Eggplant.place

40d

The Scottish Novel – book launch & seminar
5 Sept, Edinburgh – free, ticketed

This seminar presents papers by contributors to The International Companion to the Scottish Novel (ed. Cairns Craig) with a focus on literature from the 20th & 21st centuries

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-scottish-novel-tickets-1541851020909

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #novels

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17d

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking…

—“Question & Answer”, by James Findlay Hendry (1912–1986) – born #OTD, 12 Sep.

With GS Fraser & Henry Treece, JF Hendry was a contributor to the “New Apocalypse” poetic movement of the 1930s. He served in the Intelligence Corps during WW2

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WarPoetry #WW2 #modernism #20thcentury

J. F. Hendry
Question and Answer

How we could ever have come to this pass?
Is all we are asking. Each of our
Bursts of anti-aircraft fire
Hangs a torn wound of questions in the air.

How we could ever, like cattle at grass,
Drift with shadowless clouds, unaware,
Into this era of lightnings and war?
There is no shelter, now or ever, from that answer.

ALT

Edited 17d ago

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39d

Ian Hamilton Finlay’s revolutionary instincts

“This is a centenary for an agoraphobic poet once notorious for maintaining a small militia of supporters who vandalised the office of the Evening Standard’s art critic Brian Sewell; an artist who employed the help of collaborator Jessie McGuffie to ‘defend’ his project by punching the literary editor of the Scotsman in 1962.”

@litstudies

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/art/70812/ian-hamilton-finlays-revolutionary-instincts

#Scottish #literature #poetry #concretepoetry #20thcentury #IanHamiltonFinlay

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34d

Novelist, historian, & politician John Buchan (1875–1940) – from son of the manse to Governor-General of Canada – was born #OTD, 26 Aug
A 🎂 🧵

Nick Rankin examines Buchan’s literary legacy in THE BUCHAN TRADITION – currently available on BBC Sounds

1/8

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qjq6h

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #JohnBuchan

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28d

A birthday 🧵 for Violet Jacob (1863–1946) – poet, novelist, short story writer, & key figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance & Scots language revival – born #OTD, 1 September

1/8

https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/violet-jacob

#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #19thCentury #20thcentury #WomenWriters #VioletJacob

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23d

The relentless brilliance of Muriel Spark

“I am not here to say that all a career in letters requires is tenacity and a can-do attitude, but rather that knowing the challenges Spark overcame makes me doubly grateful for her.’

Lauren J. Joseph reflects on a quality many writers have to develop – the “sheer bloody-mindedness” Spark had in spades.

https://www.rlf.org.uk/posts/the-relentless-brilliance-of-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #MurielSpark #writing

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21d

“SANGSCHAW… gave other writers permission to push the boundaries of Scots as a language of literature, capable of expressing deep thought and not just for light comedy or mawkish whimsy”

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s first book

https://www.thenational.scot/culture/25436484.100-year-tribute-hugh-macdiarmid-marking-crucial-work/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid

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18d

Robin Jenkins (1912–2005) – “the best-kept secret in modern British literature” & one of Scotland’s most prolific 20th-century novelists – was born #OTD, 11 Sep. Dr Linden Bicket argues that Jenkins anticipates the urban realist fictions of Janice Galloway, James Kelman, & Irvine Welsh

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https://asls.org.uk/robin-jenkins-a-centenary-celebration/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #RobinJenkins

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6d

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing…

—Edwin Muir, “The Late Swallow”
first published in One Foot in Eden (Faber, 1956)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/late-swallow/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMuir #autumn

The Late Swallow
by Edwin Muir

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
Late swallow, and fly away.
Here is no rest
For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
Your comrades all have flown
To seek their southern paradise
Across the great earth’s downward sloping side,
And you are alone.
Why should you cling
Still to the swiftly ageing narrowing day?
Prepare;
Shake your pinions long untried
That now must bear you there where you would be
Through all the heavens of ice;
Till falling down the homing air
You light and perch upon the radiant tree.

ALT

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6d

You that through all the dying summer
Came every morning to our breakfast table,
A lonely bachelor mummer,
And fed on the marmalade
So deeply, all your strength was scarcely able
To prise you from the sweet pit you had made…

—Edwin Muir, “The Late Wasp”
from One Foot in Eden (Faber, 1956)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #EdwinMuir #autumn

The Late Wasp
by Edwin Muir

You that through all the dying summer
Came every morning to our breakfast table,
A lonely bachelor mummer,
And fed on the marmalade
So deeply, all your strength was scarcely able
To prise you from the sweet pit you had made, –
You and the earth have now grown older,
And your blue thoroughfares have felt a change;
They have grown colder;
And it is strange
How the familiar avenues of the air
Crumble now, crumble; the good air will not hold,
All cracked and perished with the cold;
And down you dive through nothing and through despair.

ALT

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5d

Samuel Rutherford (S.R.) Crockett (1859–1914) was born #OTD, 24 Sep. A bestselling author in his lifetime of 60+ novels, he fell from fashion after WW1, and his books were dismissed as “kailyard”. But Tolkien cites Crockett as an inspiration, & in VIDA, or THE IRON LORD (1907) he possibly wrote the first car chase in fiction…

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https://1890s.ca/crockett_bio/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian #Tolkien

Samuel Rutherford Crockett. Photograph by Elliott & Fry. The Critic, September 1905. P. 200. Wikimedia Commons. Crockett is bearded, and wears a jacket buttoned all the way up to his neck. His left hand rests in his jacket pocket and he is holding a book, casually, in his right. The photograph is in black and white.

ALT

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2d

“Spark thrived in institutions. This is because, like Miss Brodie, she was a conservative anarchist. Her anarchism was part of the Edinburgh Character and her conservatism rooted in respect for order, authority and ritual.”

Behind the Fame (and Inspirations) of Muriel Spark: Frances Wilson on the similarities between Spark’s favourite teacher and her most famous protagonist

https://lithub.com/behind-the-fame-and-inspirations-of-muriel-spark/

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thcentury #womenwriters

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1y

A birthday 🧵 for Violet Jacob (1863–1946) – poet, novelist, short story writer, & key figure in the 20th-century Scottish renaissance & #Scots language revival – born #OTD, 1 September

#Scottish #literature #Scotslanguage #19thCentury #20thcentury #WomenWriters
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https://www.scottishwomenwritersontheweb.net/writers-a-to-z/violet-jacob

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122d

Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889–1982)—author, poet, film-maker, botanist, #arctic explorer—was born #OTD, 30 May. A 🎂 🧵

WalkHighlands shares an extract from PEAK BEYOND PEAK, describing how she tackled the Corrieyairack Pass between the #Cairngorms & Loch Ness

1/4

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/peak-beyond-peak-the-unpublished-scottish-journeys-of-isobel-wylie-hutchison/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #hillwalking #mountaineering

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122d

When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents…

—“Poem for Innocent Victims of War” by AC Jacobs (1937–1994) – born #OTD, 30 May

Published in NAMELESS COUNTRY: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018)

A 🎂 🧵

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https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784106751/nameless-country/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Jewish #diaspora #20thcentury #warpoetry

Poem for Innocent Victims of War
A. C. Jacobs

You did not die for me
Or love or desperation.
No-one chipped your names
On plaques on peaceful blocks of stone.
You are just the useless dead
Who mock our daily sin of passion,
Climb through our heads in cold, slow silence.

When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents.
We could have walked around with your response.

Or even if you chose to die
We might have understood your longing
And written down your utmost fear.

Now, though, you have got beyond our feelings,
And we can never almost follow
To learn your last shared and perfect secret.

ALT

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121d

Twentieth-Century Radical Scottish Gaelic Magazines and Contacts with Wales

A recording of Dr Petra Johana Poncarová’s talk, given on 22 May at the Centre for Advanced Welsh Celtic Studies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiKkgWYyhW8

#Scottish #literature #magazines #20thcentury #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Wales #Welsh #CelticStudies

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118d

“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”

Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”

1/4

https://www.herripedia.com/para-handy/

#Scottish #literature #humour #shortstory #herring #19thcentury #20thcentury

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118d

Archie Hind (1928–2008), author of THE DEAR GREEN PLACE (1966), was born #OTD, 3 June

“The only other 20th-century novel I know that places a writer’s struggle in an equally well-imagined city is Nabokov’s THE GIFT”
—Alasdair Gray

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/with-hind-s-sight-a-review-of-archie-hind-s-the-dear-green-place

#Scottish #literature #20thCentury #novel #Glasgow

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116d

Gaelic & Scots: Cultural Connections & Inspirations in the 20th Century

Talks form the FRLSU’s May 6 webinar are now online, looking at

▶️ George Campbell Hay | Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa
▶️ William Neill | Uilleam Nèill
▶️ Douglas Young
▶️ translations between Gaelic & Scots
▶️ Derick Thomson | Ruaraidh MacThòmais & GAIRM

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvLWE-AoQoGZ7NF6Vt2oYlKn74u0_TKsW

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #Scots #Scotslanguage #translation #minoritylanguages #20thcentury

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128d

What Scotsman was caught up in a civil war before the age of twenty? Wrote a book that became the inspiration for an Oscar-winning film? Met a runaway teenager in Paris and married her against the wishes of his family? Lost his ranch to raiding Apaches?

Buckle up – it’s going to be a long, wild 🧵 …

1/18

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #Victorian #Edwardian

A still from THE MISSION (1986). Robert De Niro, with a black beard and swept-back dark hair, stands in a haze of smoke in a jungle scene. He is dressed in a black shirt, and is holding a rapier out in front of him in his right hand. His left is on his hip, in a fencer's fighting stance. He looks unsmilingly along the length of his sword to whatever faces him.

ALT

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128d

“I don’t write about people that are nice people. They’ve got to be sinners, with a wee touch of goodness here and there, you know.”

Giving “people like that” a voice: a conversation with Agnes Owens (1926–2014) – born #OTD, 24 May
A 🎂 🧵

1/4

https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/89?lang=en

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #WorkingClass

Alt text

Book cover People Like That Agnes Owens Cover illustration shows ten drawings by Alasdair Gray of ten various people, young and old, who could be seen around the west of Scotland in the 1980s

ALT

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115d

Ye think thon wes the end?
Yon meetin in the wuids
When Thracian Orpheus heard the drum, the cries,
The whud o the bacchantes’ thrangan feet…

—“Orpheus”, by Tom Scott (1918–1995), born #OTD, 6 June
Published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS

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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #20thcentury #Mythology #GreekMythology

Tom Scott
Orpheus

Ye think thon wes the end?
Yon meetin in the wuids
When Thracian Orpheus heard the drum, the cries,
The whud o the bacchantes’ thrangan feet
And, seik in saul,
Mad to be jyned for aye to his Eurydikee,
Strung his harp
And gaed to meet them wi a sang.
Ye think thon wes the end?

Na. Eftir the thrang breeled on, red
Fingert, bluidie-mawed, the riven limbs
Quiveran aye amang the mairtyred gress,
There wes a lull
And throu it syne a roun
And syne as muckle’s a moan
And syne a voice,
Yon voice o his
That quietit the forest and its fowk,
That reconcilit lion and lamb,
Ordert the rain,
Spoke frae the grund
And threept in the greitan tree
‘Euridikee! Euridikee!’

And at the name
A ferlie thing wes duin.
Thir broken bits o bodie, bits o bane,
Brisket, gash, airm and droukit hair
Cam thegither as gin some will
Mair nor the merely real
Had wrocht on them.
And on yon slauchtert grund was formed
Orpheus anew,
Orpheus the singer, Orpheus the makar,
Orpheus cleansed o the auld despair.
And by the halie tree
In the leaman licht o the wuid,
Squired by a houlet, a hawk and a doo,
Wes his Euridikee.

They say he made a new sang,
A nobler nor the auld,
And sings it aye in the great haa o the warld.

They say it will nevir end.

ALT

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102d

Pink sand and sandpipers pink in the setting
sun and pink granite and the pink swirl
of green waves…

—“Camas Tuath”, by poet, playwright & novelist Tom Buchan (1931–1995) – born #OTD, 19 June

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/camas-tuath/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Camas Tuath
Tom Buchan

Pink sand and sandpipers pink in the setting
sun and pink granite and the pink swirl
of green waves: no mediterranean relics
here, no ruined amphitheatres, no amphorae,

no half-submerged statuary – only the
children’s wet sand-pies and a standing
stone, a druidic lingam standing for nothing
anyone knows about nowadays, a stony

finger, green with years, specific of an idea
which was no doubt straight, strong and complex
once, but is now obliterated by the hysterical
cries of children and the birds’ pink squealing.

ALT

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84d

John Buchan, Master Storyteller – with Ursula Buchan
5 September, Dunfermline – tickets £8.03

Ursula Buchan, John Buchan’s granddaughter & biographer, marks the 150th anniversary of one of the most influential Scottish novelists of the 20th century with an in-depth examination of his literary accomplishments

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/outwith-writing-john-buchan-master-storyteller-with-ursula-buchan-tickets-1366141067709

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #JohnBuchan #novelist

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83d

“Annie S. Swan both requires revaluation through her own biography & calls into question easy valorisations of ‘danger’ as expressed in terms of explicit challenge & radicalism. The extent of her appeal & influence demands a more nuanced analysis of the politics of emotion & the gendering of reader response”

—Prof Glenda Norquay on Annie S. Swan (1859–1943) – born #OTD, 8 July

@litstudies

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https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2016/09/08/annie-shepherd-swan/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #20thcentury #romance #womenwriters

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