The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties [Hardcover]

Alasdair Gray (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this version of that venerable themethe ambitious provincial lad undertaking to conquer the worldKelvin Walker, son of a penurious grocer and afire with Nietzschean illusions about power and its uses, departs his native Scotland for London Town, the center of the universe, plotting to make it very big by starting at the . . . top. Backwater naivete and Scottish chutzpah somehow propel him to an envied position as a BBC interviewer, which allows him to rub shoulders with the cream of society. Life comes pouring in from all directions, not the least in the delicious form of Jill, through whose kindly ministrations he finds God. Eventually Kelvin topples from his eminence through a combination of overweening ambition, ultra-rightist fixed ideas and unbending North-country rigidity. Before then, foibles are detected and fools, knaves and imposters flogged. Farce of this kind should be hilarious if it is to be persuasive, yet that level of comedy is not attained by this bright, occasionally amusing and charming little novel, subtitled "Fable of the Sixties."
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: George Braziller; First U.S. Edition edition (October 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807611441
• ISBN-13: 978-0807611449
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,590,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Slight, but amusing pilgrim's progress., November 16, 2001

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall of Kelvin Walker: A Fable of the Sixties (Hardcover)

I had read so much about Alasdair Gray - about his narrative ambition, his linguistic invention, his surreal fantasy, his dark humour, his political anger, his status as a pioneering modern Scottish writer etc. - that it was surprising to find in 'The Fall of Kelvin Walker' a short, amusing, but unmistakably fogeyish, Kingsley Amis-like, harmless comedy.

The story features a young provincial Scot who, inspired by furtive readings of Nietszche, runs away from home and his sternly religious father to London, determined by sheer will to power to begin a career at the top. 'Fall' contrives to be a satire of the media (especially the BBC and the popular press) and its cosying up to the political classes; a new kind of old-boy-network based on influence and wealth rather than class; the conservatism of establishment liberalism. But this satire is utterly toothless - the targets are not real-life figures and bear little relation to any; by omitting all detail that would convince us of the plausibiolity of these milieux and, therefore, the force of satire on them, the world Kelvin strides is so fantastical and whimsical, no target in it is worth the hitting.

This sense of the blithely unreal is increased by the historical setting: subtitled 'A Fable of the 60s', there is very little sense of period, unless you count the relative value of money, or the ease with which an unknown, uneducated, regional young man rises in the Establishment.

'Fall' is no satire, then: its movement as a romantic comedy soon fizzles out into a concern with religious intolerance. That the book remains at all enjoyable is due to the crisp and rapid lightness of the deadpan prose; the Amis-like narrative momentum through comic set-pieces (Kelvin's interview with the BBC is particularly funny); and the cast of characters who, if not particularly real, are engaging enough to keep you interested.