A review by kellbells
Elidor by Alan Garner

3.0

Not sure how much I enjoyed this, but glad I read it for sure. Garner described Elidor as the 'Anti-Narnia,' a darker, more pagan slant on children's fantasy realms. Only a quarter of the book actually takes place in Elidor - like Narnia, a once-beautiful land fallen into decay - and it isn't a friendly place. I wish the Watsons had been more individual (Roland's the youngest and true believer, Helen is The Only Girl, I honestly couldn't tell Nicholas and David apart) but Garner evokes images and emotions REALLY well. There's some great low-key horror when the Treasures of Elidor cause all the electronics in the house to run by themselves: "So they lay awake through that night, listening to the machinery. At two o'clock in the morning the food mixer burned itself out. But the washing machine rumbled on. The children and their parents stared clear-eyed at the dark." Plus this lovely passage near the end: "His mane flowed like a river in the moon: the point of the horn drew fire from the stars. Roland shivered with the effort of looking. He wanted to fix every detail in his mind for ever, so that no matter what else happened there would always be this."