The search for the best SCOTTISH BOOK of all time is entering the final straight. Over the past six months, a major campaign has rolled out in shops, schools, libraries and festivals across the country and votes have been rolling in as readers opt for their choice out of an impressive range of world class titles. Allan Radcliffe reports.
he phone lines are about to close. The votes are
being counted. The results will be announced
soon. The poll of the l()() Best Scottish Books of all Time — feverishly debated by book lovers the length and breadth of the land this spring and summer — is zeroing towards its thrilling denouement. But. before the outright winner is unveiled. there's time for a final rifle through those works competing for the coveted title.
The most striking aspect of the top five is the complete absence of the filth and 19th centuries. This explodes the notion that we Scots love to dwell nostalgically on past glories. James Hogg may have battled his way into the top ten with the influential dark masterpiece Confessions ofu Justified Sinner. Yet. Robert Louis Stevenson is trailing some way behind with Kidnapped while Sir Walter Scott — revered as the progenitor of the modern novel — has barely scraped into the top 20 with Rob Roy.
Meanwhile. Tobias Smollett's TIN’ Expedition of
[lump/try (linker received only a handful of votes. ()ther enlightenment figures such as Adam Smith and David Hume are notable by their absence from the upper echelons of the poll. while peddlers of cosily romantic tartan or kailyard notions of Scotland are nowhere to be found.
Clearly. voters have had little truck with the phenomenon of voting for books simply because
they‘ve heard rumours that these are the kinds of
works that should win such a survey. (‘Ye ken that Scott'.’ lle‘s great. eh‘.’ Ah‘ve goat the Complete Works . . . ‘) In other words. readers don't like being told how to vote. So what if [984‘s only real connection with Scotland is that it was typed out on the Isle of Jura‘.’ It contains an incredible. terrifying vision that resonates today as much as ever. Who cares if Harry Potter's claim to Scottishness is a cafe on Edinburgh‘s George IV Bridge'.’ It's an exciting. accessible adventure story
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that’s struck chords with millions.
If such independence of voting has meant that the majority of the Top 20 are books created within living memory. it has also led to some surprising titles scaling the dizzy heights. That The Game (if/(ings has reached the top five is testament to the continuing popularity of Dorothy Dunnett’s scrupulously researched historical fiction. As the highest ranking female author. Dunnett is just ahead of the more immediately iconic I’i'inie ofMiss .leiin Brodie by
Muriel Spark — written within a year of Game of
Kings. Laura Hird's vibrant Iidinburgh novel Born I’ree has often been overlooked in the fuss surrounding Irvine Welsh. btit its high position in this poll reflects its many admirers. And who would have thought that a sweeping saga written in (iaelic at the beginning of the let century. rill ()idlielie Mus Do Slieol .S'i'nn. would enjoy such a popular following'.’
The three favourites to win. Sunset Song. Lunar/t and 'l'ruinspoiting. are inarguably landmark works in Scottish fiction. sharing a brilliant evocation of place and a liberating. disarmingly original use of language. Otherwise they seem unlikely bcdfcllows. Btit. what if the protagonists of these three novels were to meet in sortie parallel universe populated by characters from liction'.’ Would the tenacious (‘hris (iuthrie. with her single-minded determination to cling to the land. admire Renton‘s ever more creative quest for his next fix'.’ Would Lanark and (‘hris swap stories about the industrial rot of lfnthank and Aberdeen"? Would the painfully shy Duncan Thaw. suffering an embarrassing skin condition. dare to offer Renton dermatological advice for his plooks‘.’ Now there's a book and a half. . .
The winner of the poll will be announced at the Book Festival’s 100 Best Scottish Books event on 27 Aug, 6.30pm, £8 (£6).
Top Ten
Sunset Song
‘. . . the land was forever; it moved and changed below you, but was forever, yOu were close to it and it to ini. ' Lewis Grassic Gibbons great. gripping and sensual mix of melodrama and realism charts the life of Chris Guthrie growing up in a small crofting community in north east Scotland. This. the first book of the Scots Qua/r trilogy. also displays a startling use of language. which novelist Ali Smith has described as ‘poetic and realist and dark and soaring and local and strange all at once . . . but still all about breathing. or how the heart works'.
Trainspotting
'Ah wis dripping like a saturated sponge. every step brining another gush fae ma pores
Contemporary Scottish Culture (:Ould arguably be divided into life pre- and post- Trainspotting. Certainly. Irvine Welsh's hilarious. outrageous depiction of life among Edinburgh's junkies and renegades delivered a long-awaited boot up the jacksie to the c0untry's literature. Hrs underclass cast of cl'iaracters. from psychotic Begbie to wily Renton. were like nothing hitherto portrayed in fiction and his unrestrained setting down of the contemporary vernacular reached out even to those who had never previously lifted a book from a shelf.
Lanark ‘ “Glasgow is a magnificent City. " said I'l/ch/pin. “Why do we hardly ever notice that?" "Because nobody imagines flying here. " said Thaw. . . "Think of Florence. Paris. London. New York. Nobody vrsmng them for the first time is a stranger because he already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a City hasn 't been used by an artist. not even the inhabitants live there imaginative/y
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