Two things give this science fiction a Scottish accent: (1) set in one of those places one normally doesn't think of as forward-looking, progressive or otherwise futuristic, in this case Ettrick Forest and (2) it is actually written with more than a smattering of Scots English and dialect. I can get past 'cannae,' 'bairns,' and 'wheen,' but there were some other words that had me flipping to the back of the book for explanation.In the not-too-distant future, the world has achieved an anarchistic, matriarchal utopia, largely because the problem of scarcity has been eliminated. People who find utopia boring can travel to outer-space colonies, or join the gangrels who are like the Travelers, Roma or Tinkers. Meanwhile, a large portion of the men kill each other in well-organized war games. That bit bugged me. It is kind of like traditional horticultural societies, like say the Zulus before Shaka. The women do all the work, and the men have goofy little wars. So is Gray saying, if don't give the men enough to do, they'll make dumb wars, and if you actually let them run the show, they'll make big dumb wars? Then there is the plot, which seems to ask some hurtful questions about territorial imperatives and other nonsense that imperialists attribute to human nature.The questions about the limits of Utopias are big and maybe unanswerable but the book itself is small and easy to read. I expected the opposite, because I've been intimidated by what I've read about Lanark. Also, Gray's illustrations and quirky, idiosyncratic politics and philosophy remind me of William Blake. Another fun thing about the book is that it isn't laid out like a 'normal' novel. There is a preface by one character, then the bit that seems like the 'real' novel, written by the main character but in the third person, and then the end notes and an epilogue. Since there aren't cues of when to turn to the notes, it is easy to just read the novely bit of the novel and then read the notes as a kind of parallel, alternative version of the same story. The notes also contain a lot of ranting about history, in other words, our pre-utopian world, and are probably best approached with a glass of single malt in the hand. So now I've broken my Alasdair Gray cherry, I can maybe get the nerve up to tackle the heavier stuff.
It seems I have a tumultuous relationship with Alasdair Gray's writing. I very much enjoyed Poor Things, the first book I ever read by him for university, but when I read Lanark (his magnum opus as it were), I had really difficulty enjoying the majority of it.This is quite a short book in comparison to Lanark, the actual story itself only being five chapters long. For the most part, I was enjoying the story. It told the tale of Wat Dryhope, the son of the chief of the Ettrick clan, who is not a fan of his clan's violent lifestyle. However, his attitudes begin to change when he is seduced by a mysterious woman named Delilah Puddock. The story is set during the twenty-third century, and the description of society at that time was quite interesting at points, particularly with the use of power plants to obtain almost any material good they wanted (everything from food to books). The clan warfare was almost reminiscent of Battle Royale and The Hunger Games - those these were obviously published after this book - in that they were televised and the participants were made heroes in the eyes of their adoring public.Unfortunately though there was not enough meat to the story to get me really involved, and it seemed to break down a little towards the end. I also strongly disliked the extensive, rambling notes section after the main story had ended, and I felt very close to skipping it at points. I would have preferred the notes to be written more concisely and included perhaps as footnotes to the main text so I could have read them alongside the story. The Postscript at the end was fairly interesting, and gained a little bit of my attention back, but overall I was disappointed by this novel.Part of me wishes that Alasdair Gray did not tend to lead towards the pretentious side of writing with his inclusion of details such as note sections and afterwards and things (see Lanark if you want to understand more what I'm talking about), and maybe just put more meat into his stories. Maybe some people like it but I just find it to be an exercise in 'intellect' as opposed to concentrating on entertaining the reader.
What do You think about A History Maker (2015)?
Let’s Pretend This Lengthy Sentence is Pronounced with a Scottish Accent and Whisky BreathThis modest tale by a legendary "fat old asthmatic Glaswegian" named Gray (neither of us, despite resemblances in nomenclature, age, appearance, style and subject matter, claims any relationship of consanguinity or affinity with the other) purports to record woad warrior Wat Dryhope’s apologia for his short botched life in a lively concoction or cornucopia of economica, politica, utopia, heroica and erotica that aspires to a state of fusion but inspires mainly confusion, though it may be excused primarily because it strives only for the comic rather than the tragic mode and secondarily because it is accompanied by stylish hand-drawn illustrations of women’s breasts that would appeal to wee young men or boys not intimately acquainted with this or any other private part of the female anatomy, (view spoiler)[and MJ (hide spoiler)]
—Ian Agadada-Davida
