Rating: 
Summary: Good @ Deep!
Review: Rob Roy is a great book, but I caution! This book is very deep, I repeat, VERY DEEP! The Scottish dialect is very hard to understand. But the characters are amazing! The plot is great, but remember everything! Sort'av.
Rating:
Summary: Good @ Deep!
Review: Rob Roy is a great book, but I caution! This book is very deep, I repeat, VERY DEEP! The Scottish dialect is very hard to understand. But the characters are amazing! The plot is great, but remember everything! Sort'av.
Rating:
Summary: 19th century historical fiction at it's best...........
Review: Robert Louis Stevenson called "Rob Roy" Sir Walter Scott's finest achievement. I do not disagree. Set shortly after the unification of 1707, Scott tells the tale of the protestant Francis Osbaldistone as he bids adieu to his father's London commercial interests and enters, as an exile, the baronial home of his papist relations in the north. His cousin Rashleigh assumes the commercial role intended for Frank and uses his newfound access to stir loyalist feelings in the Scottish Highlands by ruining the far-flung credit of the Osbaldistone business. Frank, upon uncovering the conspiracy, sets forth to Glasgow with the mercurial gardner, Andrew Fairservice, as his guide to right the wrongs of the scheming Rashleigh. Ever dependent on the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor, to intervene in his behalf, Francis Osbaldistone leaps from one adventurous situation to another in his fight to clear his family name. Along the way, Frank meets and falls in love with the outspoken and beautiful Diana Vernon who aids him in his plight. Though a fair portion of this book is related in the Scottish vernacular, there is a glossary in the back of this edition that will easily point the way. Even so, the reader will confidently understand the vernacular when one-third through the book. This is a classic that can be enjoyed by anyone, particularly those interested in period and place.
Rating:
Summary: 19th century historical fiction at it's best...........
Review: Robert Louis Stevenson called "Rob Roy" Sir Walter Scott's finest achievement. I do not disagree. Set shortly after the unification of 1707, Scott tells the tale of the protestant Francis Osbaldistone as he bids adieu to his father's London commercial interests and enters, as an exile, the baronial home of his papist relations in the north. His cousin Rashleigh assumes the commercial role intended for Frank and uses his newfound access to stir loyalist feelings in the Scottish Highlands by ruining the far-flung credit of the Osbaldistone business. Frank, upon uncovering the conspiracy, sets forth to Glasgow with the mercurial gardner, Andrew Fairservice, as his guide to right the wrongs of the scheming Rashleigh. Ever dependent on the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor, to intervene in his behalf, Francis Osbaldistone leaps from one adventurous situation to another in his fight to clear his family name. Along the way, Frank meets and falls in love with the outspoken and beautiful Diana Vernon who aids him in his plight. Though a fair portion of this book is related in the Scottish vernacular, there is a glossary in the back of this edition that will easily point the way. Even so, the reader will confidently understand the vernacular when one-third through the book. This is a classic that can be enjoyed by anyone, particularly those interested in period and place.
Rating:
Summary: 19th century historical fiction at it's best...........
Review: Robert Louis Stevenson called "Rob Roy" Sir Walter Scott's finest achievement. I do not disagree. Set shortly after the unification of 1707, Scott tells the tale of the protestant Francis Osbaldistone as he bids adieu to his father's London commercial interests and enters, as an exile, the baronial home of his papist relations in the north. His cousin Rashleigh assumes the commercial role intended for Frank and uses his newfound access to stir loyalist feelings in the Scottish Highlands by ruining the far-flung credit of the Osbaldistone business. Frank, upon uncovering the conspiracy, sets forth to Glasgow with the mercurial gardner, Andrew Fairservice, as his guide to right the wrongs of the scheming Rashleigh. Ever dependent on the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor, to intervene in his behalf, Francis Osbaldistone leaps from one adventurous situation to another in his fight to clear his family name. Along the way, Frank meets and falls in love with the outspoken and beautiful Diana Vernon who aids him in his plight. Though a fair portion of this book is related in the Scottish vernacular, there is a glossary in the back of this edition that will easily point the way. Even so, the reader will confidently understand the vernacular when one-third through the book. This is a classic that can be enjoyed by anyone, particularly those interested in period and place.
Rating:
Summary: Great author, great reader
Review: Scott's riveting story is definitely enhanced by Frederick Davidson's reading. Davidson speakes in measured tones, his voice rather high-pitched and nasal, with a British accent. This sounds somewhat ominous, and indeed it is, but Davidson's voice and enunciation become more and more hypnotic as the listener prgresses through the tape set. He does an excellent job of imitating Scotch accents and making different voices for the various characters--his only weakness is his female impersonations, which simply don't come off; that's not too much of a problem, tho', because the listener is paying attention more to what Diana Vernon has to say than the sound of her voice. Davidson's minor defects as a reader are compensated for by the strength of the story. In short, listening to this tape set was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've ever had.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Entertaining Historical Fiction
Review: Sir Walter Scott is widely acknowledged as the creator of the historical fiction genre. His best known book is Ivanhoe, which I have not read. I instead decided to read Rob Roy, a book I became familiar with due to the 1995 movie of the same name starring Liam Neeson and Tim Roth. Rob Roy, written in 1817, takes us back in time to the 1715 Jacobite uprising.Surprisingly, Rob Roy is not the main character of the book. Rob Roy's appearances in the book are spotty, at best. Instead, Francis Osbaldistone is both narrator and main character. Francis, we quickly find out, is more interested in poetry than in business. His father, who hoped for Francis to take over the family business, becomes angry with his son and banishes him to his brother's estate, Osbaldistone Hall. Francis's relatives are all country hicks, with the exception of Diana Vernon, an astonishingly beautiful "cousin" who stays with the Osbaldistones for reasons best left unrevealed here. Francis also encounters the treacherous Rashleigh Osbaldistone, the cousin who is to replace Francis at his father's business. Francis soon becomes embroiled in several adventures, usually with Scottish sidekick/groundskeeper Andrew Fairservice and Glasgow businessman Nicol Jarvie at his side. Needless to say, Francis falls in love with Diana Vernon and becomes entangled in the machinations of the Jacobite rebellion. I found myself amazed at Scott's depictions of women in this book. Diana Vernon is not only beautiful; she's smart, self-assured, and a very dominant figure. Rob Roy's wife, Helen MacGregor, also is presented as strong and domineering. I find this fascinating in a novel written in the early 19th century. Even more surprising is Francis; he is depicted as weak and easily dominated. Between Rashleigh, Rob Roy, and Diana, Francis never seems to know what is happening and is easily brought to emotional frenzies by the other characters. You quickly begin to wonder how this guy can get anything done. There are two minor problems in Rob Roy. First, I'll mention the Scottish dialect. Scott, in an effort to be authentic, makes liberal use of the Scottish accent. This isn't much of a problem in the first part of the book, but in the second half it becomes a serious issue. Even worse, Scott uses the Scottish characters to reveal major plot points. Therefore, if you can't read the dialect, you're in trouble. This wouldn't be bad if a glossary had been included in the book, but there isn't one. After awhile, I realized that "bluid" was blood, and that "muckle" meant much, but the inclusion of many Scottish idioms had me totally dumbfounded. Other Scott novels in the Penguin series include a glossary of Scottish terms, but not their edition of Rob Roy. Second, the pacing of the book is most unusual. For some 200 pages, nothing much happens. I've read many novels from this time period, and most move faster than Scott. This doesn't make Rob Roy a bad book, but it does take patience to get to the end. Even when the plot starts to thicken, Scott still takes a lot of time to unfold events. In some aspects, this lends a distinct quaintness to the book. At other times, it can become annoying. It is easy to understand how many people would lose patience with the book and give up. This is still an entertaining book, and I highly recommend it to those interested in historical fiction. Despite a few problems I had with the book, I would like to read more of Scott's work in the future. I shall certainly look for editions with glossaries so I can navigate the Scottish words. By the way, the man on the cover of the Penguin edition is William, 18th Earl of Sutherland.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, Not Too Historical
Review: Sir Walter Scott's "account" of the life of Rob "Roy" (Gaelic word meaning "red-haired") MacGregor is an entertaining historical fiction about Scotland's ongoing battle for independence from English rule. Interestingly enough, MacGregor is a fairly minor character in the novel, appearing a mere handful of times and not initially identified. The primary protagonist is a young student who keeps encountering MacGregor ("a mysterious man in a dark cloak") in various situations and eventually, through various circumstances, meets him in the Highlands. I would not view this book as anything other than a novel ... there is some historical accuracy, but it is deeply disguised in the telling of the tale.
Rating:
Summary: Take it with you for a week on a mountain-top.
Review: The narrative pace is Scott's, not ours, so Rob Roy requires some patience and a locale that encourages reflection. For readers in the Pacific Northwest, I would recommend reading it among the crags at Hidden Lake Lookout. A point of clarification: while the film versions of Rob Roy and Braveheart may be of similar vintage, they definitely do not portray the same eras in Scots history. The Highlander gentleman outlaw and cattle thief Robert MacGregor (Rob Roy) lived from 1671 to 1734, during the transition from Stuart to Hanoverian Britain that shed so much Highlander blood. Rob Roy's life was roughly contemporary with that the Old Pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart, 1688-1766), the "King Over The Water" of many a Scotsman's toast. His lifestyle was much like that of the fictional Doone clan in R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone, which is set in southwest England of the 1670s and 1680s: deprived of their own estates by wars and legal chicanery, both the Doones and the MacGregors lived by stealing livestock and preying upon the surrounding countryside. William Wallace ("Braveheart") lived (1270-1305) and fought much earlier in Scots history, in the times of Edward I "Longshanks" (1239-1307) and Robert I "the Bruce" (1274-1329), kings of England and Scotland, respectively. In a nutshell, "Braveheart" provides the background for Robert the Bruce's victory at Bannockburn, while "Rob Roy" sets the stage for the Duke of Cumberland's dragoons' massacre of Highland Scots at Culloden Moor, which crushed Bonnie Prince Charlie's uprising of 1745. "Braveheart" lies at the beginning, and "Rob Roy" at the end, of several centuries of Scottish self-rule. -Doug Johnson
Rating:
Summary: A Rippingly Good Read!
Review: This book has it all: action, romance, intrigue, revenge, and an outlaw who's really not so bad after all. Although the book takes its title from the character of Rob Roy, you really don't meet him until two hundred pages into the story...or do you? Instead, the novel focuses on Francis Osbaldistone, which may be a little disconcerting for those readers who expect a rolicking adventure novel. For me, the most interesting character is that of Helen McGregor, Rob's wife. She seemed to be a shrew who controlled not only her husband, but the rest of the highlanders as well. All in all, though, the novel is a wonderful read, perfect for a Sunday afternoon.
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