Customer Reviews

Red Shift

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book when I was 14 - it was one of several that my English teacher recommended, not as part of the school curriculum, but because he thought they were good books (these were halcyon pre-National Curriculum days where teachers could often follow their own enthusiams, and thus build the same in others).

I cannot recall what else he recommded now, but Red Shift simply blew me away then, and continues to have an effect today - 30 years later.

My friend and I read it at the same time and discussed it endlessly. We were gripped by everything - the style, the story, the lack of a traditional narrative thread, the switch between times - and viewpoints, the meaning (if there was one).

Its not a perfect book - the Roman episodes do not work entirely well at times, and returning to it now its a bit dated - but that does not matter when you can be so gripped by the pace and drive of the book (I will not say "story" because that would imply a structure that it does not have - and it is that too that fascinates).

It changed the way I looked on writing, and the way I wrote (indeed maybe still write sometimes). The power of the short sentance, and well chosen words. The way in which the reader fills in the gaps to the extent that every reader probably reads a "different" book.

Red Shift is at its heart a teenage novel (indeed it was probably one the first books aimed at the teenage market, an age group that - and it is hard to believe this now - was incredibly poorly provided for right up to the early 80s), and perhaps its only teenagers who appreciate the structural iconoclasm because many older readers hate it. I'd urge anyone to give it a go - relax and dive in. Let it flow over you. Emerge at the other end (its not a long book), think a bit, then dive in again... and find a whole different story each time.

I too read this story in school, many more years ago now than I want to remember. I was reading simple adventure stories and came across 'Red Shift' somehow and was completely captured by the pure imagination of it. Maybe the only novelist who comes close for me now to that sense of wonder and other worldliness is Robert Holdstock in his Mythago novels. But if you can put 'Red Shift' into the hands of a teenager at just the right time...... ....you will create a reader of books for a lifetime.

Red Shift would be the greatest children's book ever, if it wasn't really a dark and disturbing adult book subversively circulated to the young. Short of giving your kids "American Psycho" or "The 120 Days of Sodom", I can't think of a better way of messing with their heads. I read it (after the first 4 Garners) at 13, when I was smart enough to crack the code and too dumb to spot the sex, and it freaked me out, but not as much as when I re-read it five years later. There's three stories in one, plus bits of Vietnam, King Lear and the Ballad of Tamlyn, but its all really in Tom's over-intellectual, working-class, sexually-confused head as he tries to make sense of everything moving away from him. Along with "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer", this is Cheshire's greatest contribution to world culture. Tom's a cold

This is a complex, ambiguous and intense read that remains enigmatic right to the very end. While ostensibly written as a children's book it is very different from Garner's Elidor, for example, which is far simpler and easier to `get' (though it is still a great book which terrified me as a child).

Red Shift consists of three narratives: Jan and Tom, the teenage lovers who are misunderstood by his parents; Macey and his band of military brothers on the run amongst enemy factions; and Thomas and Marge, caught up in what seems to be the Reformation civil wars. All three are replete with literary and historical echoes - Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Roman invasions of Britain, Vietnam (this was published in 1967), Cromwell and the religious wars of the reformation - and yet the timeframes are never delineated and the stories float in a kind of timeless space. By the end the three coalesce and cannot be unwound from each other in the final pages.

At heart each story is about love, betrayal, violence and pain. I almost dreaded the end (especially of the Jan/Tom story) and yet it is all so right and fitting when it comes. Be warned, this is a book with very little exposition and practically no scene-setting: as readers we are thrust into the narrative and have to navigate our own way through the text. There are pages of no more than pure dialogue (no `he said' `she said' here) so if you dislike this style of writing this might be one to avoid. But it would be a shame since this really is a marvellous feat of imagination and pure writing, which also forces the reader to work imaginatively hard. A great book for a teenager and one which really opens up the delights of literature.

I love Alan Garner's books, for many reasons. Perhaps the most prevalent here is his concept of the writing a novel - it's done once by the author, and then once again by every reader. This is a 'spinner' of a book, apocalyptic and scary. I found the sense of implacable doom in here quite overpowering. What a read. BTW - there's an unofficial Alan Garner web site out there which has an attempt at cracking the code. Try a search for 'Alan garner' in the major search engines.

I have read this book several times in my life. The first time I read it (as a teeenager) it freaked me out. Roman soldiers talking like modern squaddies! The tragedy (and the inevitability) of the episode in the church! I cannot say it is an "easy" book. It hurts.

But it was much later, when I had a teenage daughter of my own, that I re-read it and really understood what was going on (what another reviewer described as "recognising the sex"). Of course, my daughter had already realised. They say girls mature earlier than boys...

I was haunted by Elidor as a boy and have enjoyed it along with other early Garners, as an adult. But Red Shift I'm not sure about. In part it's brilliant. It's certainly very daring to tackle themes which I take to include sexual jealousy, the teen fascination/fear of sex, and possibly male sexual insecurity - among many others - in a teen book (or any book, really), and at times the experimental style works. But at many points the actual events of the story are obscure and the ultra-pared-down dialogue-centred style is mannered and irritating. The novel is disturbing - both in a good way and a bad way. It delves into very deep emotional/psychological layers, but at the same time I did puzzle about the author's own attitude to sex and to the female gender.

There are three 'couples' in the novel: in modern times, Tom and Jan; in the English Civil War period Thomas and Madge; in Roman Britain Macey and the priestess. For different reasons, none of them have sex (until Tom and Jan do, disastrously, at the end). Macey is some kind of special person possessed by a berserker god and seems uninterested in the priestess sexually (which is his salvation). Thomas, it is suggested, is impotent. Tom and Jan are avoiding sex with each other. They both seem to think it would somehow pollute their relationship, but Tom perhaps is hung up about it (while Jan, it turns out, has in fact had an enjoyable and healthy sexual experience abroad outside her relationship with Tom). And all three main female characters are raped: Jan, finally, by Tom; Madge by another Thomas who was an early rival with her husband Thomas; the priestess repeatedly by Roman soldiers who keep her 'ham strung' in their camp - the fact that Macey has not joined in saves him from her eventual revenge. The only healthy sexual relationship in the book is between Jan and her lover, and that spells disaster for her central relationship with Tom. The book is very violent, and sex and violence seem conjoined.

It all certainly makes you think - but I kept wondering if there was some sort of misogyny going on here, and a mistrust of sex. Of course, Garner's very point may be about something destructive in male sexuality, but the book could almost be read as saying that a healthy sexual relationship between a man/boy and woman/girl who are in love is not possible; while Platonic love we can get away with. Plus, although we are obviously meant to deplore the raping, there is so much of it...

There was a moment when I was reading The Owl Service when I also began, I thought, to detect a certain attitude to the female sex. One of the heroes, Gwyn, keeps calling the heroine Alison, 'girl'. At times it reaches crescendoes - 'girl' at the end of almost every sentence as he speaks to her. The word draws attention of course to Alison's gender and sexuality and seems to carry a sort of strange distancing with it. Gwyn also has an oddly violent and stressful relationship with his mother! Much as I admire Alan Garner in many ways, all this does make me wonder what's afoot. I'd be interested to know what others think.

I first read this book at school and fell in love with it - but if anyone can crack the code and tell me what the last two pages of the book mean I'd love to know! Ten years later I'm still trying to solve it.

item was as it had been described. bought it as a birthday present for my nana and she thoroughly enjoyed it

First of all I should reveal what may be my bias regarding this book. I didn't choose to read it, I was obliged to buy it for a degree level English course I am doing. Although the book isn't something I would normally choose to read, I would say that my taste is fairly broad and I am generally easy going over books, I'll read anything.

This book is an exception, I found it to be extremely vague and ambiguous, almost to the extent that there is an element of conceit on the part of the author, he knows something we don't. We are never given enough information to understand what is going on and the functional description, e.g. what's happening and who is speaking is annoyingly scarce. I honestly don't think I could face the prospect of having to read this book again. It's not all bad though, I did find that it made an excellent coaster for my cup of tea and at a push it could be used to prop a door open.

Really though this book was a massive disappointment, the author is clearly extremely articulate, the three part narrative based in different time periods and his exploration of different themes regarding family, time, place and relationships held potential for a great novel. This (In my opinion) pretentious attempt at avant garde writing let the whole thing down which is a massive shame. I think this book may be a marmite sort of thing, you'll either love it or you'll hate it, personally it really isn't for me but clearly there are many who would disagree with me. Three start rating was given because despite the fact I didn't think much about the book, there is no denying that the author is highly skilled at what he does and there are short sections of it that I thought were very insightful and well written.