Scottish Review

Recommendations

Info

Best of the Scottish Review: January–March 2016 More significantly perhaps, she had no sympathy with the political ideologies embraced by contemporary Scottish writers such as MacDiarmid or Neil Gunn (who for a time also lived in Inverness). Writing a biography of the Tory and Episcopalian Claverhouse or 'Bonnie Dundee’, as well as a play about Mary Queen of Scots, she had a serious interest in Scottish history. But she was clearly on the side of those who thought that too much Scottish history had been distorted and romanticised in the telling. Then, despite her family background, she had no interest in any kind of Gaelic revival, and inevitably Scottish nationalism she rejected out of hand. In her will, she left most of her considerable fortune to the National Trust in England. Given all this, she probably would not mind not being recognised as a 'Scottish’ writer. However, those of us interested in the complex issues raised here – and still very alive today – will, I learn, find them addressed and explored in that final Pym novel 'The Singing Sands'. It is at the top of my reading list. Jennifer Henderson’s book is sometimes overloaded with detail; tighter editing would have removed a fair amount of repetition; and the author’s commentary on her subject’s writing occasionally becomes somewhat pedestrian. But this is a book which, by foregrounding the life and work of a writer who should never have been neglected, deserves the widest of readership. 6 January 2016 58
Best of the Scottish Review: January–March 2016 Arts and Life The four seasons Bob Cant reviews a film version of 'Sunset Song' The land is the central element in 'Sunset Song', seemingly timeless and arguably more significant than any of the human characters who struggle to engage with it. Right from the 12th century when some Norman childe made his mark on Kinraddie through to the travails of the Guthrie family just before the first world war, the land was a force that had to be reckoned with. It shaped individuals and the way that they formed relationships. Anyone making a film of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel has to be able to portray the land as well as the human beings who depend on it. Terence Davies has a reputation for bringing a loving painterly eye to his films and we expect to see that quality in his depiction of this story set in the Mearns. 'Sunset Song' was first published in 1932 and is structured around the four farming seasons – ploughing, drilling, seed time and harvest. The main character is Chris Guthrie, the strongminded daughter of a family of tenant farmers, and we follow her relationships with her family, her school, her neighbours and her lovers in Kinraddie until such time as the community is transformed by the tragedy of the first world war. While the village comes together in times of crisis, its everyday patterns of living are marked by class barriers, ideological disagreements and personal suspicions; the process of war generated upheaval and uncertainty but there was no clean sheet after 1918. The sunset of the title was not so much the end of an era as the prelude to another unpredictable day in the same setting. The fact that Grassic Gibbon wrote about sexual desire and sexual experience from a woman’s point of view was unprecedented; there was some speculation that he might be a woman. Many women had lost their male partners in the first world war and it was exceptional to portray these women as more than just widows; their sexuality was deemed to have died with the men on the Front. His portrayal of sexual violence within relationships was harrowing, as well as credible, and that was possibly why the book was banned by Aberdeen public library. Grassic Gibbon wanted 'Sunset Song' to be comprehensible to both Scottish and non-Scottish readers and its language is a combination of Scottish words, English words and Scots words cloaked in an English spelling. His aim was, he said, 'to mould the English language into the rhythms and cadences of Scots spoken speech'. The syntax of his long sentences emerges, unmistakably, from the language of that part of north-east Scotland. 'But then the upward road would swerve, right or left, into this steep ledge or that, and the wind would be at them again and they'd gasp, climbing back to the shelvins, Will with freezing feet and hands and 59
Page 1 and 2:
Best of the Scottish Review January
Page 3 and 4:
Arts and Life 48 The ruthless Scots
Page 5 and 6:
Best of the Scottish Review: Januar
Page 7 and 8: Best of the Scottish Review: Januar
Page 57: Best of the Scottish Review: Januar
Page 77 and 78: At Loch of Harray, Orkney James Ait
Page 79: Scottish Review Prestwick Internati
show all

Scottish Review

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?