Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

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If it's woman trouble," said the man, "I can advise you because I was married once. I had a wife who did terrible things, things I cannae mention in the presence of a wean. You see, woman are different from us. They're seventy-five per cent water. You can read that in Pavlov." Alasdair Gray'in 20 yıllık çalışması olan Lanark 4-5 farklı yazımsal türü içinde bulunduran okuduğum en zekice kitaplardan biriydi. Yazar, bilimkurgu ve fantastik öğeleri, bildungsroman ve kahraman mitleri doğrultusunda harmanlayıp; aynı zamanda yapmış olduğu intihaller ile tarihten o döneme kadar yazılmış tüm edebiyatın tarihinin bir nevi özetini sunan Gray (bkn: Hatime sf: 523) tragedya, insanlığın varoluş sorunları, cennet-cehennem tanrı-yaratıcı-yaratılan temaları doğrultusunda oluşturulmuş çok katmanlı bir kitap. In 2014 Gray's autobiography Of Me & Others was released, [90] and Kevin Cameron made a feature-length film Alasdair Gray: A Life in Progress, including interviews with Liz Lochhead and Gray's sister, Mora Rolley. [91] [92] [93]

Alasdair James Gray (28 December 1934 – 29 December 2019) was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards. Cameron, Lucinda (29 December 2019). "Tributes to 'master of creativity' Alasdair Gray". Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 7 January 2020. Self, Will (12 January 2006). "Alasdair Gray: An Introduction". will-self.com. Archived from the original on 21 May 2014 . Retrieved 21 May 2014.

a b Ferguson, Brian (30 November 2019). "Lanark author Alasdair Gray gets lifetime achievement honour for his contribution to Scottish literature". The Scotsman . Retrieved 6 January 2020. Sayers, Louise (13 January 2015). "Surge for Herald during referendum". BBC News . Retrieved 12 January 2020. Wade, Mike (11 October 2014). "Alasdair Gray retrospective: From naked ambition to the finest art". The Times. Times Newspapers Limited . Retrieved 19 May 2021. It is a quirky, crypto-Calvinist Divine Comedy, often harsh but never mean, always honest but not always wise. Certainly it should be widely read; it should be given every chance to reach those readers – for there will surely be some, and not all of them Scots – to whom it will be, for a short time or a lifetime, the one book they would not do without.” Their efforts to hold to a life of imagination or adventure, while bound to the necessities of raising a family in an imposing industrial city, infused Gray’s own artistic vision and political instinct. He was a lifelong socialist and Scottish nationalist, who lived in the city of his birth all his life, save for a four-year spell during the second world war, when the family moved to Yorkshire.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957, and taught there from 1958 to 1962. It was as a student that he first embarked on what would become his novel Lanark. He said, "That was very unsatisfying. Why did the oracle not make clear which of these things happened?" The voice of the story would not allow anything else. Curious and informed, angry and rational, this voice was not afraid of fun or of confessing its vanities or of having Big Ideas. It was urban and wholly contemporary, yet suffused with the past. More daringly still, it hinted at the possibility of a future. It was willing to share its power, to make me a partner in the enterprise, capable of creative insights of my own. Even more, however, it was a voice that took for granted it wasn't the only voice. It knew the whole truth didn't belong to one sex either. Gray's, it seemed, was a man's voice that knew that's all it was - a man's. As he named his characters' repressions to move beyond them, so he named their selfishnesses, paranoias, spites and incomprehenslons in their dealings with women. He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals, including one at the Òran Mór venue and one at Hillhead subway station. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV. One of the most characteristically postmodern parts of the book is the Epilogue, in which Lanark meets the author in the guise of the character "Nastler". He makes the first two remarks about the book quoted above, and anticipates criticism of the work and of the Epilogue in particular, saying "The critics will accuse me of self-indulgence, but I don't care". An Index of Plagiarisms is printed in the margins of the discussion. For instance, Gray describes much of Lanark as an extended 'Difplag' (diffuse plagiarism) of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies. Some of the supposed plagiarisms refer to non-existent chapters of the book.Stivers, Valerie (2016). "Alasdair Gray, The Art of Fiction No. 232". The Paris Review. No.219 . Retrieved 12 January 2020. As his public profile began to rise, Gray began to publicly support Scottish independence, publishing a short polemic called Why Scots Should Rule Scotland in time for the 1992 election. Devolution was never enough for the author, who agreed with Margaret Thatcher when she claimed Tony Blair as her greatest achievement. “Like US citizens,” Gray argued, “the UK electorate has no chance of voting for a party that will do anything to seriously tax our enlarged millionaire class that controls Westminster.”

In 1961, Gray married Inge Sørensen, a Danish nurse then in her teens. They bought the wedding ring from a jeweller’s shop on the way to the registry office. “I believe she married me because she found me more interesting than men with steady jobs and money,” Gray stated – not out of boastfulness but as an explanation for an otherwise puzzling acceptance. He and Inge had a son, Andrew, the subject of many affectionate portraits. The couple separated after eight years and later divorced. He had a long relationship with another Danish woman, Bethsy Gray, and in the late 1980s met Morag McAlpine. They married in 1991. She died in 2014. I would love it to become an annual event and to use the date to celebrate the breadth and scope of one of Scotland’s most important cultural polymaths,” she says. “Alasdair’s work spans so may mediums and forms that it feels only right to celebrate an aspect of this multi-faceted artist every year.” Kitabın atmosferi bazı okurlar tarafından çok kara ve simsiyah bulunması ve bu karamsarlık tonlarının okuru sıkabileceği eleştirisi yapılsa da açıkcası bu fikre hiç sahip olmadan kitabı okuduğumu belirtmeliyim. Gray'in ressam olması ve diğer güzel sanatlarla olan ilişkisini müthiş betimlemeler ile sunması ve bana Tim Parks'ın Kader'i tematik olarak neye dayandırılarak oluştuğunu bahsettiği "The Pleasures of Pessimism" makalesinden dolayı, tam tersi bir keyif yaşatarak kitabı keyifle okumama neden oldu. Fakat bu demek değildir ki kitap, üzgün, kara ve simsiyah değil.Glass, Rodge (2012). Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4088-3335-3.