Treacle Walker: Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and a Guardian Best Fiction Book of 2021

The characters are deliberately vague and ill-formed. They consist mainly of a boy with a lazy eye who lives alone and has an endless supply of his favourite comic which come to life, a rag and bone man with magical powers who bestows magical gifts on the boy and a human-like spiritual creature who lives in a bog. The story is told in an archaic form of English with many made-up words such as 'hurlolomperjobs' and 'clanjandering'. I regret that this is a hotch-potch of barely thought through concepts.

CN for book: mild trauma, confusion, possible deathGarner was a feature of my childhood reading and I'm eager to re-read his works. This book was recommended by fellow students doing a humanities degree (specifically the creative writing students).It's a lovely story, slightly bewildering in places and I'm not sure I could describe the plot if asked!There's a few unsettling sections in the book, some younger readers might find this a bit hard to deal with. And there's an implied death, although it is questioned (and not answered) if that is what has happened.Overall a really enjoyable YA book, but I'd expect nothing less from Garner!

I hadn't read anything bu Alan Garner previously, but felt compelled to do so when Treacle Walker was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize 2022 - particularly as Mr Garner celebrates this 88th birthday on the evening of the awards ceremony (is this a portent for his success?). This is a very short little book, 152 pages of sparsely-separated prose with lots of blank pages between chapters, meaning that it can be easily read in an hour or 90 minutes. Full of folklore and archaic words like "mirligoes" and "hurlolomperjobs", with bits of Latin thrown in, Garner's style reminds me variously of Joyce, Homer (the formulaic descriptions of the passing train, for example, akin to an oral storytelling tradition), and English folk tales like that of Grendel. It's a magical world he creates, and by the end of the novel I can't say that I was any the wiser about what had actually happened - but in reading Treacle Walker I felt that I was reading a great piece of literature that will be analysed and talked about for years to come. I look forward to reading it again, and also to reading some of the other reviews that will undoubtedly help me to peel back the layers of meaning and reveal hidden themes.

This is a very strange tale which seems to be about the mysteries of time and space, the present and the distant past, the role of imagination, childhood and old age, nature and science, religion and the supernatural, all rolled into a fairly short story about basically two characters, one of whom talks only in riddles, trying to teach the other about the meaning of the mysterious. It’s unique in style. The only other book I’ve ever read with some of the same feel to it was ‘The Third Policeman’ by Flann O’Brien where it’s not clear whether the characters are in the past or present, dead or alive, and which seems to operate outside the normal rules of science. I would recommend Treacle Walker as a unique, thought provoking read.

I so loved the Weirdstone of Brisinghamen when I was a kid 60 years ago. I read all his other books back then though not sure any of them were as good. When I saw this (and was slightly surprised he was still alive and writing - good for him) and the by and large splendid reviews it was getting I was intrigued. Given he is an author I admire greatly I will simply say I don’t like it. On the plus side it’s short and only took an hour or two to read. Time wasted though I thought. But each to his own.

I think some reviews work on the principle that if a book is by an author who has written great works in the past then the current one must be also. To admit that the current work not as good just shows you are not bright enough to understand it.I guess you do have to be some sort of great writer to compose such a strange story, I for one got to the end of it without the slightest idea what was going on or why. The use of language was different to say the least. Confusing might be a different word.I gave this a three star as it probably will repay a second reading and to see if I can make any more sense of it.

This very short and eccentric novel must be Booker-Prize shortlisted more in honour of Alan Garner’s lifetime achievement than for its own sake. It is a charming fable about seeing and time, with a sweet central character in Joe, but it is slight. The larger than life figures of Treacle Walker and Thin Amren seem to have stepped out of Garner’s own personal mythology rather than any traditional English folklore, and perhaps that makes it seem thinner than some of his previous novels. It’s enjoyable, mysterious, and sometimes funny. But it takes only a couple of hours to read and doesn’t linger long once you put it down.

I feel like the little boy who shouted that the emperor was stark naked, while all the other courtiers were raving about the fineness of his prose.I have loved Alan Garner's previous novels, but this one leaves me cold, because it is cold. I never empathised with any of the characters, not even the white pony.It is very short, Thank God, and each chapter seems much the same. If you have ever wasted a beautiful summer afternoon trying to translate ridiculous latin sentences such as "She went to ,market to buy a bone for the dog." you will know exactly my relief at coming to the end of this novel.