
1 1⁄2 lbs. medium new potatoes, peeled and cut into 1⁄2" cubes
1 tomato, cored and chopped
1 priest or pastor or other religious official, cored and chopped *optional
1 Italian frying pepper, chopped
1 lb chubby Italian man, chopped *optional
the blood of a young virgin. but no nun blood! *optional

1. Heat oil in a 5-qt. dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Increase heat to high. Add beef, Italian chubber, the religious official of your choice or denomination, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, uncovered, stirring only once or twice, until the meat is lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Stir in paprika, marjoram, caraway, and garlic and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add carrots, parsnips, blood of virgin, and 5 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium. Simmer, covered, until the beef is nearly tender, about 40 minutes.

2. Add potatoes and cook, uncovered, until tender, about 25 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and peppers; cook for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with rye bread, if you like.

SERVES 4 – 6, or 14 - 16 if including optional ingredients.



yum, just look at the bloody goodness of this special goulash. delicioso!

[Bionic Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And the room was full of petals from skylight and rafters, and all about them a fragrance, and petals, flowers falling, broom, meadowsweet, falling, flowers of the oak.”

This is the final sentence of The Owl Service. It is also its starting point.

The author and folklorist Alan Garner once said that he always thinks of the end of a novel first. A sentence—or even a paragraph—pops into his mind, and then he works on the novel, and hopes that it will reach that point by the end.

The Owl Service is tagged as “the much-loved classic adventure story for children”. This is a terrible description! I have found 36 near synonyms for “adventure”, and none of them fit. Nor is this novel only for children, although some may enjoy it. But just because a book has three 15 year olds as its main characters, does not mean that it is a “children’s” book. Alan Garner himself rejected the idea that he writes children’s literature, saying: “I certainly have never written for children”. He has found though that adults may complain that he is “difficult, obscurantist, wilful, and sometimes simply trying to confuse”, whereas he says children read what he writes with “more passion, understanding, and clarity of perception”. He has always written purely for himself.

I recently watched a programme about Alan Garner which was made in 1980, and which brought out the concentrated, intense aspect very strongly. The documentary was evidently his responses to open-ended questions, but filmed as a monologue, and conveyed his writing methods and motivations very well. Alan Garner had been a frail child, and said he had spent half of his first ten years bed-bound with three illnesses which often prove fatal: meningitis, diphtheria and pneumonia. In fact he remembered twice hearing the doctor saying that he was dying, which he said made him so angry that he fought to get well again.

The windows were covered with calico because of the World War II blackout, and most of his time was spent staring at the ceiling. There he imagined a wood, a stone and sky, which felt more real to him than what his body was undergoing. If the world of the wood disappeared he was worried, just as he was when he saw an old woman leaning over him. (He realised later that this must have happened at the times when he was most close to death, and had been taken to her to be watched continuously.) Perhaps his illnesses made him hallucinate, but “The Edge of the Ceiling” is what the documentary was titled, and the impression one gets is as though everything beyond that defined space, was not Alan Garner’s reality. He lived in the mind right from being a child, whilst having a strong intuitive connection with the elements and the natural world. He sums up his work as attempting to grasp “the reality behind the apparent reality”.

Neil Philip, who has collected together perhaps the definitive volume of English folk tales, believes that the essence of Alan Garner’s work is: “the struggle to render the complex in simple, bare terms; to couch the abstract in the concrete and communicate it directly to the reader.” He aptly said that Alan Garner’s work is intensely autobiographical, “in both obvious and subtle ways”.

To read Alan Garner is to get caught up in a powerful, elemental sense of magic, whilst keeping one’s feet firmly in the here and now, through the young main characters. He is in my favourite top 5 fantasy authors, perhaps tying with Susan Cooper for fantasy which can be appreciated by children.

Most of his works are set in Cheshire, specifically Alderley Edge, where he lived as a child. They are rooted in its landscape, history and folklore. In more recent years he has moved more towards retellings of folklore, but the first novels, “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” (1960) and “The Moon of Gomrath” (1963) are steeped in this windswept landscape with its abandoned mines. This is probably where his literary obsession with birds began: with crows and other members of the corvid family, before the menacing owl presence in The Owl Service. In these two novels it is a residual fear of the Morthbrood, agents of the Morrigan, who primarily manifest themselves as crows.. There are also malevolent elf-like creatures and a powerful wizard, and kids like me too … I remember finding these books all by myself in the library, and feeling I had never read anything like them.

Alan Garner spends a good deal of time reading and researching various aspects before he starts a novel, saying that it has always been between one and four years (although after this one there was a gap of 6 years, and I began to depair that there would be no more, before “Red Shift” came out in 1973). The Owl Service is his fifth novel, which was first published in 1967.

There are just two books out of these early ones which are standalones. One is “Elidor” (1965, after his radio play in 1962), another marvellous magical novel set amongst the post-World War II bombsites in Manchester, involving four children, a King, stolen treasures, mythical creatures and of course the forces of evil. The Owl Service (1967) is the final book which is not set in Cheshire. In this case it is set—in fact “well rooted” might be a better description—in Wales; specifically in Llanymawddwy, a tiny village in south-east Gwynedd, North Wales, where there are said to be two iron age forts. The nearest big town is Aberystwyth; “Aber”.

Alan Garner has always immersed himself in the locality and the legends, and for The Owl Service he learned the Welsh language. Language is always very important to him, perhaps because as a child of six, on a rare occasion when he was able to attend school, his teacher washed his mouth out with soap and water, as a punishment for speaking in the Cheshire dialect. The Owl Service does not actually use much Welsh, except when it is appropriate, such as for Huw Hannerhob (Halfbacon) or Huw the “Flitch”, a handyman and gardener, whose vernacular is Welsh and clearly a translation. For instance for the words “I must go working to …”, “there is a man being killed”, “I am tricking him”, ”I am not knowing what to do“, “he is not letting anyone have them” the meaning is all in a past tense. Alan Garner would not use dialect, calling it the “Come you here, bach school of writing”, because he believed that this would only superficially express what it was to be Welsh.

Rather prosaically though, the novel’s title refers to a teaset! His mother-in-law, Betty Greaves, alerted Alan Garner to a dinner service set whose design could be arranged to make pictures of either flowers or owls. Here it is:



From this odd snippet, the entire story grew in his mind. He remembered reading an old Welsh legend about Lleu, and his wife Blodeuwedd who was made for him out of flowers.

“She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.”

This theme became the subtext of the whole book, which is heavily influenced by the Medieval Welsh tale of Math fab Mathonwy (Math, son of Mathonwy) who was a king of Gwynedd in the “Mabinogion”.

The mythical female Blodeuwedd features in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, created from flowers by the king of Gwynedd, Math, and the magician and trickster Gwydion, for a man who was cursed to take no human wife. Blodeuwedd betrays her husband Lleu in favour of another man, Gronw Pebyr, Lor of Penllyn, and is turned into an owl as punishment for inducing Gronw to kill Lleu.

As we read, we gradually understand that this myth is continually re-enacting through history.

“It is always owls, over and over and over …”

This time the legend has been awakened by the finding a set of dinner plates with an owl pattern, in the loft of a Welsh cottage. Alison is staying there with her mother (Margaret, whom we never meet although she is evidently present) and new stepfather (Clive), who has a son Roger. They live in England, but have come to Wales on a sort of family honeymoon, as Alison has inherited the cottage. Ill in bed, Alison has heard strange scratching noises coming from there, and asks Gwyn (the son of the Welsh housekeeper, Nancy) to go and explore. He brings down the teaset, but as he touches the plates, extraordinary things happen to the three. Gwyn almost falls through the ceiling while simultaneously Roger, who is by a large flat stone near the river, hears a scream and seems to see something flying through the air toward him. The stone is known as the Stone of Gronw.

There is evident subtext in the fact that Alison is ill with “bellyache” now and then. Is this menstrual pains? And is this the time when all the supernatural events and possible visions occur, as in many such old myths? And what is the significance of the fact that Margaret, her upper-class mother, is always around, but never appears?

Alison passes the time by tracing the pattern on the plates, and cutting it out. She discovers that if you fold it a certain way, it makes owls. All three teenagers, Alison, Roger and Gwyn are fascinated by this at first, but Alison seems to get obsessed and even goes out at night to secretly make more owls. Oddly, she seems to lose them …

A chain of events has been set in progress which is doomed to affect everyone’s lives.

Alan Garner had himself stayed in a house in a remote valley in North Wales, and knew within hours of arriving that this was the setting for the story. Its atmosphere fitted both the original legend and the nature of the dinner service.

“Ideas began to grow … the story took shape … the lie of the land fitted the descriptions in the legend. Everything was where it ought to be. The legend could have happened here. As I stood on the doorstep at night, thinking these things, an owl brushed its wings in my face.”

It is from these sort of intuitions that Alan Garner’s writing seems to spring. There is a stone with a hole neatly bored through it, and Huw tells the legend which says that Lleu killed Gronw by throwing his spear clear through the stone that Gronw was holding to shield himself.

There are other key artefacts in the story; such as a spear, a slate pendant and a very old painting of a beautiful woman which had been covered with pebbledash. Shortly after it had been exposed, the image completely disappeared:

“She was tall. Her long hair fell to her waist, framing in gold her pale and lovely face. Her eyes were blue. She wore a loose gown of white cambric, embroidered with living green stems of broom and meadowsweet, and a wreath of green oak leaves in her hair.”

The landscape is almost a character in itself, oppressive and looming:

“He leaned against the rock. The mountains hung over him, ready to fill the valley”, or here in a violent storm:

“the mountains showed him rain a mile wide and a thousand feet high”

and Huw seems a part of it. In terms of Alan Garner’s world, Huw Halfbacon is one in a long line of guardians of the landscape and its memories. He guards the valley wherein the tragedy of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Gronw Pebyr, and Blodeuwedd, the woman of flowers, is doomed to be reenacted in every generation. Unbeknown to Gywn, this is his inheritance too, as Huw is to pass this on to his son and heir.

In all of Alan Garner’s novels, we find that an acutely sensitive young man such as Gwyn is central to the story, and he has a woman in whom he can confide. In “Elidor” Roland has an extremely close relationship with his sister, Helen. In The Owl Service it is more tentative, but Gwyn tries all the time to talk urgently, and be close to his “Ali”. In each case the girl or woman has a nurturing, almost maternal role within the relationship. However in earlier novels the boy and girl are younger, between 8 and 12. As further novels are published, the new characters are in their teens, and the sexual tension grows stronger. The attraction is less impressionistic and more explicit, such as that in “Red Shift”.

The Owl Service is also based on a recurring cycle of the eternal love triangle; we know of four: Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Gronw Pebyr, and Blodeuwedd; Nancy, Huw Halfbacon, and Bertram; Clive, Margaret, and Ali’s invisible father; and of course, Ali, Gwyn, and Roger.

Also, within this so-called “children’s novel” we have a study of Welsh-English relationships. Clive, a member of the privileged upper middle class, descendants of the land-owning invading English in Wales, finds the resentment he expects from the Welsh “peasants” whom he employs and pays. The Welsh for their part close ranks, conning and laughing at the English behind their backs; deliberately talking in riddles whilst ostensibly showing respect.

The next generation on are more overt in their hostility, and whenever there are disagreements it always comes through as racial prejudice, and its consequent class prejudice. We also have the generation differences, with Gwyn wanting to use his intelligence to further his education, against his mother’s wishes; Nancy thinks he should stay in Aber, and work in a shop. Plus of course we see added to this volatile mix, a generous dollop of teenage hormones, sparking off between the three as well as the adults.

An eight-part television series was made of The Owl Service in 1969, and rebroadcast in 1978 and 1987. It was never on video, but made it to DVD in 2008. I have just watched this series for the first time, and although it represents a landmark in TV fantasy series (it was the first one in colour, for a start, and was filmed almost entirely on location at a time when almost all TV drama was studio-bound) I do not feel I can recommend it.

The social and dynamics of the relationships are all there, verbatim, but almost all the supernatural elements are missed out. The image of the maiden does not disappear, there is no stuffed owl in a case, surrounded by the minions of paper owls and clawprints in the dust in the outbuilding, and the possession of Alison seems ridiculous rather than terrifying. There is no sense of threat from the elements and the landscape … even the final image is missing. Often it does not seem to make sense, and when it does, it seems to be mostly about teenage angst.

Nevertheless, the acting is good, especially of the cryptic gardener Huw Halfbacon, who apparently was based on an actual person. In 2008, the actor who played him, Raymond Llewellyn said that the role of Huw has haunted him ever since. The series seems to have been popular, and I was staggered to learn that Alan Garner had scripted the series himself! Things became a little clearer when I discovered that filming had fallen behind schedule, so the Granada crew took control of the filming and were able to complete the shoot on time by omitting some scenes and changing others. In my opinion this is a hatchet job.

The Owl Service won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1967. For the 70th anniversary of the Carnegie in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works of all time. Not many of Alan Garner’s novels have made it to audiobooks for some reason, but some which did are read by Philip Madoc, with his beautifully undulating Welsh accent. Sadly The Owl Service was never recorded, although there have been 2 radio dramatisations.

Every book I have read by Alan Garner has been worth reading, and this is a particulary esoteric one. As Neil Philip said in his critical study in 1981: “It may be that Garner's is a case where the division between children's and adults' literature is meaningless and that his fiction is instead enjoyed by a type of person, no matter what their age.” I personally believe this to be true.

It’s quite short; read it and see what you make of it!

“There were no clouds and the sky was drained white towards the sun. The air throbbed, flashed like blue lightning, sometimes dark, sometimes pale, and the pulse of the throbbing grew, and now the shades followed one another so quickly that Gwyn could see no more than a trembling which became a play of light on the sheen of a wing, but when he looked about him he felt that the trees and the rocks had never held such depth, and the line of the mountain made his heart shake.”

[Spencer Orey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely not what I expected at all! I don't think I've read anything that felt quite so situated in a real place. The language felt really precise, with a tight focus on spoken dialect and the interactions of children. And then there's the myths and legends, which trickle through in mysterious magic. The story itself is okay? It didn't feel like the focus, and that's totally fine. But for classic MG fantasy, this felt so intensely grounded.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The start was full of suspense and we were instantly drawn into the story. The mystery was intriguing, I enjoyed the way it was slowly revealed who the characters were and what their relationship to each other was. The start of the mystery was great, we loved the idea of haunted plates, it made it seem almost plausible to be real, who'd make that up! We really enjoyed the idea of the paper owls and appreciated their reappearance at the end.

The story was slightly difficult as a read aloud, lots of welsh names, and mainly told in dialogue. Some phonetic pronunciations for the names of the people in the folklore and places would have been helpful. Some parts were hard to follow, some parts felt like dream sequences although they weren't, occasionally we weren't sure what was happening. The class divide between the characters was a prominent part of the story, as was folklore, the feeling of a place belonging to people over generations and of history repeating itself.

Some interesting characters, I disliked both Mam and Mummy in this story, although you get to see more than you'd want of Mam and only hear of Mummy in reference.

The end word from the author about his inspiration for the story was interesting. Would have loved to have seen a picture of the plates he mentions, I wonder if one exists?

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Owl Service is a very, very powerful book. It used to scare me silly, when I was younger -- under ten, probably -- and it still has a very tense feel to it, an edge of fright. It draws on the story of Blodeuwedd, from the Mabinogion: Gwydion makes her out of flowers, to be a wife for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who has been cursed by his mother never to marry a mortal woman. However, she falls in love with Gronw Pebr, and they plot how to kill Lleu. He is only changed into an eagle, though, and he comes back and eventually kills Gronw, and Blodeuwedd is turned into an owl in punishment.

The central idea of The Owl Service is this story replaying over and over again in a Welsh valley -- that the story has so much power that it can't help but keep replaying itself like a traumatic memory. And in the book it's mapped onto a fraught story of conflicting loyalties, class difference, the problems between the Welsh and the English... the power of it comes from how much of it is real. I can believe in the anger here, in the characters' feelings.

Alan Garner did, as far as I can gather, an amazing amount of research for this book. I think he succeeds in putting his finger on Welsh feelings and retelling the myth in a respectful and even renewing way.

[Emmeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this five or six years ago and was a little disappointed, but now, plucking it off the shelf for no reason at all and in the face of my towering, collapsing pile of books yet-to-be-read, it surpassed my expectations. Some books demand a second reading, I think.

This is a book with a bit of a marketing problem. Recent editions are clearly trying to play it up as a classic children’s book. My copy is a relatively muted example of this. But it's not really a children's book at all. Wikipedia describes it as "low fantasy," but I would probably call it "folk horror" (with the emphasis on the folk rather than the horror). It's eerie. Looking back at the first editions from the late 1960s, the cover designers had it clear that this was a weird and unsettling story:

(First American edition)

Recently, only the Folio Society has captured this well:

(Folio)

There’s also maybe the inevitable disappointment of discovering that the owl service is not a group of rampaging owls but a set of dinner plates with an owl pattern on them.

On to the good things: this is a story of a trio of adolescents trapped into reenacting an old story/curse/misunderstanding based on Welsh folklore. There is a posh boy, a posh girl and a working class boy, all spending the summer in a Welsh valley. Themes of class and nationality (Welsh/English) class with adolescent yearnings that are never made clear. The adults are a threatening bunch, from the bad-tempered cook, terrified of the dinner service, to the half-mad Huw Halfbacon, part country yokel, part magician and the all-pervasive rich mother, who never appears in a scene but is constantly invoked. The tension builds and builds, and is reflected in possibly supernatural elements that flow through the valley.

A great deal of the tension comes from the difficulty of knowing what is going on. It is unclear what age the protagonists are, which means it is unclear what the nature of their misunderstandings are. The dialogue is pitch-perfect with regards to regionalisms but extremely dated to the sixties in general, as are some of the attitudes, and this is a problem.

But overall, I think this is a book which overcomes its problems to create something uncanny and memorable. It manages to be unquestioningly of its time, while also being weird in the way that myths and legends themselves are weird, bringing a kind of sense to the mythic. It might help to read The Mabinogion first (in my case as it’s actually wedged into one of my collapsing piles), but with a bit of careful rereading, The Owl Service rewards on its own merits.

Favourite bit of trivia regarding this novel: Garner learned Welsh "in order not to use it" in the dialogue.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I did. It had so much potential!

First, it's set in the Welsh valleys. That in itself is great. Then, you've got the whole mystery of the owl service itself, like why is Alison obsessed with it? What's going on in the locked room? and all like that.But Garner does his own plot a disservice. Maybe he needed a better editor, one who could guide him on how to flesh out these very good bones into something rounded and satisfying for the reader. I really wish Garner had got some help somewhere because it was a cracking idea.

Talk about "show don't tell!" Most of the novel is dialogue, and that's fine in itself. But we aren't told a story, we're given scraps. WHY does "Mummy" never appear? She's either lying down, or out for a walk, or upstairs, never in the same room with her family, with whom she never interacts on the page; she seems to hover over the narrative like a malignant ghost. It's apparently her honeymoon trip with Clive, Hubby No. 2, to her country home in Wales (which actually belongs to daughter Alison). Everyone talks about Mummy, but no one seems to like her much, and that includes Hubby. Clive brings son Roger into the marriage, and there's Gwyn, the live-in help's son. We are never given any real indication of the ages of the three youths, though I figured Alison's mystery illness of "gripes" that opens the novel was probably menstrual pains; given the fact that she becomes the catalyst for the paranormal action, that gives us the adolescent-girl-trope so beloved of this sort of book/movie of the period. (Think Carrie, think Audrey Rose, think The Exorcist). None of these kids act like kids--no fooling about, games, or anything else except one game of ping-pong and another of pool--both with adult Clive. Roger I figured must be what? Fifteen? with his darkroom and all. But we are never told, given the author's fragmentary non-narration. Aside from Alison's yellow hair, we have no idea what any of them look like, either.

The first third or so of the book was fine and held my attention, but then suddenly it becomes this long drawn out whinge of "oh you mustn't talk to me, Mummy doesn't like it." You know what? Gwyn never spits out what he's got on his mind, not even on the several occasions when he does manage to get Alison on her own for a minute or two. Not once! There's a lot of chatter about social class and judging people on how they speak--"He's a yob" occurs more than once. I know that sort of classism was and is rife in the UK, but it could have been used better to contrast later events--another trick the author missed.

When we finally get down to it, what happens? Not much, at least not to tie it all into the "legend." Gwyn is soo important to the action, instrumental to the legend-narrative and then at the crisis--nothing. Huw is supposedly the centre of the problem and--nothing. Of course--Wales needs these English summer residents to work it all out for them??? ??? But then it's all about the effect on Alison; the villagers are just background. I expected, I don't know--for the village to be swept away in the flood, or at least to have the "poorly built" bridge go out with someone on it.

And then the author cops out with a "Post Script" in which he basically apologises for his novel by explaining its inspiration etc. In my experience, if an author has to explain his purpose to the reader in so many words, it means he has failed in that purpose and he knows it. The earliest example I've seen is the Epilogue scene in Shakespeare's As You Like It, in which he ends by saying something like, "We know this is just a piece of fluff, we don't even have a title for it, call it what you like."

Two stars for a decent idea. One for the poor development.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written as I begin...

She wants to be flowers but you keep making her owls.

This will be a paraphrase rather than a direct quote, as it's something I've always remembered, almost been haunted by, over the years since I read Alan Garner's The Owl Service as a child. Every so often, that evocative phrase would bubble out of my subconscious and I'd think of it for a moment before going back to my everyday life.

She wants to be flowers but you keep making her owls.

Despite that deep memory, I've never reread the book. I was searching the shelves in the library a week or two ago, looking for books for Marcus, when I saw this edition sitting on the rack. I picked it up pretty much without thinking and checked it out on my card rather than his. I didn't know if I'd read it, but that line floated up again and that's why I brought it home.

Then I started making up a book pool for Once Upon a Time VII and it seemed only sensible to add this to it. Before I knew what had happened, I realised it was going to be my first book for the challenge. It's either based on, or a retelling of (I can't remember which since I read it so long ago) the story of Blodeuwedd, a Welsh tale from The Mabinogion and now I've written this introduction, I shall go and read it. I'll report back when I'm finished.

=============

Okay, so I finished this 10 days ago and I still haven't come back to finish my review. That's because I don't quite know what to say.

I have found myself with two reactions to this book. One is a response to the words on the page, and I find myself very disappointed to say that it didn't hold up to my memories of it. BUT, and this is the strange thing, my emotional reaction remains the same. What I have carried away from the book remains magical and I don't quite know why.

The prose is actually very sparse. You are thrown into the story without much - or really any - introduction to the characters or the setting. Immediately, Alison is hear scritchings in the ceiling and Gwyn is looking into it and finding the plates. Bang, off we go.

There's a good bit of back-story that really isn't fully spelled out. It isn't always clear exactly what is happening and sometimes the story jumps ahead, straight into the next bit of action without transitioning you there. It also ends abruptly, as soon as the threat is done, with no wind-down or investigation into the consequences of what has just happened.

And YET...

Garner works some kind of subtle magic I totally don't understand, so that the reader seems to pick up all those missing pieces by osmosis. And the result is that while I noticed those things while reading, once I was finished, the magic was back and I found myself loving the book all over again.

I don't know what it is. I don't know how he does it. But it works.

However, I may choose not to read the book itself again, and instead hold the glow of the story to myself like a warm and pleasant memory where some of the magic comes from the blurring of the actual experience.

[Lolly's Library · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the hell was this? It started off fine, if a little bit bumpy. I kept waiting for the 'tragic romance' of the premise to begin--frankly, I was waiting for any kind of action to take place--yet nothing of the kind ever developed. There was an interesting, if bizarre, set up involving owls and plates and mysteries, but *fzzzt* it completely fizzled out. Nothing was ever explained and that ending... What kind of an ending was that? There was no resolution, no explanation, nothing that rewarded the reader for investing their time and interest in the book. Frankly, I can't understand how this won any awards. While the narrative did have a sort of poetic flow to it, the dialogue was occasionally disjointed and the character interactions were just...off. The whole book was off. Where was the great and tragic love story that was supposed to plague this particular Welsh valley and play itself out generation after generation? No love story ever came onto the scene, except for an old one involving one of the character's mother and another character's uncle, but even then we don't get much of the story. The entire book didn't make one whit of sense. As I started it, when I was still fairly excited about it and the characters were searching for clues, I thought to myself, "Huh, this kind of compares to Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone." As I continued reading, though, that comparison flew right out the window...just like those damned paper owls from The Owl Service.

[Plateresca · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual read for me, but very rewarding. It reads in one breath. I particularly enjoyed the creepy atmosphere and the fact that the story is steeped in mythology. Some parts of it are sketchy and not everybody, I guess, would be satisfied by the ending as it does not exactly explain everything that has happened or will happen. But it is a beautiful, captivating story, and, as I understand, a kind of a milestone of fantasy, so I definitely recommend it.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, a very intense little book. Considering that it’s a children’s book, there are some very adult themes addressed. Not only are there step-family issues being worked out in the English family involved, but there is a past intertwining of their family with the Welsh woman who is currently working as their housekeeper. Alison’s mother seems to be very class conscious and tries to keep her daughter away from the housekeeper’s son, Gwyn. The resentment of the Welsh, who are seeing English families usurping homes in their communities for holiday cottages, is prominent as well.

Add to all of this a bit of Celtic mythology playing itself out through the people available to it and a spooky layer of ambiguity overlays the whole tale.

The writing and dialog are choppy, making sudden turns that are difficult to follow. In mid-conversation, characters change the topic so abruptly as to be completely confusing. Once the reader is familiar with this tendency, it becomes a little less jarring, but it still interfered with my enjoyment of the story. Whether the book is written for children or adults, it should flow freely and make sense. I also found the prejudice displayed by Alison’s stepfather, Clive, and stepbrother, Roger, against the Welsh people to be distressing.

An interesting little tale with supernatural overtones.

[Nick Swarbrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am coming to dislike the blunt instrument of the four-star review. This is a haunting book, begging all sorts of questions about the author and his relationship with landscape and legend. It is, for me, maybe not Garner's finest, but four stars because it is not the great novel that is Thursbitch or the complex writing of Red Shift seems mean-spirited.
Owl Service sits - perhaps uncomfortably- on the cusp of a new kind of writing , as YA becomes a genre in its own right. However, that edge is a place where Garner is free to invent, to try out how narrative works, in ways that are more challenging than the first two Weirdstone books. It is in consequence able to explore its big themes alongside teenage attraction, jealousy, class, and a whole load of other issues as part of the jumble of growing up, in much the same way as Red Shift does, but situated itself deep into a Celtic landscape and legend-cycle. On my first read, I abandoned it half-way to get The Mabinogion from the central library, before returning to finish it, and this is its Garner trademark: that the "original" story of magic and jealousy is a powerful driving force for Garner's narrative.
This is not to say that The Owl Service is a footnote to the story of Blodeuwedd in Welsh mythology- Garner is too skilful a writer for that - but that themes are revisited, half represented and half enacted differently - as the story of the local boy Gwynn and his relationship with incomers Roger and Alison becomes enmeshed in stories from their families' pasts in an isolated, even claustrophobic valley in N Wales. Garner, It seems to me, is exploring what happens when, unthinking, we blunder into a set of past stories, whether these are the stuff of legend or our own family stories. If the ending is abrupt and ambiguous, the story is nonetheless compelling, and the subtexts stay with me, maybe even as an adult reader. Four stars? Not really - but how do you rate this kind of complex thinking?

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very odd story, which I have thought a lot about since reading. I didn't know anything about it at the time, but it was advertised as a children's classic, though I had never heard of it. Later I realized it's a) based on Welsh mythology, and b) a British children's classic, so a lot of the social issues went over my head at first.

But definitely worth the read, spooky without being too scary, and reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones or Edward Eager, but more mature.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Owl Service is the kind of children’s book that isn’t written anymore, like The Little Prince or Harriet the Spy, books that are unpredictable and where you aren’t necessarily guaranteed a happy ending. I wish there were more of them published today.

That said, I went into this novel, first released in 1967, without knowing a thing about it other than that it was a British classic. Going into it cold is still the best way, but this is not a book for everyone. Alison; Gwyn, the cook’s son; and Alison’s snobby stepbrother Roger discover a set of dishes hidden away in an attic, dishes with a pattern of flowers that, on second look, look like an owl — the owl service of the title. Where the story goes from there was much different than anything I imagined, a story that was much, much better.

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Garner's 1967 Carnegie Medal winning young adult (and in my opinion definitely not middle grade) novel The Owl Service is based (and sometimes only a bit loosely) on a Welsh folktale from The Mabinogion (where Blouedd, where a woman made of flowers, kills her husband and is then turned into an owl as punishment). And yes, with The Owl Service, Garner has indeed and definitely penned a majorly gripping, often really quite frightening tale, presenting a superbly textually crafted setting where back-story, where the sense of place and time etc. actually and always seem to move above and beyond the featured characters, where Huw, Roger, Gwyn and Allison are of course important, but for me not quite as essential for The Owl Service as are the events, as is the plot and also in particular the parts of the plot that are inherently strange, uncanny and keep sending shivers of horror up and down my spine.

Furthermore, Alan Garner's adherence to and focus in The Owl Service on plot, it also kind of rather strongly and delightfully reminds me narrative structure wise of Mediaeval epics and equally of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but well, that with regard to Alan Garner's actual writing style and his choice of words, The Owl Service is in fact oh so much more than simply epical and story-driven in scope and in feel. For from my personal reading point of view, in particular how Garner is in he The Owl Service able to create such a strangely and believably creepy sense of place and of background and especially how Alan Garner manages to mix and mingle reality and mythology/fantasy together until the reader is basically pretty much unable to figure out what is real and what is not, this is also really strongly making me recall (and very much positively so) German Romantic Era author E.T.A. Hoffmann.

However and to be brutally and truthfully honest, what makes both Garner's and Hoffmann's penmanship so utterly wonderful, so absolutely brilliant, is also what renders it really creepy and freaky, and that indeed, the bad and colourfully horrible dreams I have been getting whilst reading The Owl Service, I certainly am going to be warning potential (and sensitive) readers about this possibility. Because albeit I do and very firmly believe that The Owl Service is a novel that most definitely richly deserves the 1967 Carnegie Medal Alan Garner won, for me, the featured tale is also one that I am only able to hugely and massively appreciate but not actually in any way really and truly love, since there is simply too much creepiness and freakiness for both my young adult and my older adult self (and that indeed, I have always had pretty much the same reaction to E.T.A. Hoffmann as well). So yes and certainly, both Alan Garner and E.T.A.Hoffmann, they rather affect me the same way with regard to my potential reading pleasure, namely, that what they write is wonderfully descriptive, intense but first and foremost just way too much into horror, chilling strangeness for me to read with any amount of actual relaxation and true joyfulness (and that my four star rating for The Owl Service really is one hundred percent for Alan Garner's stylistic and narrational talent and not really because of me finding The Owl Service a pleasant and entertaining reading experience).

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is the elliptical strangeness of it, the odd otherworldly language and broken narrative structure yet... the worst thing about this book is the elliptical strangeness of it, the odd otherwordly language and broken narrative structure.

I don't see how this is a book for children. The children in the book do not talk like children, or adults for that matter. Everyone talks in circles and riddles. There are large chunks of the narrative missing which you are meant to string together for yourself. It is a difficult book to understand, but perhaps worth the slog for the atmosphere. The story and the characters are fractured, but the atmosphere is there, whole, and pulsing with power.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book three or more times, and I was able to remember how I read it as a child when I read it again just now. It's a very strange experience, because my adult mind is analytical, comprehensive and experienced, and yet my child-mind understood this book in ways which are lost to me now. I realised as I re-read, that we are almost completely cut-off from our childhood experiences, and can only re-enter them in dreams or perhaps in tiny splits of insight as we read books, such as The Owl Service.

As a child, I absolutely did not understand for example, the past stories between Gwyn's mother, Nancy and Huw-Halfbacon. Nor did I understand how Clive liked to control and possess, too strong a word perhaps, his step-daughter, Alison. Neither did I understand Alison's ownership of the old house in the Welsh Valley, or how Clive sees it as an opportunity for him.

What I did understand was Gwyn. And for the first time, I also watched the BBC TV series from 1970. The dialogue follows the book exactly, which isn't surprising, as it was written for the series by Alan Garner. The series is also set in the same valley in North Wales where Garner stayed for a holiday and discovered the legends and deaths that occurred in that exact location. The stories were relayed to him by an old gardner, Dafydd Rees, who had worked at the house since 1898. But to return to Gwyn; in the series he is so handsome and so perfect for the part. He has that wonderful combination of true love and innocence. As a child I felt the attraction between him and Alison. And there is an intense rivalry between Gwyn, and Clive's son, Roger. I felt the frustration Gwyn felt; of not being able to compete with Roger, of not having a refined accent, or money, posh schooling and the status of a wealthy family. Gwyn and his mam are poor, they come from Aber (Aberystwyth) to keep house for the family who are vacationing in the beautiful but isolated valley.

I read sections of the book and then watched the series; there are 8 episodes, and the series follows the plot and characterisation of the book absolutely. Alison is beautiful but entirely under the control of her mother (whom we never see) and her step-father Clive. Roger has been brought up as a good English boy, who will move into his father's business - and Gwyn, because of his brains, has won a place in the local grammar school in Aber. His mother, Nancy threatens him constantly with taking him out of school, to work "behind a counter". So there is a strong background of classicism, of privilege against poverty. I don't know if I understood this structure, but I mostly certainly identified with Gwyn as powerless and frustrated, and under an obligation to his mother to support, and obey her. I think Gwyn is 15 or 16 and other two, Alison and Roger, maybe 16 or 17.

I decided to re-read this because of another book, The Lais of Marie de France, written in the late 12th century. Marie understood multiple languages, including the Celtic Breton, and because of this she had access to the mythological oral traditions and Pagan legends, when she moved to England - Anglo-Norman England as it was. It is clear from her lais that she was familiar with the Welsh legends found in The Mabinogion. I remembered that the myth of Blodeuwedd, the flower-woman forms the basis of Garner's story. Blodeuwedd, is formed by a magician and given to Lord Lleu Llau, but she falls in love with Gronw, Lord of Penllyn.

In Garner's book, it is Huw, the gardener/handy-man who reveals the legends to Gwyn, and also to Roger, who finds the Stone of Gronw by the stream.

I enjoyed this. I loved the connection between Marie de France via The Mabinogion to Alan Garner's Huw. Here is a short extract when Huw relates the legend to Roger:

Lleu is a hard lord," said Huw. "He is killing Gronw without anger, without love, without mercy. He is hurt too much by the woman and the spear. Yet what is there left when it is done? His pride. No wife: no friend."
Roger stared at Huw. "You're not so green as you're grass-looking, are you?" he said. "Now you mention it, I have been thinking - That bloke Gronw was the only one with any real guts: at the end."
"But none of them all is to blame," said Huw. "It is only together they are destroying each other."
"That Blod-woman was pretty poor," said Roger, "however you look at it."
"No," said Huw. "She was made for her lord. Nobody is asking her if she wants him. It is bitter twisting to be shut up with a person you are not liking very much. I think she is often longing for the time when she was flowers on the mountain, and it is making her cruel, as the rose is growing thorns."

And there's the connection to Marie de France: "Nobody is asking her if she wants him." If you are familiar with Marie's Lais, you will know that all of her stories are examining the constructs of her time, the Medieval period and looking at how marriages were arranged, between noble lords for the continuation of their bloodline and to ensure the passing of land from father to son. In Marie's time, the daughters and wives of the lords, were very much instruments of the patriarchal structures.

In the modern story Clive expects to control the lives of both his son, and step-daughter Alison, and by doing so intends to maintain the wealth and properties that he has acquired in his life. It suggests that his marriage to Alison's mother is one of convenience. The young people, however, as in Marie's tales are driven by the desires of youth; love and passion, and the need to find their own means of existence.

Book covers and editions that I remember reading from:




I didn't have this edition - but so beautiful - and captures the idea of the rain exactly, at the end of the book.

[Karen Witzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the handful of books that I have ever read that had the effect of haunting me. The telescoping times, myths, and evocative language drew me into the scene with the feeling lasting for days. So pleased that Garner's Treacle Walker has been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize - time for some happy reading and rereading.

[Sue Bridgwater · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A fine Anger Neil Phillip says that this book “is not a Fantasy, but a novel about human relationships, a tripartite examination of the destructive power of possessive love”. [24] Yet it tells a contemporary story within the framework of a myth, in order to bring out at once the timeless relevance of the myth and the symbolic significance of the events of "ordinary" lives, a fair definition of Fantasy Fiction. Timelessness, the sense in which the basic realities of human life remain unaltered by time and surface conditions, is one of Garner’s pervasive themes. In this book, Alison says to Gwyn;
‘ “I don’t know where I am. “Yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow” – they don’t mean anything. I feel they’re here at the same time: waiting.”’
To this sense of the insignificance of time, Garner adds his strong sense of the significance of place. The Welsh valley of Llanymawddwy is a kind of reservoir for the trapped emotions of the original mythic protagonists, Lleu, Gronwy and Blodeuwedd. Huw tells Gwyn;
“Lleu, Blodeuwedd and Gronwy Pebyre. They are the three who suffer every time, for in them the power of this valley is contained, and through them the power is loosed”.
The possessive love of Arianrhod, mother of Lleu, forces him into the relationship with Blodeuwedd, which is a failure and leads to his death and later to that of his rival, Gronwy. in the contemporary story this is repeated in the brooding presence off-stage of Margaret, the mother of Alison, whose dominance and need to control her daughter’s life and relationships trigger the resentments of class, education and sexual jealousy in Gwyn, the modern embodiment of Gronwy. So on the realistic level, the story is one of three teenagers who are each in difficult relationships with their respective mothers; but on the mythic level, represented by the Mabinogion theme and its intrusion into modern life, it is one of the male personality struggling to emerge into a state of autonomy and integration but thwarted by its inability to cope with the feminine.
The male protagonist is wholly externalised in Gwyn and Roger, and to a lesser extent in Huw and Clive. The need is for integration; control; acceptance and awareness of the powers within the self – the valley – and how they may be channelled for good rather than for destructiveness. The young male’s own capacity for love may be either a giving or a taking force. Until someone is willing to give, the pattern cannot be broken. Huw voices the fear that it never will, that the spirit of Blodeuwedd will be compelled always to manifest itself in the destructive owl embodiment rather than in the gentleness of flowers.
“ ‘She is coming, and will use what she finds, and you have only hate in you.’ Said Huw. ‘Always and always and always.’”
Although the release of hatred does at least purge the valley of its sickness, until next time, it cannot prevent the repetition of the tragedy, whereby each time one of the males involved is killed. It cannot finally heal the valley – the inner self. Blodeuwedd “wants to be flowers”; the female principle tends towards beneficence, towards caring; but she needs a self-giving response to meet her efforts. Roger provides it and breaks the pattern. Where his original, Lleu, hid behind a stone to try to avoid the spear of Gronwy – the symbol of the suffering consequent upon Lleu’s own actions – Roger stands humbly before the taunting of Gwyn, accepting by implication his own guilt and his awareness of the consequences of his own destructive attitude towards Gwyn. He breaks out of what has been a state of extreme self-absorption to reach out to Alison and save her from destructiveness; the owl manifestations give way to flowers.
In Garner, the cost of growth is always tremendous pain, damage that can never truly be healed. Something dies so that something else in the psyche can live. The image is of overcoming and striving to leave behind what is too immature to be of service to the new self, than one of integration of all the elements of the self. Nevertheless, Garner’s tragically painful image of triumph won at great cost, still sounds a note of victory; Roger’s self-conquest is allowed to result in the moving beauty of the end of The Owl Service;
“And the room was full of petals from skylight and rafter, and all about them a fragrance, and petals, flowers falling, broom, meadowsweet, falling, flowers of the oak.” [38]

Condensed from my thesis;
https://www.academia.edu/8056988/_I_w...

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've liked some of Alan Garner's other books, but this one was just confusing. Most references to time are left out, like "The next day..." or "hours earlier...", so you have no idea what is going on, until you realize halfway into the characters conversation that this must be the next day, or they must have moved to inside the house now b/c this wouldn't make sense if they were still outside. He just leaves you guessing.

I do not understand any of these characters. Every word they say is so confusing, and I can't tell if they're joking with one another or if they're serious. Sometimes there are no helpful descriptions, like "Roger laughed." Then just when I think I have someone figured out they turn into someone else. Much like life, I suppose.

You never see Alison's mother at all. She's this invisible non-entity that everyone is afraid of upsetting. I like that artistic touch of never actually meeting her, but she has a definite influence on every character. Well done!

Many of the jokes or references may be Welsh things or British sayings that I just don't know. Perhaps that accounts for some of the confusion. I think I could have enjoyed this story more if it had just been clearly written. I really like the idea of the story and the way it moves, but nothing is ever explained.

I have no idea what happened at the end. It just ends and I don't get it. Are the feathers magically gone? Is Allison okay? Is she dead or an owl zombie or is she turned into flowers? Is she back to her normal self? Are they still fighting? Why did they act like that, but not try to kill one another at the stone with the hole or whatever? Is Roger going to be a photographer? Is Allison going abroad? Is Gwyn going to work in a shop? Where did Nancy get to? Don't know.

[Isobel Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps my favourite novel of all time. It's strange, mysterious, confusing and haunting. I inherited my mother's childhood copy, and I think it says a lot about the timeless quality of the book that I loved it as much in the 1990s as she did in the 1970s - and still love it today. Although marketed as a young adult book, this is actually a very adult book in many ways, and can certainly be enjoyed by much older people.

As a huge fan of Celtic mythology, I love the subtle way in which Alan Garner uses the story of Llew and Bloduewedd. This isn't a retelling of the story, or anything like it. It's an exploration of the way powerful events can affect people through multiple generations.

It is also a beautiful illustration of how important place can be. I have explored the role played by the setting of the Owl Service elsewhere, but I still think it's worth repeating just how closely tied the book is to its landscape. This is a fantastic interpretation of a Welsh myth that has managed to stay close to its cultural and geographical roots.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know this book is considered to be a fantasy classic, but I found it surprisingly difficult to read. Let me be specific: it doesn't take LONG to read, but it is hard to follow. There is a lot of dialogue, and the language/vernacular already seems archaic even thought the book was written in the 1960s. Also, it is very elliptical -- both in terms of the language and the plot.
Most of my reading at the moment is geared towards my teaching; so as I read, I'm constantly evaluating whether or not I can "use" a particular book. Will my students like it? is always my underlying question.

This book has LOTS of atmosphere and suspense, and I liked the way the ancient Welsh legend plays out in both the present generation and the one just before it. But would it appeal to modern 12 year olds? I rather doubt it. Indeed, it seemed more like an adult book to me. The class and English/Welsh tensions are one of the most notable aspects of the story, and I think that the 40 years which have elapsed since this book was published have totally changed that particular landscape.

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garner wrote this in a spare Kitchen Sink Drama style, and it mostly deals with class conflict. Not at all what I was expecting from a Welsh myth. And the ending - I didn't see that coming. I'm not sure that I'd recommend this to any but a rather mature reader, since Garner has made this more a playscript than a novel. It would be hard for many young readers to figure out what's going on and what all the tension is about. It's practically Pinter.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this one. It was very atmospheric but I'm not sure I really understood what was going on!

[J. Boo · Rating 1 out of 5]

A girl - inheritor of a Welsh manor - moves into it with her mother and stepfamily, and meets the caretakers, leading to dreamlike, confusing, and boring vaguely Mabinogion-inspired events. Also, there were probably Important Statements about the British class structure that I didn't care enough to unpack.

I will admit it took me far too long to figure out how all the characters were related to each other. Don't know if that was just me being dense or the book trying, by this means, to replicate the same feeling that one might have when opening up the Mabinogion and being presented with a paragraph containing fifteen names, averaging a fifth of a vowel each.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness."
-- 1965 quote from Radio Times used as an epitaph for The Owl Service

We often unconsciously live our lives according to a script, seeing ourselves acting out a tragedy or a quest, a journey or overcoming major obstacles, human or otherwise. Sometimes those scripts follow a fairytale trope, such as the arc of the Cinderella story. More rarely do we mirror an ancient myth, but in The Owl Service that's exactly what Gwyn, Alison and Roger do, aided and abetted by the mysterious Huw.

The three youngsters, unwittingly at first, take the parts of Gronw, Blodeuwedd and Lleu from the Mabinogion tale of Math, the son of Mathonwy, but even when they become aware of the parallels they seem almost powerless to avoid a descent into darkness. And yet this is not just a simple updating of a medieval plot for modern times: the author also offers insights into psychology, family dynamics and social mobility, all contained within a strong sense of place, in North Wales.

The full Mabinogion story of Math includes a particularly troubling sub-narrative: a woman fashioned out of flowers to satisfy a man who's cursed not to know a human-born female; the woman has an affair with a third party; out of this come violent murders and magical transformations into an eagle, in one case, and an owl, in the other.

Garner locates his tale in a particular area of northwest Wales. Into it he places his three main protagonists: two English children, step-siblings, along with the father of one and the mother of the other (whose possessive presence is felt but never witnessed); then there is the Welsh boy, Gwyn, and the cook -- his troubled and troubling mother -- and the mysterious Huw whose job description at Bryn Hall is rather vague. The scene is set for misunderstandings and conflicts arising from distrust, past histories, cultural differences, social standings and personal chemistries. And we mustn't forget the landscape and house as major players in the plot.

This is an intense novel of personal relationships and psychologies. Garner's text is largely made up of dialogue and action in a show-don't-tell fashion, which must have made it easier for him to adapt it as a TV script. However, his presence on set and on location for the ensuing production proved difficult, an uncomfortable experience he recounted in detail for a 1975 lecture at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and published as 'Inner Time' in his essay collection The Voice that Thunders (The Harvill Press 1997). One of the keys to understanding Garner's upset during the filming came in a psychiatric session when he was simply asked:

"Was The Owl Service written in the past tense and the third person or in the present and the first?"

The author's strong identification with at least one of the characters--I suspect it was Gwyn, a local boy with academic aspirations and a searching mind--had given the narrative an authenticity arising from what Garner called a "primitive catastrophic process" which led to a kind of breakdown.

This is a complex tale, as intricate as any example of Celtic interlace, but to me it perfectly illustrates the psychic disruption that can grow out of adolescence. The author's use of traditional motifs from the original -- the owl, flowers, the pierced stone, the hunt, divine and semi-divine figures -- and their transformations within a contemporary setting made this a powerful piece of juvenile writing that continues to have a strong resonance half a century later.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) I’d heard of Garner, a British writer of classic children’s fantasy novels, but never read any of his work until I picked this up from the free bookshop where I volunteer on a Friday. My husband remembers reading Elidor (also a 1990s TV series) as a boy, but I’m not sure Garner was ever well known in America. Perhaps if I’d discovered this right after the Narnia series when I was a young child, I would have been captivated. I did enjoy the rural Welsh setting, and to start with I was intrigued by the setup: curious about knocking and scratching overhead, Alison and her stepbrother Roger find a complete dinner service up in the attic of this house Alison inherited from her late father. Alison becomes obsessed with tracing out the plates’ owl pattern – which disappears when anyone else, like Nancy the cook, looks at them.

I gather that Garner frequently draws on ancient legend for his plots. Here he takes inspiration from Welsh myths, but the Mabinogion background was so complex and unfamiliar (even the blurb from the back of the book is ridiculously complicated) that I could barely follow along. This meant that the climactic ‘spooky’ scenes failed to move me. Instead, I mostly noted the period slang and the class difference between the English children and Gwyn, Nancy’s son, who’s forbidden from speaking Welsh (Nancy says, “I’ve not struggled all these years in Aber to have you talk like a labourer”) and secretly takes elocution lessons to sound less ‘common’.

Can someone recommend a Garner book I might get on with better?

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[imyril is not really here any more · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three resentful teenagers are trapped in a Welsh valley for the summer - trapped between social expectations and the rising power of a myth that haunts the hills. Gwyn the housekeeper's son is clever and ambitious, but quick-tempered and given to sharp words; Roger is cruel with privilege; and Alison has no idea what she really wants, too quick to cave in for an easy life. They aren't prepared for the rage of Blodeuwedd, or how it will use their bitternes to force a confrontation that has shattered lives in the valley for generations.

It's impressive that a book written for a much younger audience can be so terrifying to an adult reader; but then, I think I've got so much more from it (and understood it so much better) as an adult, that it makes me half-wonder how I related to it as a child at all. So much is implied rather than spelled out; Garner's trademark oblique dialogue and interrupted sentences weaving impressions in a way that is entirely on point for this turbulent myth.

However, I'm coming to the view that Garner wasn't very good at endings - like The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service rises to an impossible, surging climax - and just stops, leaving me faintly dissatisfied if no less impressed by the book as a whole. I'm going to have to reread Red Shift (and finally read his adults works) to see how this plays out across the rest of his books.

Don't read alone on a dark night with the wind rising if you have an attic given to creepy noises.

TW: bullying (verbal)