50 years a reader |
An exploration of half a century of reading. |
BOOK 8: In what I suspect is going to become a frequent excuse, this month I was really pushed for time to read – apart from the masses of reading I have to do for ‘work.’ No complaints. When work involves reading one doesn’t even care that work is unpaid. It’s all about the reading, after all. I’ve decided once and for all that reading is a) my drug of choice and b) the panacea for the world’s ills. And I have it confirmed by one of the books I did manage to read this month. But I’ll leave you in suspense on that one. The first book I (tried) to read this month I abandoned. It shall remain nameless as I don’t like to spread negative vibes about books simply because they aren’t to my taste. My reason for abandonment (among other things) was that a character in the book got gored in the ribs by a bull. And I read that just after I had bruised my ribs falling (or some would have it attempting to jump) from a low scaffolding platform. Low being a relative term when you hit the ground with a thump. So you see, reality does hit the world of fiction almost literally at times and as escapism the nameless book didn’t cut it. But I did read Neil Gunn’s ‘The Highland River’ right to the end. I’ve read it before, many many years ago, something I didn’t remember till a while in. Then I wasn’t so interested in fishing and the prolonged exploration (as analogy as well as literally) of catching a salmon left me a bit cold. This time I really enjoyed its pace. I was reading it primarily in order to try and contrast it with some S.R.Crockett. I got diverted (among other things) this month on a stooshie regarding ‘Kailyard’ novels. I tried, and failed to ‘out’ anyone to actually come and debate in a textual manner what exactly ‘is’ a kailyard novel. The offer is still open. All that’s required is that you’ve read a Barrie or Crockett novel which you consider to be Kailyard and we can debate how (or not) they fit the criteria. Reading ‘Highland River’ only confirmed to me that Crockett isn’t Kailyard. What I found interesting is that Gunn (like Grassic Gibbon) is writing later – post-war but still looks back at rural life as it was pre-war. Now to Gunn (and his character, which is his father) this rural past is seen perhaps nostalgically, but not really so – what he does show is the watershed (both literally and through analogy) of the First World War. He very much views the pre-war world in the same eyes as Crockett – from the perspective of people who lived in rural environments. There is a rural realism and of course the brutality of the War shocks and changes both life and fiction. However, Gunn never retro-fits rural life Pre-War into the ‘nostalgic, sentimental’ package that Crockett has been accused of. But take a moment to pause. The two men show recognisably similar worlds and viewpoints. Crockett’s only crime was that he died before the First World War and therefore couldn’t contextualise backwards like Gunn (and Grassic Gibbon did). But the quality and content of his description of rural life before the War stands up beside either of these. There is the obvious difference between Highland and Lowland but rural Scotland still shines through BOOK 9: I then read (and really didn’t enjoy) ‘Greenvoe’ by George Mackay Brown. Again it’s years since I read his work and I remember really enjoying Magnus, but I have to say ‘Greenvoe’ didn’t engage me. This is not really GMB’s fault, more reflective of my distraction into Crockett – at present work but also always a pleasure - which I was enjoying so much more. I find Crockett’s ‘communities’ much more appealing and engaging than GMB’s. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been to Orkney that I didn’t find a way to engage with the Orcadian community. Perhaps it was that I was all Islanded out, having just read (for work) another two books with an Islands link (albeit Shetland). Maybe as I age I’m becoming less tolerant of ‘cleverness’ in books, and I have to say I completely didn’t understand the whole thing about the Horsemen. I remember when reading ‘Magnus’, Brown’s ability to segue between past and present impressed me so much that I utilised both his sparse style and his ‘way’ of doing this in my own first novel ‘The Threads of Time.’ So I’m not dissing Brown in any way. I’m just not in ‘that place’ to appreciate it at present I suppose. I’ll give more Brown a go in the months to come. The people were credible, just not hugely interesting to me. BOOK 10: Things went from bad to worse – in one respect – in another respect I learned something (as I am every month) about the spectrum of reasons for reading. A small step on the path to enlightenment I think. The last book of the month (and yes, it was a light month for ‘leisure’ reading) was Alan Campbell McLean’s ‘The Glasshouse.’ The book I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. I’ve owned it for a couple of years and been promising myself to read it all that time. It was an horrific book. I could have put it down time and again. I hated it. And this was the reason to read on. It is a fictional account of time spent in a military prison towards the end of the Second World War. It is completely unlike anything else I’ve read by him. It makes me want to rush back and read ‘The Islander’ (despite my overdosing on islands recently) to cleanse myself. Don’t get me wrong, because I didn’t enjoy it doesn’t make it a good book. Anyone who said they ‘liked’ this book has spent too much time on social media and lost the capacity to understand what ‘like’ means. You are not supposed to like it. If you are not offended, shocked and horrified by it, you are probably not fit to read it. But it’s long been out of print so you’ll likely never get the chance. And that’s not surprising. It lifts the lid on all sorts of things we’d rather brush under the carpet. If you have a strong stomach and a sense of what is right (and wrong) in the world, I would recommend that you try and find a copy. There is no happy ending BUT there is, at the end, a paragraph that made it all worth while. Having met Alan Campbell McLean (albeit briefly) as a youngster, I was all the more shocked about his experiences and how, some 30 years on he had obviously transcended them. ‘The Glasshouse’ was written on reflection of some 20 years and he’d published ‘The Hill of the Red Fox’ and ‘The Islander’ before he attempted it. It was first published in 1969 and my edition is a Pan Book from 1972. The ending is as follows: ‘The old man used to say if you can read you are free, boy: all you have to do is get your nose stuck into a book and there’s no place you can’t go. Only the ignorant stay shut in, the old man said, and no man need be ignorant as long as there is a book to read.’ And that confirms to me the importance of reading, not just for escapism, not just books one ‘likes’ but for the very purpose of keeping ignorance at bay. Read for pleasure, read for profit, but also read to be shocked, to be challenged and yes, dare I say it, to learn. Books may sometimes take you to places you don’t want to be, tell you things you don’t want to know, but sometimes it’s important to get out of one’s comfort zone. With books there are always safe places to return to as well. April has been a challenging month for me, and who knows what May will bring. As long as it brings more time to read I’ll be happy. Comments are closed.
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AuthorIn 2016 I will have been reading for 50 years. I'm going to celebrate this by reading even more and sharing what I'm reading. Archives
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