Lanark: A Life in Four Books

Rating:
Summary: A bleak yet compelling vision of survival
Review: First published in 1981 and set in the dystopic cities of Unthank and Glasgow, Lanark: A Life In Four Books by Alasdair Gray is an emotional and starkly brilliant saga about the struggle to love despite contradictions and vices in human nature that attack bonds of care or trust. A bleak yet compelling vision of survival and the endless search for something more in life, Lanark consists of parallel tales of an eponymous hero living in a bizarre city of the future called Unthank, and Duncan Thaw, a young Glaswegian of the twentieth century. This edition of Lanark is enhanced with a new foreword by novelist Janice Galloway and includes Alasdair Gray's "Tailpiece" which serves as an unusual addendum to this surreal and highly recommended novel.

Rating:
Summary: Daunting to be the first
Review: I don't know if no one has reviewed this tome for fear of where angels tread lightly or what, but I have to say something about this amazing book, if for no other reason than to start a dialogue.

I first heard of this book from a Village Voice article about the republication of "Lanark" in a four-volume set. The structure of this edition is that it begins with Book 3, followed by the Prologue, Book 1, Book 2, and Book 4 is divided by an Epilogue that takes place 4 chapters from the end. This convoluted structure actually makes the book rather fascinating, in that Gray has said that he wishes for the book to be remembered in a certain order, which is why he put "Book 3" first. This edition also features artworks by the artist at the front of each Book, and the Epilogue features some interesting typesetting.

For readers of science fiction, this book will offer an interesting challenge, for books 1 and 2 are more a coming-of-age of the artist sort of affair. Books 3 and 4 center around the Lanark character, who is called Thaw in 1 and 2. The Thaw books reminded me many times of Maugham and Joyce, while 3 and 4 seemed positively Dickian. (Not to be confused with Dickensian, which slant-applies, if at all.) There's a lot of ferocious literariness going on in this book, yet there's all sorts of humor. And also a slice of life in a city I know absolutely nothing about. The depictions and commentary on Glasgow reveal a lot about the self-consciousness of 2nd-tier and below cities--the cities that are not New York, London, Florence, Paris, Moscow, etc.

I found this a wise book, filled with difficult ideas and a morose feel for the future of mankind and the difficulties of being a solitary individual in the anomie-infested modern civilization. Book 4 I think is a fascinating attempt to turn Hobbes's Leviathan into a sentient being, as viewed by the hapless adventures of the eponymous hero. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Rating:
Summary: It's only worth reading books one and two
Review: Maybe I missed something, but this didn't do a lot for me. It's a jumbled up ragbag of ideas which don't fit together coherently while its characters are unlikeable and without much individuality.
The story starts in a depressing world called Unthank, and follows the character Lanark as he arrives in town. He craves for sunlight in a world where there is none and since he's fast turning into a dragon he decides to throw himself down a large mouth in the ground (as you do...).
He comes out the other end in an institute where he is cured of his dragonhide and becomes a doctor for a short while before, like me, getting very bored and frustrated with the place.
So he decides to leave but that's quite dangerous involving a trip across an intercalendrical zone. Inevitably he leaves the hospital and takes along his girlfriend who, unsatisfyingly, doesn't seem to display any affection towards him at all.
In the intercalendrical zone, time moves erratically, and his girlfriend discovers she's heavily pregnant. They return to Unthank in the expectation that shortly the place will be swallowed by an even larger mouth and they'll be transferred to a sunnier land.
But Rima leaves Lanark, taking the (talking) baby with her. Lanark is then sent on a mission to return to the institute to ask them to save Unthank, which has suffered a pollution spill that threatens to destroy the place. At the institute he is stitched up by his rivals and finds time to meet the author of the book, who spends a chapter trying to explain what the hell the book is about. Lanark returns from the institute to Unthank in time to witness the place destroyed.
Books one and two in the middle tell the story of Duncan Thaw (Lanark before arriving in book three) and surprisingly this part of the book is a lot more readable. The chapters follow Thaw as he grows from a child to a sickly adult. There are some parallels with the Lanark story (Thaw is emotionally inhibited, he suffers an illness as a result, he can't keep hold of the girl he likes). In my opinion, if this story stood alone it would be a much more satisfying read. It's very reminiscent of the writer Iain Banks who no doubt was inspired by Gray. Interesting also the split between contemporary fiction and sci-fi which Banks also practices. However, in my opinion, a book like Walking On Glass by Banks is far superior to Lanark in that it made me think about the connections between the strands of the stories.
I suppose my review is a little biased because I'm not a huge fan of science fiction any more. But since the author asserts in his incarnation as god in the final chapters that he doesn't write science fiction I suppose I shouldn't worry.

Rating:
Summary: It's only worth reading books one and two
Review: Maybe I missed something, but this didn't do a lot for me. It's a jumbled up ragbag of ideas which don't fit together coherently while its characters are unlikeable and without much individuality.
The story starts in a depressing world called Unthank, and follows the character Lanark as he arrives in town. He craves for sunlight in a world where there is none and since he's fast turning into a dragon he decides to throw himself down a large mouth in the ground (as you do...).
He comes out the other end in an institute where he is cured of his dragonhide and becomes a doctor for a short while before, like me, getting very bored and frustrated with the place.
So he decides to leave but that's quite dangerous involving a trip across an intercalendrical zone. Inevitably he leaves the hospital and takes along his girlfriend who, unsatisfyingly, doesn't seem to display any affection towards him at all.
In the intercalendrical zone, time moves erratically, and his girlfriend discovers she's heavily pregnant. They return to Unthank in the expectation that shortly the place will be swallowed by an even larger mouth and they'll be transferred to a sunnier land.
But Rima leaves Lanark, taking the (talking) baby with her. Lanark is then sent on a mission to return to the institute to ask them to save Unthank, which has suffered a pollution spill that threatens to destroy the place. At the institute he is stitched up by his rivals and finds time to meet the author of the book, who spends a chapter trying to explain what the hell the book is about. Lanark returns from the institute to Unthank in time to witness the place destroyed.
Books one and two in the middle tell the story of Duncan Thaw (Lanark before arriving in book three) and surprisingly this part of the book is a lot more readable. The chapters follow Thaw as he grows from a child to a sickly adult. There are some parallels with the Lanark story (Thaw is emotionally inhibited, he suffers an illness as a result, he can't keep hold of the girl he likes). In my opinion, if this story stood alone it would be a much more satisfying read. It's very reminiscent of the writer Iain Banks who no doubt was inspired by Gray. Interesting also the split between contemporary fiction and sci-fi which Banks also practices. However, in my opinion, a book like Walking On Glass by Banks is far superior to Lanark in that it made me think about the connections between the strands of the stories.
I suppose my review is a little biased because I'm not a huge fan of science fiction any more. But since the author asserts in his incarnation as god in the final chapters that he doesn't write science fiction I suppose I shouldn't worry.