"What's Heidegger got to do with MacDiarmid?" - and other questions about the study of Scottish writing

Those of you expecting an essay on Heidegger and MacDiarmid will be dissappointed - I've no written it yet and it isn't for my blog! This is just an example of the kind of question a person might legitimately ask a student of Scottish writing. Thing is though, this shouldn't be a legitimate question. A thinker like Heidegger, concerned as an ontologist with such universal concepts as 'Being', 'Dwelling' and 'Building', should not for a second be assumed to have little to do with a 'regional' writer like MacDiarmid. The reason that this question is still legitimate in this day and age is because of the way people continue to view courses and people who participate in the study of regional writing, and especially Scottish writing. 

What do I mean by this? Firstly, I mean the tendency to 'ghettoise' Scottish writing. In the question 'what does Heidegger have to do with MacDiarmid', and other suchlike questions, there is an implication that the two are of no consequence to each other becuase one is Scottish and the other is German. The implication is that Scottish thinkers and writers are relevant to Scottish thinkers and writers, and those located outside Scotland are not. Obviously this is a ridiculous thing to assume in the light of the last 30 or 40 years of Scottish criticism, which have seen the application of Bakhtin and postcolonial theory to Scottish literature. Yet I still don't think this question is silly. Because we see Scottish fiction and Scottish literary traditions as having to do with Scotland, with issues of nationalism, identity and homeland. We see it as something very definitely located, with clear geographical borders. And these borders are the problem. 

This does not mean that these issues are not important.  We should never take a 'national' literature for granted, and therefore should continue to explore its relationship to its territory. But this does not mean that we should confine our studies to this. Scottish history, the Scottish landscape, Scottish culture, etc., all provide a useful background against which to study Scottish writing.  But so does postcolonial theory, Marxism, postmodernity, international modernism, European existentialism, and so on unto infinity. When we study a literature that is 'located' in the way that Scottish literature is, it is necessary not only to question how essential or abitrary the category of 'Scottishness' is, but to expand our understanding of the texts beyond Scotland's borders.  International movements like modernism and existentialism are as important to Scotland as they are to France and Germany, and an extreme localising of Scottish fiction should not be viewed as the aim of its study.

I was at a departmental lunch for the fourth years who are thinking about doing Masters courses next year on Wednesday, and people were asking me about the MLitt in Modern Scottish Writing, and what I thought about it.  I replied that what was particularly good about the Stirling course was not that we never take 'Scottishness' for granted, and are taught to question the concept of a 'national' literature, parly by differentiating the contexts of cultural nationalism and political nationalism in texts. We try to determine what makes a text a 'national' text, rather than taking for granted that any text to come out of Scotland is automatically an example of 'national' literature. We also get endless opportunities to study Scottish fiction in contexts which are not necessarily 'Scottish', or are certainly not confined to Scotland.  I said I had chosen to come back to Stirling to do my masters because I found that there was something particularly progressive about the department's attitude to Scottish literature, an attitude determined to place Scottish literature on an infinite literary map, by means of compariative approaches and an insistence of seeing Scottish literature as having a life outside Scotland's borders. 

I hope that the outcome of all these contexts for Scottish literature is that, if I am ever a university lecturer, by the time this happens the question 'what does Heidegger have to do with Scottish literature' will be irrelevant.  We will be so used to studying regional literatures (and all literatures are regional, in a way) in international contexts that this question will not occur - we will be able to take for granted that no literature is so marginal that it is exempt from analysis in an international context. And the converse will hold true - people will no longer assume that to study Scottish literature is to study questions of nation and nationalism, no more and no less.  Scottish literature will cease to be seen as something to be studied by Scots and Scots alone, and there will no longer be a ridiculously small number of non-Scottish scholars in journals and monographs concerned with Scottish writing. Most great literature must start off in a specific location.  But no great literature stays confined to that location.  And if you don't believe me, have a go at the MLitt in Modern Scottish Writing at Stirling!

The Battle of the Scottish Artist according to Kelman

A tragedy struck on Wednesday morning.  I was ill.  As a result of this I couldn't traipse through to Edinburgh to see James Kelman speak at the Book Festival. At the time I thought this wasn't so bad - after all, he was generous enough to spend an hour with me in Glasgow last year while I asked him daft questions - up til now, I've been lucky with Kelman-related escapades, so I didn't think I could complain.  Plus, it was pouring with rain, hence traipsing through to Edinburgh didn't seem particularly attractive on that particular morning.

Having read this article, however, I'm now completely gutted.  Here is one of the biggest issues facing Scottish art being openly discussed in one of the most popular (not to mention bourgeouis) forums available, and I am at home being ill!  A literary gladiator is tackling the lions on their own turf, and I'm not even spectating.  Bugger.

However, let this not imply that I agreed immediately and unquestioningly with the sentiments that Kelman is reported to have expressed at this event.  At first, I was completely confused as to who the 'Scottish Literary Establishment', that he refers to in the article, are.  Being of a naturally paranoid nature, it occured to me that it might well mean folk like me - critics.  I thought that Kelman might think that becuase folk like me are shouting about how good Ian Rankin and J.K. Rowling are, and neglecting to shout about how good 'radical' writers like Tom Leonard (and Kelman himself) are, and sometimes even dissing said 'radical' writers, Scottish literature is being largely ignored and discredited. 

But of course, this isn't the case, as anyone who has read lit crit by Cairns Craig, Roderick Watson, Robert Crawford et. al will realise.  The fact is that critics, now more than ever, value the work of radical writers, and realise that theirs are voices which deserve to be heard - and which have to be heard, in my opinion.  Either Kelman doesn't realise this, or critics are not what he means when he says 'the literary establishment' (phew, I'm off the hook).

So in my quest to find out who Kelman means when he says 'the establishment', I did what any good critic would do - went to YouTube and typed in 'James Kelman'.  I found this:



I conjectured that in this video Kelman says pretty much the same thing as he is reported to have said in Edinburgh, except that instead of 'the establishment', he accused 'the media' of neglect and abuse of Scottish culture.  Aha, I thought. 

As it turns out, Kelman is taking issue with the way that literary fiction is recieved in Scotland by the media, by the people who decide what goes on TV, and what goes in the paper, and what gets advertised in the windows of bookstores.  He reckons that the Scottish media are far more interested in art which is produced in England, than art which is produced on their home turf.  The exceptions are those writers who have earned millions, and those which have been recognised by the English 'establishment'.  These might be deemed worthy of appearing in TV or in the window of Waterstones.  But not anyone else.  Kelman's own experience attests to this - before he was controversially awarded the Booker Prize in 1994, his work earned no attention whatsoever in Scotland, critical or otherwise.  But once the book had earned this plaudit from outside Scotland, Kelman became a celebrated writer in Scotland. 

If I am to replace Kelman's phrase 'establishment' with 'popular opinion', his claims start to make even more sense.  People in Scotland generally don't read Scottish literature.  Whether this is purely because the Scottish media doesn't like it is debateable, but the truth of the matter has to be admitted.  How many people working outside academia even know who Kelman is?  How many have read Tom Leonard, Alaisdair Gray, William MacIlvanney, Janice Galloway, Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy?  Why are these writers constantly failing to achieve recognition on their own turf, until they win an award which comes from the metropolis? 

Recent critics (including myself), who have used elements of postcolonial theory to analyse Scottish Literature, have discovered a vast inferiorism among Scots when it comes to their homegrown produce: namely that since the Union Scots have consistently failed to acknowledge their own culture as valid and valuable.  This applies to writers as well as the general Scottish reading public, and - of course - to the media.  Kelman points out that in other countries, writers are seen as people who have something to offer society.  They are on T.V., in the papers.  And they don't have to be acknowledged abroad in order for this to occur.  Yet no one is inviting Alasdair Gray to talk about Scottish culture on the news.  No one is asking Tom Leonard for his views on the Israel/Palestine situation.  In other words, no-one in Scotland is bothered about Scottish writing.

I'm bothered.  And if you're reading this, you're probably bothered too.  Forgetting Scotland for a minute, why is it that a book has to already be at the top of a bestseller list before you're average Joe will consider reading it?  Why is it that only certain kinds of books will ever top the bestseller lists (detective stories, fantasy, romance fiction)?  Why is it that these books almost never express radical or leftwing ideas?  Why is it that, as a result of this, a longstanding tradition of leftwing Scottish writing has been swept under the carpet over the last thirty years, an entire oeuvre consigned to the margins of academic study? 

Finally, what can we do about it?  Of all the questions Kelman's output has raised, I think that this one, at least, can be answered.  We must search the bookshelves (and indeed, the stores of amazon.co.uk) more thoroughly, and dig beyond the bestselling work of our day.  Not that we shouldn't read Rankin and Rowling - I for one have voiced the opinion that the Harry Potter books are extremely interesting in relation to subaltern studies - but we should also read Tom Leonard, James Kelman, Alasdair Gray, and the newer, less-plaudited poets, novelists and short-story writers that Scotland is blessed with in abundance.  We must not only read the Times Literary Supplement, but also magazines like Poetry Scotland, Northwords Now, and Magma - magazines which publish the writers of tomorrow as well as already-established writers.  And editors and publishers must continue to publish writers that have not been 'recognised' yet, in the acknowledgement that a writer who does not earn millions of pounds from bestsellers, or win international awards and prizes, can produce work which is just as valid and important as anything which has been awarded a Nobel prize.  In Hugh MacDiarmid's words, ‘Let us have an all-in view of the literary production of our country for a change’.

William McIlvanney at the Edinburgh Book Festival

Yesterday William McIlvanney was at the Edinburgh Book Festival, reading from his work and discussing the future of Scotland with Stuart Kelly (editor of new Scottish anthology Headshook) and a large audience. Here is a summary of what he said:

To start off the event, MacIlvanney read from his contribution to Headshook. The piece which he contributed is 'Burdalane', a poem in Scots. Burdalane is a Scots word for the last surviving member of a family. McIlvanney uses this as an image of the Scots language - according to him, it is very much on the point of death, and he claims that 'Much of what passes for Scots today is a kind of residual demotic gruel, a poorhouse version of the language'.

A committed Socialist, McIlvanney believes that socialism has not failed, but that what has failed is merely Marxist communism, which he believes to be inhumanly totalitarian and ‘as rational as achieving immortality by committing suicide’. He sees the Scottish Parliament as a very early step towards an independent Scottish Republic, and reckons that Scotland aren’t keen on the royal family in any case.

Although resigned to the fact that Scots (as he sees it) is dying, McIlvanney hopes that something of the Scots character remains. He sees this as an essential down-to-earthness, and reckons that if a Scotsman were to be confronted with Helen of Troy, his comment would be ‘that’s no a bad lookin wumman’. Apparently, a factor in this is that a Scotsman would be aware that he might see a better-looking one in future. He read from an article on Sean Connery, claiming that ‘if you forget where you came from, you forget where you’re going’, and praising Connery’s ability to remain unmistakeably Scottish throughout his career as an international personality and actor. He also pointed out and applauded Connery’s demonstration of the alleged national characteristic, relating that when Connery was voted the sexiest man in the world, he commented that this judgement didn’t include dead ones.

In response to my question, which asked McIlvanney where he sees himself in relation to a Scottish Literary Tradition – if there is such a thing, McIlvanney replied that that was in many ways irrelevant to him, and that he could not place himself in any ‘tradition’ as his writing could easily be forgotten about in the years to come. He said he writes as honestly as he can, and although some people credit him with telling the story of their lives, this is not what he does. However, he is aware that his experience is a shared experience, and is self-consciously aware of his role as a representative of ordinary people who are not normally represented in literature: the working-class, the poor, the ‘dispossessed’ Scots that he grew up with and still considers himself to be a part of. In this way he identifies himself with writers like James Kelman.

From this event I surmise two things: Firstly, that McIlvanney’s views on Scots and the ‘Scottish character’ are somewhat MacDiarmidian in his rather essentialist claims that all Scots portray particular characteristics as a result of the language they speak. Then again, this isn’t perhaps an irrational claim – the theoretical position at the moment seems to be that the world is constructed by language and not vice-versa, so surely if a people were to all speak a particular language they would construct themselves with certain elements in common? However, despite his identification with Kelman, I am not sure that Kelman would agree with his position on Scots as deteriorating into a ‘poorhouse version of itself’, and I’m not sure that I do either. Languages have many disparate elements and all are valuable. But Scots today for McIlvanney is MacDiarmid’s ‘language but that sparely floo’ers, an maistly gangs tae weed’, and that older, ‘purer’ form of Scots is about to vanish forever. Which does seem tragic, as we will have lost an ancient element of the Scots language, and indeed an element of the Anglo-Saxon languages of which English and Scots are both branches. However, for a man who claims not to subscribe to traditional views of tradition and canonicity, it seems hypocritical to value one form of language over another merely because it is old, and to claim that the character traits which were expressed in that form of language are more valuable than these which can be expressed in another. For me, at least, there is something rather elitist about this.

I also surmise that we need to redefine our ideas of ‘tradition’. The days when a national tradition was about which books were likely to withstand the test of time, which would always be held in high esteem by people whose opinions were loud enough to matter, is over. By identifying himself with Kelman, and claiming that his aim is to write about a people that have previously been written out of literature, McIlvanney is fitting in with a wider tradition in literature, in Scotland and also beyond it, where writers have aimed to portray these lives which have hitherto been confined to the margins of literature. Scottish writers like A.L. Kennedy and Tom Leonard fit into this ‘tradition’, as do writers as diverse as Linton Kwesi Johnson, Wole Soyinka and Ngugi. What these writers are doing is writing the history of the people who’s history would be lost, granted that history is usually written by the ‘winners’ – those who dominate society, economics, and the arts columns of the national newspapers. Perhaps there are several ‘traditions’, and that each tradition can span across continents and centuries, and that those writers who have been left out of the ‘tradition’ of prestige and canonicity can have their own, equally valid traditions.

After the reading I went to get my books signed, and heard a loud woman with an English accent tell a poor trapped bloke that he simply must read Docherty, that every household in Scotland should have a copy, and that she frequently sent copies to friends, irrelevant of whether they wanted them or not. This drove me nuts, as for me it implied that McIlvanney’s celebrated working-class novel is relevant to Scots, all Scots, and only Scots. Despite that this is a blog about Scottish books, for me Scottishness is a fairly arbitrary category. A sense of identity and belonging is as relevant to writers from all nations as it is to Scotland. Perhaps it is so dominant in Scotland as we are now so self-consciously aware of our status as a minority, ‘stateless’ nation that we have begun to claw back some of our autonomy, partly by establishing a new Scottish Parliament, and partly by developing such a persistent and thriving literature. This literature is relevant to Scotland in that it comes from Scotland, but a book need not address ‘Scottishness’ in any direct or indirect form to be a part of Scottish literature, and at the same time, being a part of Scottish literature need not mean that a book is not relevant outwith Scottish borders. Also, as the work of Sydney Goodsir Smith testifies, a writer need not be Scottish in order to contribute to its literature.

So what does this mean for Scottishness, and for Scottish literature? I hope it means that these things are bigger, and more diverse, than anyone might expect them to be. I hope it means that William McIlvanney is not just a Scottish writer, not just a working-class writer, not just a Socialist writer, but a writer whose work is relevant to all these categories and more, and a writer whose work anyone might be able to identify with regardless of birthplace, class, and political stance.