History Literature / Boneland

** The manner of Susan's inferred death - she rode into deep water on the back of a horse - is an eerie call-back to her possession by the Brollochan in ''Literature/TheMoonOfGomrath'', in which the Brollochan, possessing a pony, lures her to get on its back for a ride. It then gallops over a cliff into a flooded quarry and a possessed Susan is then seen dripping witrh water and shrouded in water-weed.

* AuthorTract: Alan Garner is known to loathe the ongoing "gentrification" of Alderley Edge by the rich and tasteless, which elsewhere he has deplored as sucking out the magic and character from a town he loves and still lives in. In comparing the "old" Alderley Edge from the new, and the change that has taken place in the fifty years between the books, he is surprisingly restrained, voicing his feelings through incidental asides spoken by Colin (who cannot bear going anywhere near the farmhouse he grew up in, now it has been sold on and "gentrified" and is no longer a working farm. Garner is known to feel the same way about the former working farm that inspired the Mossocks' Highmost Redmanhey.)

* TheUnTwist; the early suspicion that all this is happening inside the head of Colin Whisterfield and has no external objective reality. Then there's an apparent [[TheReveal Reveal]] that casts doubt on this. This leads to an apparent UnReveal that contradicts the Reveal but points in a subtly different direction to the original [[TheUnTwist Un Twist]]. And then back to a higher twist of the spiral again with something not unlike another [[TheReveal Reveal]]... or is it? Is it all just a MatryoshkaObject in Colin's head after all?

* [[ShoutOut Shout Outs]]: there are several homages to other authors and creative artists. Possibly as a way of reminding us things should never be taken entirely seriously, to alert us to the [[{{Trickster}} Cosmic Joker]] being [[GreatGazoo active]], there is an allusion to a very-well known song about mental stability by Music/{{Genesis}}. Garner also writes from British, specifically English, folklore and traditional themes. As {{Homage}} to one who fished in the same stream and also lived in the tradition of the English storyteller, giving old stories new slants, there is a blatant reference to Creator/TerryPratchett's ''{{Discworld}}'' novel of things beginning in stone eggs, ''Literature/{{Thud}}''. Garner even represents the noise of flint-knapping as
--> ''[[Literature/{{Thud}} Tak, Tak, Tak, Tak, Tak...]]''

* FranchiseZombie: After ''Literature/TheWeirdstoneOfBrisingamen'' and ''Literature/TheMoonOfGomrath'', Garner went on to write a long list of books he considered had far more literary merit and worth, and if he didn't actually ''hate'' his first two published works, he certainly disdained them. He was certainly annoyed with fans of the first two books who demanded and asked and pleaded for more involving the characters of Colin and Susan (the child protagonists). He made his deep dislike of the books, their premis, and their characters, very clear indeed by taking fifty years to write ''Literature/{{Boneland}}'', the ''very'' long-awaited sucessor to ''Brisingamen'' and ''Gomrath''. In this book Colin has grown up into an over-educated depressive and borderline sociopath with mental health issues, and Susan apparently drowned herself one night when chasing after elves in the starlight. ''Boneland'' is pessimistic, chilly, dark and noir and bleak - with none of the magic or optimism of the books it succeeds. Colin may die on a hospital operating table after ECT for his mental health problems (the book is ambiguous on this). Garner very emphatically answered the fans' request for more by providing ''exactly'' the opposite to what they wanted, and by killing off the beloved lead characters. And a lot of the supporting cast.

* GrowingWithTheAudience: In a big way. The original two fantasy novels in the early [[TheSixties nineteen-sixties]] were aimed at a readership of 12 or above. [[CreatorBacklash The fact he didn't like the books very much]] meant it took him a long time to get around to writing a concluding sequel, ''Literature/{{Boneland}}''. Fifty years, to be precise. ''Boneland'' is as far away as you can possibly get from the certainties and the linear plot of ''Literature/TheMoonOfGomrath''. The book has a dark, grey, quality to it and follows one of the child-characters from the earlier books into adulthood. Colin, the heroic child who entered Faerie at age twelve, is bewildered, disillusioned, on the brink of the male menopause, and fighting mental health issues. He is, quite literally, wondering where the Magic went to. It isn't difficult to suspect Garner is writing an ironic postscript for all those children who devoured the magic of ''Brisingamen'' and ''Gomrath''. And then grew up into adults, thinking back to the magical excitement of reading Garner's adventures as kids, and who today....

* {{Lobotomy}}: Colin is threatened with electro-convulsive therapy and "sectioning", ie this being done to him without his consent, is also mentioned. Indeed, the [[TheUnTwist enigmatic eight opening lines of the novel]] describe somebody being anaesthetised prior to an operation.

** Meg - her name invokes Arthurian witch Morgana leFay. Who trapped the wizard, Merlin, into eternal imprisonment in a cavern under the earth.
** Meg Massey. The name Megan means 'pearl'. ''Pearl'' was a middle-english poem written by a person that some claim was also the ''Gawain And The Gren Knight'' poet. The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire[[note]] Now Combermere, Nantwich: quite a way to the west of Alderley Edge[[/note]]. A pearl is a gemstone nurtured in deep water which has lunar associations.

* Dreampocalypse: This is one of the many alternative explanations for Colin Whisterfield's experiences of having visited a Narnia-like fantasy land superimposed on his own Cheshire, England. It is all just a dream, brought about by psychosis and treatment for mental illness. This is written in step with the story of a neolithic shaman who fears that if he stops dreaming, his world will end. At the end is an apparent ironic twist - that in one very real sense, the world you dream will inevitably stop and cease to be - at the moment of your own death.

* Dreamapocalypse: * This is one of the many alternative explanations for Colin Whisterfield's experiences of having visited a Narnia-like fantasy land superimposed on his own Cheshire, England. It is all just a dream, brought about by psychosis and treatment for mental illness. This is written in step with the story of a neolithic shaman who fears that if he stops dreaming, his world will end. At the end is an apparent ironic twist - that in one very real sense, the world you dream will inevitably stop and cease to be - at the moment of your own death.

** Meg Massey. The name Megan means 'pearl'. ''Pearl'' was a middle-english poem written by a person that some claim was also the ''Gawain And The Gren Knight'' poet. The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire[[Now combermere, Nantwich: quite a way to the west of Alderley Edge[[/note]]. A pearl is a gemstone nurtured in deep water which has lunar associations.

* UsefulNotes/CarlJung: Meg explores Colin's case by playing with Jungian concepts: she speculatres that a wizard, goblins, dwarfs and elven nature-spirits dwelling beneath the earth are archetypes straight out of the collective unconsciousness. witches represent the dark destroying shadow-side and Susan is an aspect of Colin himself, his Eternal Feminine side, his Anima. Colin therefore has to decipher the message and find out what insights into his personality that they are trying to communicate to him.

* Lobotomy: Colin is threatened with electro-convulsive therapy and "sectioning", ie this being done to him without his consent, is also mentioned. Indeed, the [[TheUnTwist enigmatic eight opening lines of the novel]] describe somebody being anaesthetised prior to an operation.

* MeanwhileInTheFuture: Colin and the Watcher are playing out the same issues of loss and trauma, in much the same geological place but separated by up to half a million years in time. Both are struggling to work out what is happening to them according to their conditioning and cultural preconceptions. Garner even hints that {{Recursion}} is happening and they are somehow directly linked. [[MatryoshkaObject MatryoshkaObjects]] in each other's minds linked by {{Recursion}}?

* MeanwhileInTheFuture: Colin and the Watcher are playing out the same issues of loss and trauma, in much the same geological place but separated by up to half a million years in time. Both are struggling to work out what is happening to them according to their conditioning and cultural preconceptions. Garner even hints that {{Recursion}} is happening and they are somehow directly linked. MatryoshkaObjects in each other's minds linked by {{Recursion}}?

** Was struck by lightning while alone in the hills, suffering brain damage that wenmt undetected until an MRI scan in later adulthood.

* MeanwhileInTheFuture: Colin and the Watcher are playing out the same issues of loss and trauma, in much the same geological place but separated by up to half a million years in time. Both are struggling to work out what is happening to them according to their conditioning and cultural preconceptions. Garner even hints that {{Recursion}} is happening and they are somehow directly linked.

* HermeticMagic: "As above, so below''. The concept, among many interpretations, that just as Colin stands at ''exactly'' the middle point between microcosmic and macrocosmic, the events of Gomrath and Brisingamen also happened, both at the objective and subjective levels. Susan is both in the stars, the Otherworld, and a part of Colin too. Colin is the bridge that links her back to Earth.

* TheUnTwist; the early suspicion that all this is happening inside the head of Colin Whisterfield and has no external objective reality. Then there's an apparent [[TheReveal Reveal]] that casts doubt on this. this leads to an apparent UnReveal that contradicts the Reveal but points in a subtly different direction to the original [[TheUnTwist Un Twist]]. And then back to a higher twist of the spiral again with something not unlike another [[TheReveal Reveal]]... or is it?

* TheUnTwist; the early suspicion that all this is happening inside the head of Colin Whisterfield and has no external objective reality. Then there's an apparent [[TheReveal Reveal]] that casts doubt on this. this leads to an apparent UnReveal that contradicts the Reveal but points in a subtly different direction to the original UnTwist. And then back to a higher twist of the spiral again with something not unlike another [[TheReveal Reveal]]... or is it?

** And the biggest, most obvious, elephant-in-the-room Shout-Out of all: to Creator/NeilGaiman's essay on what happens when the child protaganist of a fantasy novel grows up having suffered loss and change and dislocation - '''The Problem Of Susan'''. Gaiman is writing about Susan Pevensie in Creator/CSLewis' ''Literature/Narnia''. But Susan Whisterfield entered a less forgiving and certainly non-Christian "Narnia"....

-->''But at my back in a cold blast I hear''//

[[TheWasteLand, by Creator/TSEliot]]