![]() ![]() I’m a bit sheepish about admitting it nowadays, because Richard Bach’s bestseller has gone so far out of fashion, but… Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) blew my tiny mind.Ĭarter’s collection was the first explicitly revisionist book I read-meaning that it took a timeworn, hallowed source (in this case, the traditional European legends written down by the Brothers Grimm) and retold it from the heroine’s perspective, raising new questions, with the effect of turning the old stories upside-down. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach Garner managed to make me feel that the past has not passed at all. ![]() It didn’t rely on any of the hokey devices like other such stories (time travel, dream visits, reincarnation), it merely juxtaposed storylines of love and trouble occurring in the same spot, many centuries apart, and letting them subtly echo each other. It was as if history is a set of parallel universes. Set during both the Roman Civil War and 1970s Britain, this was the first novel I read set in several different time periods that managed to suggest a mysterious, powerful, psychic link between those and all times. The British fantasy author Alan Garner was someone I came across at a very young age, but it was in my teens that I encountered his slim, potent Red Shift (1973). ![]() The author of Kissing the Witch and The Room, which was adapted into a wonderful film in 2015, tells us the books that left a lasting impression and inspired her writing career. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |