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Fiction Set in Scotland

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Jillian Katz

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Jun 27, 1994, 7:52:44 PM6/27/94
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Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!

Thanks.

Jillian Katz
jill...@rcf.usc.edu

R.J.Hare

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Jun 28, 1994, 4:07:49 AM6/28/94
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jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!

Some folks like the novels of Nigel Tranter - I guess they must cover just
about the whole of Scottish history...

Roger Hare.

Steve McGowan

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Jun 28, 1994, 6:31:23 AM6/28/94
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jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:

>Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!


One you could look at is "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of
a Justified Sinner" by James Hogg. Written c1740, set in Edinburgh,
and details the relationship between 2 brothers - one good, one evil.


A very interesting book on the topic of pre-ordination.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overheard at a fatal traffic accident: "Let me through - I'm a necrophiliac."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack Campin

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Jun 28, 1994, 5:31:51 AM6/28/94
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jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) wrote:
> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical
> romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my
> wedding and honeymoon there!

No historical romances, but this is an article I posted in rec.travel
including a list of books to give you some idea of the place. Ann Mair
can suggest a lot more.

fal...@cc.usu.edu wrote:
> ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Bob Tinsley) writes:
>> den...@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Denton) writes:
>>> I'm going to be travelling in Europe this summer and would like to read
>>> some novels that are based in various European countries. Does any one
>>> have any recommendations?
>> This /is/ a joke, right?
> I hope this is not a joke, because I've been checking the replies. I am
> also traveling to Europe and expect that, at some point, being an avid
> reader, I will get tired of reading only guidebooks, phrasebooks, and writing
> in my journal. Then I might want a little fiction and it just MIGHT be nice
> to read fiction set in Europe. And why do you think that's a joke?

Yep: let's read behind Denton's word to their probable intention... I would
guess that he/she wasn't just looking for any old piece of fiction set in a
European country, but something that would give a feel for the culture and
atmosphere of a place. Picking a random list of literary masterpieces isn't
what's wanted. (Hasek's "The Good Soldier Svejk" is a great book but doesn't
give you any idea of the atmosphere of Prague: Jaroslav Seifert's poems in
"The Plague Column" capture its sense of melancholy defeat perfectly).

So, for Scotland, here goes with a few suggestions that try to fit that remit:

- James Hogg: "Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner".
This, written around 1800, is a tour de force of storytelling, the first
multiple-viewpoint novel ever written. It's a satirical/tragic picture
of the mind of the Protestant Reformation gone to its most sadistic
extreme. There aren't many people left in Scotland who still think that
way but the influence of Calvinism on the whole culture of Scotland runs
so deep that this still says a lot about how the place works. (And
Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh hasn't changed much since it was written: walk
up it to where one of the crucial scenes of the book happens).

- Irvine Welsh: "Trainspotting". I've just started this. It's about life
in the working-class housing estates of Edinburgh now: drugs, football,
AIDS, more drugs, violence, even more drugs. Grim as fuck but often funny.

- Jeff Torrington: "Swing Hammer Swing!". Unemployable proto-hippie would-be
writer and terminal layabout living through the last days of a Glasgow slum
awaiting demolition in the early 60s. This was a crucial point in recent
Scottish history: Scotland has the highest proportion of people living in
public housing in the world, and in some of the worst conditions in Europe
(East or West), and this was when most of it was built. Torrington keeps
that in the background; the book's as plotlessly shambolic as "Tristram
Shandy" and mostly gives a worm's eye view of working-class Glasgow
culture. It's hilarious. If anyone gets stuck with some of the
vocabulary email me and I'll explain.

- Iain Banks: "The Bridge". This doesn't tell you a lot about Scottish
culture (it's set in middle-class Edinburgh but isn't very specific about
it) but if you have time to look close up at the New Town and the Forth
Rail Bridge you'll find it's a great evocation of the physical presence
of both.

- William McIlvanney: "Laidlaw". Impassioned crime novel set in some of
the grimmer parts of Glasgow. Yes it is still like that.

- Patrick McGill: "Children of the Dead End". Autobiographical novel by an
Irishman who came over to be a labourer in Scotland at the turn of the
century. These Irish, after some horrifying exploitation described here
in photographically precise detail, became a large part of the population
of Glasgow and are still very much a distinct people. This book is written
in a naive and sentimental style derived from the popular fiction of the
time but the content is anything but naive.

- the poems of Sorley MacLean (Somhairle Mac Ghill-Eoin). MacLean is from
Skye and writes in Gaelic (there are several editions of his work, all in
parallel text; the best translations are probably those Derick Thomson made
of the "Poems to Eimhir"). He's probably the greatest poet the British
Isles have produced this century. He combines traditional Gaelic imagery
with some very bleak erotic imagery, amazing depictions of the Highland
landscape and revolutionary socialist polemic. There's nobody remotely
like him writing in any language.

I'll suggest just one for Turkey: Latife Tekin's "Berji Kristin: Tales from
the Garbage Hills" (Marion Boyars, 1993), a disorienting piece of magic
realism set in an appalling slum on the edge of Istanbul, where traditional
culture meets the modern world of toxic waste. Similar stories could be
told of a lot of the Third World but I don't know anything else like this.
Wherever you go in Turkey, even in the tourist traps, you'll see the world
of Tekin's characters at the edge of your vision.


--
-- Jack Campin -- Room 1.36, Department of Computing & Electrical Engineering,
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS
TEL: 031 449 5111 ext 4195 HOME: 031 556 5272 FAX: 031 451 3431
INTERNET: ja...@cee.hw.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL BANG!net: via mcsun & uknet

Kateri/Mary Anne

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Jun 28, 1994, 9:32:55 AM6/28/94
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In article <2unooc$s...@almaak.usc.edu> jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!

Try Rosamund Pilcher's novels...sort of historical, sort of
romantical, pretty family-oriented...the one I read was _September_.

- Mary Anne, who misses Edinburgh

--
Hate has a reason for everything.
But love is unreasonable.

- V. Raiuhes Ahaefvthe

Judith Eubank

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Jun 28, 1994, 9:55:00 AM6/28/94
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In article <Cs3L9...@festival.ed.ac.uk> rjh...@festival.ed.ac.uk (R.J.Hare) writes:
>jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!
>

Errr, have you read any Walter Scott?

Judith

A.M.Mair

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Jun 28, 1994, 10:40:28 AM6/28/94
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You might find it difficult to carry my first
suggestion - Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond novels starting with The Game of Kings
(there are six fat books in the set).

Another thought might be "The Little Minister" by J. M. Barrie.

You are bound to be able to find Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Trilogy
"A Scot's Quair" which is "Sunset Song","Cloud Howe" and "Grey Granite"
all in one. Much approved of in the schools that one.

I doubt you could find "Snooker Tam of the Cathcart Railway"
by R. W. Campbell, or any of the Anne Hepple stories. Helen W. Pryde
has written "Maisie McFlannel's Romance"
The Annie S. Swan books won't do - they read as though
they are bang up to date.

Current writers include Margaret Thompson Davis, Doris Davidson and
Agnes Short who will be on best seller book stands and are no better
or worse than any of the type. Jessica Sterling can be quite good (I
am particularly fond of Hugh C Rae's other books + he is half of her).
Some of these tend to write in dynasties, perhaps you may wish to check
that the book you get is the first in the sequence. Think of these as
pot boilers as you might murder mysteries or westerns.

If you are in the mood for a belly laugh set in tenemental Glasgow
John McGill has written "That Rubens Guy", which includes an
episode where the posh girlfriend comes to visit to meet the family
- I won't tell you more for fear of spoiling the story.

Ann
by learning and courtesy

Harry Butler

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Jun 28, 1994, 10:50:41 AM6/28/94
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>Judith

Of Scott's Scottish novels, I think I'd recommend _Rob Roy_, rather than, for
example, _Waverley_ or _The Antiquary_, at least as "airplane reading" on the
way to a wedding. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "The Lady of the Lake," and
"Marmion," narrative poems all, are probably even better than the novels, as
they're less weighty and more, umm, "romantic."

A friend also recommends Jane Porter's _Scottish Chiefs_ very highly.

Harry

Philip Morgan

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Jun 28, 1994, 10:31:14 AM6/28/94
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In article <2unooc$s...@almaak.usc.edu>
jill...@almaak.usc.edu "Jillian Katz" writes:

>
> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances
> would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and
> honeymoon there!
>
>

No, but here's a Scottish poem you might lke to read (will you be anywhere
near Fife?). I was married at St Andrews 30 years ago, and my bride came
from Leven.

LARGO BAY

Down by the shore, on a quiet summer even,
All is silver grey, calm sea and shelving sand;
Just a glimmering light shines over towards Leven,
And a streak of azure lies on the southern land.

Through the balmy air the plover's cry falls shrilly,
Mingling with the measure of the slowly rising tide;
Round the headland comes the white mist weird and chilly,
Making nearness mystery, and distance yet more wide.

By the salmon-nets a fisherman is bending:
Dark is his boat and he in the twilight's ghostly charm;
Whilst two lovers yonder, homeward slowly wending,
O'er the grey-green links go, silent, arm-in-arm.


Best wishes,

Phil

--
Philip Morgan
ph...@buckden.demon.co.uk

Joann Zimmerman

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Jun 28, 1994, 12:12:27 PM6/28/94
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jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:

>Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances >would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and >honeymoon there!

The ideal--and obvious--suggestion is Dorothy Dunnett's _The Game of
Kings_.

--

"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton

Joann Zimmerman jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Matthias Weber

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Jun 28, 1994, 2:17:33 PM6/28/94
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|> jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
|> > Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!
|>

R.L. Stevenson: Catriona. I read it in a translation as a kid and
was very impressed. Whatever it means.

Matthias

David E. Latane

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Jun 28, 1994, 2:09:57 PM6/28/94
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Not to be too obvious, but _Waverly_ suits the bill. It's an
historical romance--but it's not_set_ in Scotland, it _invented_
Scotland. Before 1814 it was just a place where people and horses ate
oats.

D. Latane'

Michael Feld

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Jun 28, 1994, 10:30:54 PM6/28/94
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In article <2unooc$s...@almaak.usc.edu> jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!
>


Have we got books for you! The very best series of historical novels
happens to be set in Scotland. The author is Dorothy Dunnett, the
first book in the series is _Game of Kings_ (the second is even
better: _Queens Play_), and her fans highly recommend her work to
strangers.

Want a stand-alone Scottish historical novel? Try Dorothy Dunnett's
_King Hereafter_, which will give you insights into Macbeth you'd
never thought to discover, not and have fun, too.

Really, really great stuff.-
--
Michael Feld | E-mail: <fe...@cc.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Philosophy | FAX: (204) 261-0021
University of Manitoba | Voice: (204) 474-9136
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2M8, Canada

CLUMBER

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Jun 29, 1994, 11:51:05 AM6/29/94
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>>jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>>> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical
romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to
my wedding and honeymoon there!
>>

For a more "low-brow" read than others suggested, try Diana
Gabaldon's series: Outlander, Dragonfly In Amber, and Voyager. These
involve time-travel, and romance, and give an interesting historical
view of Scotland as well. I think they'd be great airplane reading!
Congrats,

Ann

sur$...@altair.selu.edu

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Jun 29, 1994, 9:32:24 PM6/29/94
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I'm always eager to mention Dorothy Dunnett. While not all of her superb
6-book series, The Lymond Chronicles, is set in Scotland, the first, "The
Game of Kings" is and is a historical novel. May not do for "plane" reading,
however, since it takes some "getting into."
Happy Honeymoon!

Christina Chapple

Mary E. Lauer

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Jun 30, 1994, 10:54:05 AM6/30/94
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sur$11...@altair.selu.edu writes:

>rjh...@festival.ed.ac.uk (R.J.Hare) writes:

>> jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>>> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland?
Historical romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane
reading on the way to my wedding and honeymoon there!

>>
>> Some folks like the novels of Nigel Tranter - I guess they must
cover just
>> about the whole of Scottish history...
>>

>I'm always eager to mention Dorothy Dunnett. While not all of her superb


>6-book series, The Lymond Chronicles, is set in Scotland, the first, "The
>Game of Kings" is and is a historical novel. May not do for "plane" reading,
>however, since it takes some "getting into."
>Happy Honeymoon!
>
>Christina Chapple

I have to put in a plug for one of the best historical romances set in
Scotland that I have ever read:

Diana Gabaldon's _Outlander_, _Dragonfly in Amber_, and _Voyager_

Of course, there is a fourth as-yet unpublished book that finishes the
story, but the ending of the third won't drive you crazy waiting for the
fourth.

These books are lost of fun, and make for quick reading too. Enjoy!

Mary.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Lauer | Instant gratification
ma...@sadira.gb.nrao.edu | takes too long.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Corinna Mergelsberg

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Jun 30, 1994, 4:49:19 AM6/30/94
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In article <jzimm-280...@slip-13-15.ots.utexas.edu>, jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman) writes:
|> jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
|>
|> >Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical romances >would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to my wedding and >honeymoon there!
|>
|> The ideal--and obvious--suggestion is Dorothy Dunnett's _The Game of
|> Kings
|>
|> Joann Zimmerman jz...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu


I can only second that suggestion. I adore all the six Lymond books!
On the other hand, I must warn you that I know a few people who have given up on them -
they say it's fairly hard to keep track of all the characters. So for reading on the plane...

Rosamunde Pilchers 'September' is quite okay for that purpose!


Have fun in Scotland,

Corinna
cme...@whu-koblenz.de

Steve McGowan

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Jun 30, 1994, 8:30:32 AM6/30/94
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clu...@aol.com (CLUMBER) writes:


>>>jill...@almaak.usc.edu (Jillian Katz) writes:
>>>> Does anyone have any favorite novels set in Scotland? Historical
>romances would be ideal -- This is to be plane reading on the way to
>my wedding and honeymoon there!
>>>


You could also try Christopher Rush's "A Twelve Month and A Day". The
book was made into a film, featuring the late Ray McAnally.


--Steve


:wq
ooppss.....
^D^D^D^D
Shit
EOF
bloody thing
^C^C^F^Q^Q


Nancy Miller

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Jul 6, 1994, 3:57:05 PM7/6/94
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If you are interested in historical romances, any of Diana
Gabaldon's books: Outlander; Dragonfly in Amber; or Voyager.
With these you get time travel too!

Nancy Miller
nmi...@leo.vsla.edu

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