Lanark (Harvest Book) [Paperback]

Alasdair Gray (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest Book | Publication Date: May 1, 1996

Written under the influence of World War II, the British welfare state, the Scottish education system, Poe, Carroll, Joyce, Kafka, Pinocchio, and the Bible, this cult classic paints a surreal portrait of the modern world. "It should be widely read" (New York Times). Illustrated by the Author.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Published in his native Scotland in 1981, this has been described as a literary adventure novel, which draws inspiration from sources as wide-ranging as Joyce, Kafka, and Poe to Walt Disney's Pinnochio. Anthony Burgess praised it as one of the 99 best novels of our time.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Alasdair Gray (born 28 December 1934) is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years. It is now regarded as a classic, and was described by The Guardian as "one of the landmarks of 20th-century fiction." His novel Poor Things (1992) won the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Gray's works combine elements of realism, fantasy, and science fiction, plus clever use of typography and his own illustrations. He has also written on politics, in support of socialism and Scottish independence, and on the history of English literature. He has been described by author Will Self as "a creative polymath with an integrated politico-philosophic vision" and as "a great writer, perhaps the greatest living in this archipelago today", and by himself as "a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian".

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1St Edition edition (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156003619
• ISBN-13: 978-0156003612
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The nearest thing to the Great Scottish Novel., October 24, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Lanark (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

Dos Passos - USA; Joyce - Ulysses; Perec - Life A Users Manual...each work a sprawling, eccentric and often critical study of the lives, loves, hopes and fears of the people in their country of origin and Gray's work attempts to do the same for Scotland.

Published in 1981, he had spent the previous fifteen years working on this sprawling onamasticon which encompasses several literary genres - from Short Story to Novel - and which could be described as being fantasy, science-fiction, autobiography, literary criticism and social realism: but don't let that put you off! This work also manages to be compellingly readable and deeply engaging.

Set in a decaying Glasgow (Scotland) at some unspecified time in the future, the book opens on Part Three, where Lanark - the 'hero' - is dragged through a hole in a cemetery wall into a mysterious netherworld - The Institute - where people turn into dragons and nothing is quite what it seems: he rescues a woman from the process of becoming a dragon; he is injured and put into a hospital... he falls into a deep sleep, where he dreams or possibly remembers Parts One and Two.

These sections are among the most poignant and beautiful passages of writing about adolescence, describing our hero's relationship with his father and his progress through the Glasgow School of Art in the late 1950s and early 60's, writing comparable with Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist' in its aposite use of language and image.

Part Four returns us to the hospital, where Lanark has woken up and we continue his quest to leave The Institute and return to Glasgow with his new-found love.

It wouldn't be fair to give away more than this, but Gray builds the plot by the skillful use of structure (hence the apparently 'wrong-ordering' of the parts), character, often using characters from Scottish history in modern guise, and such post-modern devices as layout, collapsing narratives (at one point, Lanark meets Gray himself) and plagiarisms, all of which are copiously referenced and documented, though the author himself denies the 'post-modern' label. "I don't know what postmodern is," he said in a recent interview "But people always call my books postmodern."

Post-modern or not, Alasdair Gray's Lanark is a work of fiction which will appeal to Scotophiles, Ex-pat. Scots, Fantasy Fans, Science-Fiction buffs and anybody who enjoys the brilliance of eccentric experimental writing.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone, but a modern classic., August 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lanark (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

This book blew my mind. Complex, challenging, but with a whole lot to say about the pain of growing up. It taught me a lot about modern Scotland (lifestyle, attitude), and I figure Gray's fragmented fantasy style must have been a big influence on younger better known Scottish writers (to me anyway) like Iain Banks, A. L. Kennedy and Andrew Crumey who are similar to Gray in some respects. I guess you could call it postmodernism but to me it's simply beautiful writing, told from the heart. This book's not for everyone, but it's a modern classic and an unforgettable journey of the imagination.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scotland Made Strange, April 13, 2000

By 

Robert Hamlyn - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lanark (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

Twenty-five years in the making, Alasdair Gray's "Lanark" immediately announced itself as perhaps the 20th century's most significant piece of Scottish fiction. Published in 1980, it was the first novel to invest Glasgow -- an industrial city associated more with gritty urban realism than romance -- with a rich, mysterious literary language.

Gray's narrative structure, a mixture of baroque architectural complexity and self-referential devices, has led a number of critics to suggest an affinity with postmodernism. There is truth in this, but more compelling are the essentially tragic stories that lie at the heart of the book. Duncan Thaw, a young, alienated Glasgow artist trying desperately to find love is juxtaposed with Lanark, a less neurotic "version" of Thaw who inhabits the strange, unstable realm of Unthank. It is Gray's painterly eye for detail and his unfailing accuracy in rendering delicate emotional states that make the novel so touching and compelling.