“She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.” [p. 102]
In which elements of the Mabinogion are repeated, or are still happening, in a Welsh valley: three teenagers reenact the old story without realising, and the abrupt ending keeps the reader guessing as to how this iteration of the story might conclude.
Reread, after reaching Treacle Walker: I last read this more than twenty years ago, and as usual I'm surprised by what I remembered (Gwyn stealing cigarettes for his mother, and carrying suitcases in the rain; the pattern disappearing from the plates) and what I'd forgotten (the motorbike; the dogs; the shadowy presence of Alison's mother). I had not registered all the sexual tension, either, and I wonder if I'm noticing it now because the world's changed and we're all more alert to signs of abuse and harassment: or because I have changed, and am more attuned to such things. (Clive, I think now, is a creep and possibly a predator.)
This is a claustrophobic novel about social class, about heritage and secrets, and about how younger generations repeat the trageies of their parents. And yes, it is also about myth, and about a woman brought into being solely to please a man, and her rebellion against that man. It's a deeply unsettling novel that I don't think I understood much of when I first read it in my early teens, and which I note Amazon thinks is for 9-11 year olds. I hope that some of the young readers encountering now will be able to look back on it (as I am) over a distance of decades, and find more in it than they had seen before.
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