Tag Archives: books

Jack’s Monday Book Review

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Sunset Song – Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell)

When I was attending high school in Dunfermline, I don’t recall studying any Scottish authors whatsoever. English and American, yes, but no Scots.

It was only later in life and by way of a television adaptation that I was introduced to the works of Grassic Gibbon. He was born and grew up in Kincardineshire (also known as The Mearns), which, due to the vagaries of successive reorganizations of local government, no longer exists as a separate entity. Sunset Song is a longish short story, the first in a trilogy and all based in The Mearns. Like his famous predecessor Robert Burns, Grassic Gibbon captures rural life, speech and attitudes perfectly – in fact I think of him as a kind of novelist successor to Burns.

In the book Chris Guthrie’s mother kills her baby twins and herself after learning she is pregnant yet again. Chris, her older brother Will, and her father send two younger children to stay with relatives and continue to run the farm on their own. Will emigrates to Argentina with his young bride, Mollie Douglas because he and his father argue constantly. Chris is left to do all the work around the house when her father suffers a debilitating stroke and eventually dies.

Chris marries Ewan Tavendale, a young farmer, and the happily married pair have a son, whom they also call Ewan. After World War I erupts, Ewan Sr. and many other young men join up. Ewan dies in the war, after a leave visit that proves he is much altered by his experiences, and Chris learns later that Ewan was shot as a deserter.

The book touches on many fundamental dilemmas of life, both personal and more wide-ranging; changing farming methods, relationships, pacifism, patriotism etc. I found it dually compelling, for its Scottish depictions and for its portrayal of people caught in difficult situations.

Finally – Grassic Gibbon, like Burns, invented a kind of fairly accessible half way house between Scots and English that retains just enough of Kincardineshire ‘spik’ for authenticity.

This is regarded as one of the greatest 20th Century works of Scottish literature and I heartily recommend it.

PS – a new movie version was made in 2015 and is due for release in the US in April 2016. The trailer looks gorgeous! https://youtu.be/sQqqkTdwv50

 

The Monday Book – –

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Jack’s guest Monday book post –

We Almost Lost Detroit – John G. Fuller

We get lots of older paperbacks into the store pretty regularly and I often find myself dipping into one or two when I’m looking for something to read.

This caught my eye as soon as it came in because I’ve always had pretty mixed feelings about nuclear power and, of course, it’s not so long since the Fukushima ‘incident’!

The book was written specifically about the building of the Enrico Fermi plant back in the 1950s but really goes much wider and examines the dilemma surrounding the whole subject. I should admit right away that my inclination is in favor of renewable energy – solar, wind, wave and tidal, and I’m proud that my homeland of Scotland pioneered hydro-electric power and is very close to being completely self sufficient in renewable energy. I should also say that I was born and grew up in a coal mining area and live now in another one – another piece of the dilemma!

For anyone who has followed the stories of Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima this book will prove somewhat depressing. That’s because everything that happened in these places is clearly foretold in Fuller’s book. What the book sets out very clearly is that no nuclear power plant is completely safe. They are subject to human error at every stage from design through operation and cannot be completely guarded against natural disasters or malicious attacks.

What I’m actually really surprised about is how even handed Fuller is. He is clear that he believes even the private industry leaders who were pushing forward with plans to build the plants were motivated by the best of intentions. He suggests that they also wanted to balance the fear engendered by the atom bomb with a more hopeful peaceful use for the same source of energy. But he goes on to paint a picture of government and corporations caught up in a self generating spiral involving insurance, construction and power companies as well as the usual very shady politics!

The book details many very scary episodes where mere seconds made the difference between a few deaths and thousands and involving tales of distorted metal rods and poor welds.

Finally – part of this story is about arguments over how much the public could or should be told. Some things never change – – –