Sunday, 26 September 2010

Stranger than fiction

Fiction is full of serendipities, and we are used to accept them as part of literary conventions. When serendipities occur in real life it feels uncanny. In my yesterday's post I mentioned a writer who once asked me what it was like to be dying. I didn't want to give the name, but I must now: it was Alan Garner.

In today's Independent there is an interview with Garner, that among other things mentions his near-death experiences. It also mentions places that I remember well: the Medicine House with its gigantic chimney, the railway at the bottom of the garden, Jodrell Bank radio telescope, Alderley Edge with its caves. It evokes other places: the Old Man of Mow, the Green Chapel, the fake ruin from Red Shift. All uncanny places with dreams and memories woven into them. Obviously, the interview was written when I wrote my blog yesterday.

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