Review: Treacle Walker
Gaby Meares
Oh my lord, how to review this book? I’ll give it my best shot!
Did I understand this novel? Not really, but I approached it as I approach poetry, where I often don’t understand all the references and nuances, but I do grasp the atmosphere created by the writing. Treacle Walker took me back to a time when I would get totally lost and immersed in a book - the ‘real’ world disappearing. Rather than grasping to understand all, I went with the flow and when I finished the book (it’s very short, only 152 pages) I had to shake my head, blink a few times, and return to my mundane world. I can best describe it as a fusion of myth, magic and mystery.
Here are two quotes that give you an idea of the beautiful music (and humour) that is Garner’s prose.
It was a tune with wings, trampling things, tightened strings, boggarts and bogles and brags on their feet; the man in the oak, sickness and fever, that set in long, lasting sleep the whole great world with the sweetness of sound the bone did play.
Treacle Walker? Treacle Walker? Me know that pickthank psychopomp? I know him, so I do. I know him. Him with his pots for rags and his bag and his bone and his doddering nag and nookshotten cart and catchpenny oddments. Treacle Walker? I’d not trust that one’s arse with a fart
Treacle Walker is short listed for the Book Prize 2022 and at 87 years old and a lifetime of writing what are considered classic books, Garner is more than likely to win - it would be well deserved.