Customer Reviews

Kieron Smith, Boy

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Imagine, if you will, the first chapter of Joyce's A Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man turned into a 400 page interior monologue novel of boyhood, but transplanted from Dublin, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland in a post WWII era working-class setting. That's is the best way I know to summarise the novel for readers unfamiliar with Kelman's strong, hard-hitting yet melodiously lyrical voice with which he endues all his characters and narratives.

Kelman never fails to amaze with his ability to put himself into his characters' minds, their entire worlds. In this case, the reader is translated into the world of boyhood and reminded of both how wondrous and how terrible it is to be a child. Kelman's narrative power is such that any adult reader is bound to find himself/herself having Proustian moments of reflection induced by this book, and incidents of childhood long-forgotten will spring suddenly to life, sparked by a minute detail. For Kelman, whilst melodic and lyrical par excellence, is also very detailed, perhaps a tad too much so in parts. Indeed, whole sections of this book could be torn out and reassembled into a book entitled something like, "A Young Lad's Manual for Climbing Trees, Drainpipes and Other Features of The Urban Landscape." This is the only fault I find in the book: These sections lead to rather strained longueurs, or they did for this reader. It is for this reason also that I don't find the book quite meets the standard set by "A Disaffection" and, especially, "How Late It Was, How Late." It's just not as relentless in its execution and power over the reader. But, this is a very high standard indeed for any book to meet. Kelman is the greatest living Scottish writer!

I leave the reader with one of those wondrous haunting moments so peculiar to childhood, described herein thus:

"It was all smashing for playing. Except how the big boulders and stuff was all quiet, it was quiet. Ye could not hear nothing only maybe the wind, just a wee bit. So if it made ye feared, ye could see how it did, ye were just there and nobody else. There was no any sounds, there was just no any sounds. Oh but birds, high up, ye saw them, whirling about, wee specks. Then just the sheep and they were just away high up, right away at the very top, ye looked and there was one farther up, and the wind was making the grass shiver. I liked the sheep."

How is it possible that no one else has reviewed James Kelman's new novel? Maybe the America reading public just hasn't caught up to one of the world's major, major prose stylists. Kleman masterfully evokes a Scottish boyhood. I won't even bother with the plot, because this isn't a coming of age novel, and it doesn't try in any way to burden itself with some wide arch of plot in order to wrap up a singular experience; in other words, Kelman dares to say: childhood is what it is. Scottish childhood--at least this specific one--isn't going to give way to some grand apothosis. It is what it is. In taking this stance, Kelman creates a work of art that demands that you, the reader, come to terms with childhood; it forces the reader to simply remember that being a kid was great, and terror-filled, and marvelous; that being a kid brought you in touch with the deepest aspects of the culture. . .and so evoking it, brings the reader in touch with his or her past along with the past of a very specific culture. Do young boys think in terms of plot: no. Because he refuses to leave the vantage of the young boy, the book moves differently; changes in Kieron's life appear and he faces them and then moves on to to the next moment. What keeps you reading is the pure, clean, simple, language.
"I went to my grannie's by myself. I was glad. I liked it better."

Reviews in Europe were widely appreciative. Kelman, a Booker Prize winner, is barely known in the US. This one should've been an Oprah pick.