6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The quiet voice of a master, July 13, 2000
This review is from: Seven Stories (Audio CD)
I was first introduced to Kelman by an English teacher in secondary school. He exposed my class to modern Scottish writing, ALasdair Gray, Tom Leonard, and James Kelman. Indeed, Kelman was invited to my school to give a reading (unusual given the language in his fiction).
I did not read Kelman for a time afterwards, but came to him again through Alasdair Gray's Lanark. Here, in the epilogue (Four chapters before the end) there are a number of footnotes, one of which was the text of Acid, a short story featured on this collection. It is very short (just longer than Richard Brautigan's The Scarlatti Tilt) but remains one of the most powerful things I have read, exploring the nature of work, love, and a parent child relationship in under fifty words.
I then started devouring Kelman, the novels and the short stories. Although, I love Kelman's novels (especially A Chancer and A Disaffection) it is to the short stories I keep returning. His collections from Three Glasgow Writers, through An Old Pub near the angel, Not not while the giro, Greyhound for Breakfast, The Burn and The Good Times, are essential reading. They reveal so much about the human condition - and, in his later work, the nature of maleness (without any Robert Bly nonsense).
Kelman writes in dialect, and is very funny (although this is lost in much controversy about his use of swearie words).
This collection of 7 stories (8 on the audio cassette) is excellent. You hear the voice of a master, a quiet determined voice, that - with no hystrionics - allows the work to shine. The collection showcases some of the best of Kelman, although, for reasons of length, his impressive longer short stories (e.g. A situation from The Burn) are not present. However, the Cd is worth it for two of the stories alone. Acid, and Roofsliding. Acid is described above. Rooofsliding is Kelman at his funniest. An academic analysis of strange behaviour in the tenements of Glasgow. It is dry, it is witty, and the easy style with which Kelman reads accentuates the humour.
You should read Kelman, and you should listen to him. Because when you hear him, his voice will permeate your readings of his fiction. You will feel the tone, will note the nuances.
This is a collection to love and play again and again, and we must be grateful to the companies are taking the effort to commit our great writers to audio collections.
If you enjoy this, try the Tom Leonard CD (by AK) where he reads a collection of his Glasgow Poems, "nora's place and other poems 1965-1995 ref: AK006CD and SOHO003CD, or the Canongate audio recordings of Alasdair Gray reading Lanark and some Unlikely Stories.
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