Customer Reviews

The Antiquary

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Let me say up front that I love this novel, that as crazy and at times annoying as it reads initially it grows on the patient reader rather quickly, and puts off a warm glow in your memory when you're done. But because it is an anomaly in his catalog, I hesitate to recommend it to most readers. If you either a., haven't read and enjoyed a few other Scott novels, and so are accustomed to his tone and style, or b., do not appreciate fussy, erudite, late eighteenth century-style humor, then this is not the Scott novel for you. Go to Waverley, Ivanhoe, The Heart of Midlothian, Kenilworth, Guy Mannering, or Rob Roy.

The Antiquary is not so much a historical novel as it is a novel about history--about how and in what ways people bury, distort, and attempt to recall the past. Two plotlines, one humorous and unpretentious, one gothic and romantic, dovetail none too gracefully but in delightfully surprising ways. Critics tend to prefer the scenes set among a Scots peasant fishing family for their authenticity; I much prefer the mock-gothic comedy scenes, especially those featuring wise-ass beggar Edie Ochiltree. I like to think that the jovial Scott preferred them too. (Literary critics often lack a sense of humor.)

The third of Scott's novels after Waverley and Guy Mannering, The Antiquary resembles the second more than the first in its freehanded mixture of a different styles and genres and in its enthusiasm.

This is a lovely novel but the introduction and notes to this edition aren't as good as the ones in the Oxford World's Classics.