Customer Reviews

In Search of Scotland

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Need a vacation but can't get away? Pick up a book by the great British travel writer H.V. Morton. It is guaranteed to lift you out of your mental doldrums and take you places.

Morton, who lived and worked in the 20th century, continues to have a significant following today--in fact, his readers have formed an international Society, the H.V. Morton Society, which any enthusiast may join. (This enthusiast has.)

"In Search Of Scotland" is the Morton book I first encountered. It had a page or two, right at the beginning, that I found dull--but after that I was hooked. Morton depicted the romantic and tragic country of Scotland in such a way that I felt I was there, seeing things through his eyes. He introduced many of the people. He made me laugh. He made me cry. He made me buy other books by him.

Try him. He is a writer who, if you let him, will become your friend.

Not quite as beautifully written and haunting as his first "In Search of Scotland" volume, which is one of my all-time favorite travel books, but still a really good read for those interested in what Scotland was like just after WWII. In "In Scotland Again," H. V. Morton travels a different path than on previous journeys to Scotland, and covers the Borders regions especially well. His description of Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's mansion, alone is worth the price of the book. All in all, a very pleasant account of his post-War trip North.

I have to say at the start that I've read and reviewed maybe a half-dozen H.V. Morton books, and I've yet to find one that's not well-written, interesting, and entertaining. But as with any author, some books are better than others. I started reading "In Search of Scotland" right after finishing Morton's wonderful "In Search of England," and I have to admit I found "...Scotland" something of a letdown.

I've been trying to decide why exactly that is, and I think it may simply be because "...England" was a diverse, you might say, book, with a wider variety of personalities, encounters, and generally interesting things to do and see. It may be, too, that Morton was more familiar with England and so could write about it more broadly and confidently. One of the things I found most surprising about "...Scotland," in fact, was Morton's discussion of how unknown most of Scotland -- particularly the Highlands -- still was to the majority of English people, even as late as the time Morton was writing (1929). Scotland was in many senses a foreign land, making "In Search of Scotland" Morton's first piece of "foreign" travel writing (all his previous books had been about England, and mostly about London).

While parts of "...Scotland" dragged for me, there were still many times when Morton's descriptive skill shined through, and the reader comes away with a strong sense of the role history plays (or played?) in the average Scot's understanding of himself and his place in the world. As with so much of Morton's writing, it would be fascinating to know how much of what he found still remains, eight or so decades later.