Product Description

Faced with a choice between her harsh farming life and the seductive but distant world of books and learning, Chris Guthrie eventually decides to remain in her rural community, bound by her intense love of the land. However, the intervention of the First World War leaves her choice in tatters. Chris is now a widowed single mother: her farm, and the land it occupies, is altered beyond recognition - trees torn down, people displaced. But although the novel describes a way of life which is in decline, it also presents a strong image of hope. Chris adapts to her new world, displaying an intuitive strength which, like the land which she loves, endures despite everything. "Sunset Song" is a testament to Scotland's agricultural past, to the world of crofters and tradition which was destroyed in the First World War. It is a powerful description of life in the first few decades of the century through the evocation of change and the lyrical intensity of its prose. Renowned expert Ian Campbell has produced the first new scholarly text for fifteen years and has the blessing of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon estate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148046 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 263 pages

Review
'Chris Guthrie is the most passionate and appealing heroine in Scottish literature; Grassic Gibbon's magnificent novel is fresh, powerful and timeless.' - Anne Donovan 'Its great gripping hybrid of melodrama and realism has left me scorched' - Ali Smith

About the Author
Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell) was one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. Born in Aberdeenshire in 1901, he died at the age of thirty-four. He was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays and science fiction, and his writing reflected his wide interest in religion, archaeology, history, politics and science. The Mearns trilogy, A Scots Quair, is his most renowned work, and has become a landmark in Scottish literature. Ian Campbell is Professor of Victorian and Scottish Literature at Edinburgh University.

Customer Reviews

Evocative and moving
No this isn't the easiest book to read - I'm a Scot but found myself referring to the glossary regularly. Though adding words like 'gowked' (stupified) and 'glunch' (to mutter half threateningly, half fearfully) to my vocabulary may be worthwhile! While the opening section which describes the village of Kinraddie and its occupants is hard going. However, once the story starts and sets the focus on it main character Chris Guthrie what develops it wonderful.

This is a beautiful picture of a soon to be lost way of life - small holding tenant farmers eking out an existence in north west Scotland at the beginning of the 20th century. Gibbon creates a number of strong memorable characters, Chris, Chae, Long Rob of The Mill who bring the whole thing life, by the end I felt I had known them all personally. While the life of the village is conveyed affectionately yet unsentimentally, there is no shortage of hardship and precious few unblemished characters. This is also a surprisingly modern novel in the way it deals with sex - never explicit but definitely sensual.

The coming of the WW1 heralds the end of the way of life that the village had known for generations. Gibbon paints a very believable picture of how that war impacted on one remote village.

By the end I felt I had had a little peek into the lives of a generation of Scots - little older than my parents - yet whose lives were so different from my own

No easy read - but well worth the effort.

A great questioning book
I first read this book at school for my Higher English and owing to the great pleasure I gained from it, went on to read other works by Lewis Grassic Gibbon; especially the remaining two books of this trilogy.

Sunset Song poses the question: Is the present really ever independent of the past and future? Grassic Gibbon achieves this all too subtly. The book follows the farming calendar, although not in the period of a single year, and parallels the same to the life of the main character Chris. The circular theme is continued through the use of symbolism throught the book.

Characterisation provides a great insight into the life of a rural community as it approaches World War I. The competing factions in the village can be seen as symbolic of the competing factions of Scotland at the time. The book develops and so does the demand to create a modern village, dependant on machinery and modern methods of farming. In the end the obvious, although after reading the novel many feel the wrong, result is reached and Kinraddie moves to the future.

However, the book does not end in the gloom that may be perceived by some. The last chapter of the book, finally closing the circle of time created by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, is one of hope and although reflective and, at times, emotional, never looks back to lament for those things that have gone. Through the erection of the war memorial in the middle of a stone circle, the village symbolically places the past at the centre of its world but does not lament.

The ending provides yet another new beginning in the life of Chris and I would highly recommend reading the two final parts of the trilogy. A book of great insight and exceptionally thought provoking.

A fantastic, moving novel - if hard to read at first!
Many people seem to think this novel is "about" Chris, the central female character. Personally I thought it was about rural Scottish life in the early 1900's, and how a particular community comes to be affected by issues far outside of its own borders and its own control.

The close relationships and way of life within a community such as this, means that even very trivial events or actions carried out by an individual all carry great importance to others. Gossip and rumour necessarily play a significant role in the novel.

The unique writing style of the novel does initially make it very hard to read. Sentences are long, and are often not restricted to a single subject or idea, but once the reader learns to engage with the narrator and understands the style, it is like being told a story by a trusted friend.

By the end of the novel, the reader can closely identify with each of the characters, and as their individual fates are decided, it is impossible not to feel a high degree of sympathy for each of them. I personally found it a very moving read - but must admit that had I not had to study this book as part of my degree, I may well have put it down early on and not picked it back up - that would truly have been a great shame. Stick with it, and you will be glad you did!