re:mote voices

Title: Lanark
Author: Alisdair Grey
Publisher:Canongate

Alisdair Gray's first novel was published in 1981, and as the sub-title suggests it is the story of a life in four parts. Though as is said within the author's notes the book could just as easily have been published as two volumes covering the two threads. The novel starts with book 3, the arrival of a man with no name in a strange and almost permanently dark city. From the start we know that he is going to be difficult, with no memory when he finds his bag containing identification, instead of checking to see who he is he throws it away; when offered a name by the town he has arrived in, he turns it down, choosing to call himself Lanark.

Through this book Lanark is presented as a mystery man in a mystery land: trying to come to terms with his craving for light in a city that only sees the sun for minutes at a time, with the fact that when he does finally find a clock it has no hands, with the fact that the patch of rough skin on his arm is spreading and apparently turning him into a dragon. From here he ends up in the institute, another level of this seeming hell, which starts to give him more of an insight to what is going on.

From this starting point of book three, we flash back to books one and two, where we follow the semi-autobiographical material. As a child Duncan Thaw was one of those evacuated during the second world war, affecting his early years through his return to Glasgow. Like the man he becomes in Lanark, Thaw is wilfully difficult. This becomes clear with each step in his life, school life where he doesn't fit quite in, and the Glasgow School of Art where he manages to become a student. In some ways Thaw could be seen as the archetypal genius, truly driven and consumed by his art. But at the same time, he lives with severe asthma, which is diagnosed partly as being an expression of his psychological issues. Thaw and Lanark do not get on with people, this is the clearest expression of what these middle two books are about, according the author. With the way this section is written there is a drive and fascination that comes from the narrative, but at the same time it starts to grind you down. The interaction with other people makes things awkward, and doesn't work towards making Thaw a particularly sympathetic character in some ways. A particular illustration of this is his relationship with his family, the character of his sister Ruth being one which strikes me as having some potential, but like too many other here she becomes something of an invisible woman.

From the conclusion of Thaw's life we return to Lanark, where life continues to be difficult, especially given this new perspective on his interaction with the people around him. As this other reality is a kind of after-life/hell, Gray plays with time, which is one of the other reasons why I start to lose feeling for the narrative. From place to place years can pass in minutes, so that it seems that a lot has happened which neither the character Lanark or the reader are witness to. As a vision of hell, Gray starts to work up a dark picture, which ironically extends from the period of time he was writing in, reflecting the politics of the time, to a point, which almost feels prescient of the moment. Much of the corporate manoeuvrings and supplanting of government should sound familiar to a contemporary reader. Talk of deforestation in particular, and the resulting flooding that causes are vivid if we recall recent events in the Dominican Republic, which were attributed to this very activity. Progressing through this section Lanark is thrust into politics, which give us all a real view of how doomed this reality is, and how inevitable the end seems.

Lanark and Gray have a considerable reputation, which become clear when reading this volume. Though it left me with mixed feelings in the end, I did for the most part enjoy this novel, and I could see the influences it has had, even if in the end I did feel somewhat wearied by the whole. My copy of the book contains a quote from another Scottish writer, Iain Banks, so it is perhaps ironic that Lanark should remind me so much of Banks The Bridge, which was the first of his novels that I read, and published 5 years after Lanark. Other things that caught my attention was some of the satirical portrayal of advertising, which seemed to have been echoed and reflected in the work of Jeff Noon. In turn Gray's own influences are many and charted by his notes on plagiarism throughout the novel's epilogue, which are many and dense, and no doubt say a considerable amount about the novel and it's bulk. One influence, which is initially expressed by the cameo of Governor Vonnegut, before being more fleshed out with a discussion on Breakfast of Champions - of course one thing Gray doesn't share with Vonnegut is a brevity.