Sunset Song

[springer]

I have just finished reading Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. This was recently voted 'The Best Scottish Book of All Time'.
Now, this is a considerable accolade, given that classic Scottish authors include Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir James Barrie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and many others. More recently we have Alasdair Gray, Muriel Spark and George Mackay Brown as well as the popular Banks, Brookmyre, Rankin, Kennedy, McCall Smith and a million others.
Sunset Song deserves the praise.
It is a work of art and a thing of great beauty.
It tells the tale of life in rural Scotland during the first 20 or so years of the 20th century.
It is funny, it is sad, it is stunningly real.
It is beautifully written, and an intriguing tale.
I found myself caring for the characters as I did for those in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, willing them to survive their hardships, hoping for their survival, praying for their happiness.
We follow Chris Guthrie from when she is a young girl, through her teens, marriage and widowhood.
She is one of the great heroines of modern literature.
If you have not read it, please do.
I say I have just finished reading this book, but I should say 're-reading', as I first came across it at school in the 1960's.
I went to Ayr Academy, a very good public (which in Scotland actually means public i.e. NON-fee-paying) school, prior to the Comprehensive fiasco a few years later. I then went on to Glasgow University, so I was not an academic illiterate.
I have no fond memories of Sunset Song from then - actually no memories at all, except that it was a prescribed work.
But then Shakespeare at school was a chore, a dull, unpleasant, unentertaining bore.
I love Shakespeare on stage, so why was his work not presented to us in that way?
Do teenagers today face the same deadly approach to our literary heritage?
Or was it different in your school?
I love books, as I am sure many of you do.
I can be enthralled by the intellectual stimulus of Hermann Hesse, the understated story-telling of Kent Haruf, the beautiful writing of Sebastian Faulks or the exciting roller-coaster thrills of the too-close-to-truth Stieg Larsson.
But I learnt this pleasure from my father, not at school.
I would like to think that things have improved in the last 40-odd years, but is this the case?

[tig]

ive not read the book but ive seen the play a few times done by NTS

quality stuff

[Polwarth]

I remember first reading 'A Scots Quair' whilst at school (it was a set work).

It gave me a life-long love of Scottish writing - including poetry - but have to confess here that I just didn't like Walter Scott - and still don't.

BUT, the real love of reading was instilled by my parents, particularly my Dad, it was encouraged at school, but the books were all around me at home.

[Lachlan09]

I read it at school too Pol and had to do an exam piece on it for O levels I think !

In fact, I think the Beeb did a dramatisation of Sunset Song, starring either Vivien Hielbron or her sister Lorna. Can you recall that ?

I really liked the books as they gave a vivid picture of farming the The Mearns before and after WW1. I was surprised I liked it, as at that age, I was more motivated by Highland ancestry, the West coast and the wide open spaces of the Atlantic rather than land-locked fields.

I remember unusual images of some names used like Ewen Tavendale (unusual for a Highland name back then), the Highland husband of the main female character and him joining the "North Highlanders", which I took to be a fictitious verson of the Gordons.

[Polwarth]

Yes, I remember it being on TV - as to which Heilbron it was, I'm not sure!

I read it for O Grade English, too.

[Celyn]

It's a wonderful book, and I also read it at school and re-read a couple of times later. It seems that all of us read it for "O" Grades.

Polwarth, I confess I have never even read any Walter Scott. I wonder whether I should give him a try.

[tig]

i got the bloody hobbit in O grade english


maybe im a bit younger than you lot tho