Something about Alan Garner’s Owl Service

The Owl Service (1967) by Alan Garner OBE FRSL is an award-winning fantasy novel for young adults that affected me very strongly the first time I read it. 

The Owl Service is a story of the supernatural. It involves something that has been called in other articles a scripted scenario.

The story is set in modern Wales.  The plotline is based on a story from Welsh mythology, a story about betrayal and destruction involving a triangle of two men and a woman.

Three teenagers, Alison the English girl, Roger the English boy and Gwyn the Welsh boy, re-enact the story - or rather the story re-enacts itself through them as it has been doing down the years and through the generations. 

The girl is once again the betrayer, and the two boys hit each other where it hurts most. 

Some of the witty remarks that various characters make have a positive effect when read; there are also some very cruel and hurtful comments that are painful to read and have a very negative effect. This article highlights some of the best and worst of these comments.

Parents and step-parents
Alison’s mother is a terrible emotional blackmailer and Gwyn’s bitter mother seems sadistically determined to sabotage his life, not just for personal reasons but because of unfinished business from the past.