Red Shift (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – October 25, 2011

This is a beautiful and evocative story that really stays with you. Definitely one of my all-time favourite books. Garner is a real master!

Found this novel mentioned on the NYRB Classics list a while ago. I read all of the reviews pertaining to this novel because Science Fiction or YA novels aren't a genre that I feel a lot of affinity for.This is an unusual story and the concept greatly appealed. Three vastly different time periods and three very different love stories. Each one unique in its own way. The common denominator through the ages is an axe head and a place called Mow Cop.This is one of those novels that when completed I couldn't say with any certainty that I actually liked/enjoyed, however it was compelling and evocative. I wouldn't call this YA there are really dark, oppressive themes running through the novel.It's a story that is very ambiguous in places, the dialogue is sparse and not straight forward, often struggled with what period of time was referenced and which character was speaking at the time.Having said all of the above it was it was compelling but difficult in places. One thing I will say about the NYRB Classics novels they are thought provoking and this novel is no exception.

It was dark and I was lost driving home. I tried to take a shortcut across the Staffordshire Moorlands. Something said I should turn left to cross the ridge to the next valley. I climbed a hill, then silhouetted against the moonlit sky was a shape I knew from this book jacket: Mow Cop. I had to leave the car and venture on foot into the gloom, stomach turning, mouth dry. The point of Red Shift is, perhaps, that our destiny is in some part the essence of the soil under our feet. This book succeeds so well in implanting this feeling that words were not needed to create in me the emotion of meeting Mow Cop that night.

I had never heard of Red Shift before last week, though I had long wanted to read something by Alan Garner. When I accidentally stumbled onto a copy, however, of this novel, I was intrigued enough to immediate start reading it. What an interesting premise!The novel centers around three love stories from different time periods in English history (Roman Britain, the Commonwealth Interregnum, and modern day Britain). The first concerns some soldiers who’ve deserted the Roman Ninth Legion who are “going tribal” in an attempt to survive. The second occurs when royalist troops besiege a church whose members have sided with parliament during the English Civil War. The last follows Tom and Jan, two young lovers who struggle to stay together despite difficulties caused by Tom’s mental instability and by their transient (in Jan’s case) or overbearing (in Tom’s) parents. The three love stories take place in the same place in English, though in their different eras, and overlap thematically.The book, to me, is one which is brilliant in concept, but in the actual reading experience, it falls short of its promise. Most of the book consists of abstruse dialogue, and the book switches back and forth, without exposition, between the different sections. Even though the book is very short, it’s very difficult going. When you’re able to follow what is being said, it’s poetic and compelling, but following the novel took a significant bit of work—in which I several times needed to consult online summaries. I’m not totally sure why Garner wrote the book as esoterically as he did; reading the novel is, indeed, a good bit like breaking the code that comprises the final page. The book is, no doubt, intriguing, and I plan even to revisit it someday. It’s just worth knowing, going in, that Red Shift is just about as much a puzzle as it is a novel.

Ursula Le Guin described this as: "a bitter, complex, brilliant book".I've nothing to add to that. Except this: try to find a copy at all costs. It is one of the best fantasies ever written. Oh, and if you're wondering: it's all of 155 pages long.

This is one of those books that I found to be a great idea, but poorly executed. The dialogue is jerky and hard to follow as are the time shifts. After a few instances of guessing (guessing wrong) and guessing again, it finally became too much work for this reader with too little payoff in the end. That said, I can see why this is a unique read and I may re-visit it later on.

Awful, confusing, boring; A classic Disappointment. Don't borther with this book mistaken for "Classic Literature" It's NOT!It Will be offered up for sale. I don't expect any buyers.

(3.5 stars) This book has an intertwining of three stories; one set in Britain contemporary times of the publication (1973), one set at the time of the Romans in Britain, and one set during the civil war in Britain. They are connected by a location, the Mow Crop, and by an axe head found in each of the time periods. Each deals with young men struggling with life purpose, love, and lust. The female character in each setting varies on the level of depth to the story. While the novel’s length is short, it is not an easy book to read as the stories blend from one to the other without transition and it is written primarily as dialogue with little descriptive detail and frequently without attribution of the dialogue. While the primary characters are teenagers, I would say most young adults would struggle with the format of the book. While I could appreciate the scope, intellectual styling, and the struggling emotions of the characters, I cannot say that I fully enjoyed the book which makes it difficult to rate.