Elidor
Written by Alan Garner
Narrated by Jonathan Keeble
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Part folklore, part adventure and part fantasy, Alan Garner’s Elidor is a modern children’s classic. When Roland opens a door in a derelict church, he unleashes the wonders of Elidor and the grave challenges that this troubled world presents. Drawing on Welsh, Irish and English mythology, the book chronicles the trials and hardships of a group of young teenagers as they attempt to fulfill a prophecy from another world, and fight a terrible evil.
Alan Garner
Alan Garner was born and still lives in Cheshire, an area which has had a profound effect on his writing and provided the seed of many ideas worked out in his books. His fourth book, ‘The Owl Service’ brought Alan Garner to everyone’s attention. It won two important literary prizes – The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal – and was made into a serial by Granada Television. It has established itself as a classic and Alan Garner as a writer of great distinction.
More audiobooks from Alan Garner
The Owl Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weirdstone of Brisingamen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Elidor
213 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Like the three previously published books, incoherent, but a bit darker. I listened to it on audio, which made it far more enjoyable than it would have otherwise been. But I really think it's time to stop reading Alan Garner, his novels don't make sense.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't know whether it is that the early parts of this book haven't stood the test of time, whether I've actually read too many books with similar enough underlying ideas, or if it is that the early sections so strongly imprinted on my memory that it just feels like a really obvious start to a story. But I found myself, while enjoying the writing, rolling my eyes at bits of the first third or so.Which might also be my Gen X cynicism showing. Of course the adult in the alt world is making the kids do all the work. What else are we expecting of the Boomer generation. And no, I don't quite live my life that much in black and white, but it was some of what I was finding irritating here. Unlike other stories with the oblivious adults trope, this one was really hard to get through sections where adults could have stepped up, and there were sections where I had to walk away from the book for hours (or days) until I could deal with continuing reading. Despite me having somewhat grown past it, this is still a strongly written powerful story. I love the ambiguity of the ending, and the cypher of the alternative world -- the viewpoint character(s) really don't have the sophistication/maturity to comprehend what is happening, and the narrative voice doesn't fill that in for the reader.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four siblings stumble into another world and are tasked with guarding four sacred items by bringing them back into this world for safe-keeping. For a year all seems fine, to the point that some of the children start to doubt that it really happened at all, when warriors from the other place break through to steal the treasures. I found this one frustrating to no end. It starts out too abruptly, plonking the reading down into the story with not nearly enough background (I even checked to make sure I wasn't starting a series midway through) and has just as baffling and lose-endy an ending. Shame, really, because the story seems like it could be a really good one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A quick re read of a childhood favourite. It's hard to capture the sense of the uncanny in this book set in post war Manchester and the parallel world of Elidor, there are elements that remind you of CS Lewis (without the overt Christian symbolism) such as the doors between parallel worlds and the disbelieving older siblings. However there is a feeling of numinous otherness that is pure Garner.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the last of Garner's books that I liked --after this his writing took a more serious, even grim tone, and also moved away from more traditional fantasy to stories that might have supernatural elements but not wizards, dwarves, or magical lands. Elidor disappointed me by not being a third book in the Brisingamen series which I liked very much, and also by the fact that it seemed to end just as it was getting well started, but it did follow the formula of children from our world (in this case Manchester) getting into a fairy country.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The three brothers and their sister are wandering around town when they unexpectedly find themselves in another world, the world of Elidor. They soon learn that they are to be the saviors of the world, that they are to be the guardians of the four Treasures. They return to their world, but before long people from Elidor, determined to destroy the land, follow the four.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found this to be an unusual story. Four British children are drawn into another world that is being overcome by dark forces, and must protect it's Treasures, in order that that world may survive. By taking on this charge, they are in more danger in their own world than they realize...I liked the idea of this story, and much of the language and description was concise and evocative. However, the characters and their motivations never really felt fleshed out to me, and the end of the story was so abrupt that I wondered what actually happened there at the end.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I remembered reading Elidor as a teenager and it left a couple of strong images in my mind. The children with the four treasures standing next to a ruined church in Manchester, a door set into a green mound and a dying unicorn.Turns out on rereading the book that this is pretty much all there is to it. There's so much more that it could have been. The 'Treasures' have no purpose. We never learn who made them or why. Elidor itself is never seen beyond a passing glimpse. What is this place that we should care about it?Findhorn has no existence other than to die. Why is his singing important? Again, no reason. In Narnia, we understand Aslan's death - it has a meaning in mythological terms.Last, but not least, who are the bad guys? There are people trying to kill Findhorn, but why? What do they gain from his death? Why do they wish to destroy Elidor?The whole book seems to be a sequence of atmospheric scenes, but with no real plot behind them to grant them any meaning.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not as good as his Alderley novels, but still a pleasant read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Continuing my reading of old kids books, and especially Alan Garner. When I read this first it seemed very grown up, like others by this author. And I can still see why. There is that Garner ambiguity; the unsettling ending; the disturbing mix of real-world kids lives and fantasy. Not disappointed at all in revisiting this book - he really is my favourite children's author.