Editing Alan Garner (section)

==Literary style==

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|"I have four filing cabinets of correspondence from readers, and over the years the message is clear and unwavering. Readers under the age of eighteen read what I write with more passion, understanding, and clarity of perception than do adults. Adults bog down, claim that I'm difficult, obscurantist, wilful, and sometimes simply trying to confuse. I'm not; I'm just trying to get the simple story simply told... I didn't consciously set out to write for children, but somehow I connect with them. I think that's something to do with my psychopathology, and I'm not equipped to evaluate it."|source = Alan Garner, 1989{{sfn|Thompson|Garner|1989}} }}

Although Garner's early work is often labelled as "children's literature", Garner himself rejects such a description, informing one interviewer that "I certainly have never written for children" but that instead, he has always written purely for himself.{{sfn|Thompson|Garner|1989}} Neil Philip, in his critical study of Garner's work (1981), commented that up until that point "Everything Alan Garner has published has been published for children",{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=7}} although he went on to relate that "It may be that Garner's is a case" where the division between children's and adults' literature is "meaningless" and that his fiction is instead "enjoyed by a type of person, no matter what their age."{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=8}} He said "An adult point of view would not give me the ability to be as fresh in my vision as a child's point of view, because the child is still discovering the universe and many adults are not."<ref>{{Cite book |title=[[The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature]] |year=1984 |pages=199}}</ref> 

Philip offered the opinion that the "essence of his work" was "the struggle to render the complex in simple, bare terms; to couch the abstract in the concrete and communicate it directly to the reader".{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=9}} He added that Garner's work is "intensely autobiographical, in both obvious and subtle ways".{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=9}} Highlighting Garner's use of mythological and folkloric sources, Philip stated that his work explores "the disjointed and troubled psychological and emotional landscape of the twentieth century through the symbolism of myth and folklore."{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=21}} He also expressed the opinion that "Time is Garner's most consistent theme".{{sfn|Philip|1981|p=16}}

The English author and academic [[Charles Butler (author)|Catherine Butler]] noted that Garner was attentive to the "geological, archaeological and cultural history of his settings, and careful to integrate his fiction with the physical reality beyond the page."{{sfn|Butler|2009|p=146}} As a part of this, Garner had included maps of Alderley Edge in both ''The Weirdstone of Brisingamen'' and ''The Moon of Gomrath''.{{sfn|Butler|2009|pp=146–147}} Garner has spent much time investigating the areas that he deals with in his books; writing in the ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'' in 1968, Garner commented that in preparation for writing his book ''Elidor'':{{sfn|Garner|1968|p=577}}

<blockquote>I had to read extensively textbooks on physics, Celtic symbolism, unicorns, medieval watermarks, megalithic archaeology; study the writings of [[Carl Jung|Jung]]; brush up my [[Plato]]; visit [[Avebury]], [[Silbury Hill|Silbury]] and [[Coventry Cathedral]]; spend a lot of time with demolition gangs on [[Slum clearance in the United Kingdom|slum clearance]] sites; and listen to the whole of [[Benjamin Britten|Britten]]'s ''[[War Requiem]]'' nearly every day.</blockquote>