I'm off on the Vic 32 for a week, but I'll be taking the soon to be published short stories of Ewan Morrison and Robert Alan Jamieson's 'Da Happie Land' which I'll tell you all about on my return. There will be music as well, oh yes. But in the meantime here are two of my favourite songs and a classic bit of comedy for you to enjoy:
David Mackenzie is slowly building an impressive body of work. Films such as The Last Great Wilderness, Asylum, Hallam Foe and the forthcoming You Instead and Perfect Sense are some of the best and most interesting films of recent years. Mackenzie has a wonderful ability for making often downbeat and depressing subject matter engaging and beautiful to look at. There is a surreal dreamlike quality to his films, dreams that can turn to nightmares without warning.
His 2003 film Young Adam is an adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's 1957 novel of the same name. If Mackenzie's film had done nothing more than point people in the direction of this underrated novel it would have been worthwhile, but it is a mostly successful attempt at bringing a novel which many felt un-filmable to the big screen. This was only Mackenzie's second feature and the cast he was able to bring to the project speaks volumes for how he is thought of as a director.
The central roles are taken by Ewan MacGregor, Emily Mortimer, Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan. As you might expect Swinton and Mullan are scene stealers, but MacGregor is good as the amoral Joe, and Mortimer is wonderfully vulnerable as the abused Cathy, and her performance makes you wonder why she hasn't appeared on screen more. The last time I remember seeing her was as Alec Baldwin's brittle-boned girlfriend in 30 Rock, but she is a strong screen presence who deserves bigger roles.
I have written about my admiration for Peter Mullan many times on these pages so I'll only say here that he is as reliably Mullan as you would expect. Tilda Swinton, who I have loved ever since her performances as Cissy Crouch in Your Cheatin' Heart (see Your Cheatin' Heart...) and as Orlando is Derek Jarman's 1992 film, has quietly built a brilliant career. Highlights include performances in Adaptation, Thumbsucker, Broken Flowers, Michael Clayton and Burn After Reading. Like Mullan she uses her fame to promote film in Scotland, and is one of the most important figures in Scottish culture today. Where various councils and 'creative' bodies sit around deciding who should get what share of an increasingly small pot of money, she realises what is important and creates opportunities for films to find an audience. You have to make people aware of what's on offer, and too many people think that the creation of film, theatre, fiction, music etc is enough. That's the beginning, it's just as important to get the work into people's hands, so to speak. Only then will you really know if it is any good or not. But enough of the railing, here's the trailer for Young Adam:
The film is beautifully shot, often with a wonderful sepia tinge that makes Glasgow look as if it rarely sees the sun (who'd have thought), and also makes many scenes uncomfortable and claustrophobic. It also shows parts of the city rarely seen on screen, making great use of the canal and the twists and turns of the Saltmarket. At times it reminds me of the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet in that Mackenzie also creates a world that is hyperreal and unreal simultaneously, and you are never sure if what you are watching is reliable. David Mackenzie; the unreliable director.
Here's a fascinating 'behind the scenes' video which interviews all the main players involved in Young Adam:
Coming soon from David Mackenzie are You Instead, the odd-couple romance shot over three days at last years T in the Park (see You Have Been Watching (Glasgow Film Festival Spec...) and the apocalyptic love story that is Perfect Sense, which once again stars Ewan MacGregor alongside Eva Green, and which I'm reliably told is moving and genuinely unsettling. With a new Ken Loach film being shot in Glasgow as I type, the excellent The Island getting a release (see You Have Been Watching (Glasgow Film Festival Spec...), Peter Mackie Burn's Glaswegian documentary Come Closer hitting the festivals this summer, and the long awaited return of Lynne Ramsay (so excited) with her adaptation of Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin (starring Tilda Swinton), this is shaping up to be a rather special year for Scottish film and film makers.
So far this year my favourite album has been PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, but it now has a contender for that title in the shape of Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat's collaboration Everything's Getting Older. Moffat, that boy with the Arab Strap, I'm sure most of you know about, but Wells is Scottish music's go to guy if you want some atmospheric jazz behind your lyrics.
I first discovered his work when I bought a copy of The Bill Well's Trio's 2003 album Also In White, one of the most atmospheric records I own and one I continue to play to this day. Doing a bit of a background check I found out about his collaboration with Future Pilot AKA in 1999. Since then he has worked with The Gentle Waves, Arab Strap, Telstar Ponies, Kama Aina, Isobel Campbell, Duglas T. Stewart and The Pastels (most notably on the tremendous soundtrack to the David Mackenzie film The Last Great Wilderness where he also appears as part of the house band). His presence on an album is a reliable sign that the music is going to be rather fine. Never has this been more evident than on Everything's Getting Older. Here's the video for the first single (If You) Keep Me In Your Heart:
Aidan Moffat benefits greatly from having Wells' music behind him. His dolorous vocal style is suited perfectly to the loose groove Wells provides. Much of Moffat's recent work, particularly I Can Hear Your Heart and How to Get to Heaven from Scotland, is reminiscent of early to mid period Tom Waits and I didn't think I'd ever write that. Imagine Moffat singing The Piano Has Been Drinking or Burma Shave, or Waits covering The Last Kiss or City of Love and you'll hopefully understand the comparison. At the moment this is my favourite track on Everything's Getting Older, and perfectly shows how well Wells and Moffat work together. This is The Copper Top:
Moffat's major talent is as a storyteller (read his story The Donaldson Boy in last year's The Year of Open Doors short story collection as proof). This collaboration shows those stories off to full effect. He has said that he's now going to work with other people. That's fine, but, on the evidence of Everything's Getting Older, I hope he returns to Bill Wells a few times more.
As a wee bonus track here's The Bill Wells Trio with D.A.D.E to relax one and all:
Marilyn Monroe has a strange hold over many people, myself included. She was the third female poster on my bedroom wall after Debbie Harry and, dating me very specifically, Nena of 99 Red Balloons fame. When I should have been studying for my standard grade exams I was reading two biographies instead. One was The Mutant King, David Dalton's book on James Dean, and the other was Randall Riese and Neal Hitchen's The Unabridged Marilyn. I was fascinated, and perhaps mildly obsessed, with these two screen icons who had died young and beautiful. Even after getting my predictably terrible results, and to this day, I don't regret spending that time getting to know them.
Andrew O'Hagan is obviously similarly smitten with the myth of Marilyn. His novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and Marilyn Monroe looks at the final years of her life, beginning just after her split from Arthur Miller, through the eyes of her dog Maf (short for Mafia Honey. He was a present from Frank Sinatra, another icon who is a major character in the novel). This decision is a brave one, and one that could have backfired spectacularly. I am a huge fan of O'Hagan's fiction, but I was wary about this book. It all sounded a bit 'Disney' to me. I should have known better. O'Hagan has written a novel that looks at the nature of celebrity, the human need to be loved, and respected, and which comments upon the absurdities that accompany being human beings.
The dogs in the novel are superior in almost every way to the humans. They are well read, philosophical and have a world weary view that is if not cynical about their 'masters', is at least brutal in its honesty. There is a fantastic scene where Maf is talking literature and philosophy with other dogs. It is reminiscent of Woody Allen as these intellectuals bandy talk of Proust, Aristotle and the theory that Toto is the central character in The Wizard of OZ. Actually, if you are a fan of Allen, particularly Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories and Hannah and Her Sisters, then I think you'll love this book. The novel has a similar mixture of intellectual enquiry and human failing and there is an easy sense of humour that I hadn't expected from O'Hagan. This is his most charming work to date.
The human supporting cast include Sammy Davis JR, Nathalie Wood and her dog breeding mother, Lee Strasberg, Angie Dickinson and Carson McCullers. Both human and canine chat about Doestoevsky, Henry James and Sigmund Freud and consider the relationship between individuals, art and politics. The backdrop to the novel is the election success of John F. Kennedy and the hope that this brought to liberal America. But this is Maf's book, and his story is as interesting as any of these more famous humans. His early life was among London's Bloomsbury set where he sat at the feet of Virginia Wolf, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant learning about philosophy, aesthetics and literature. He is the hero of the piece in the true meaning of the word, protecting his mistress with a loyalty that is ultimately heartbreaking. Maf is one of my favourite literary characters of recent years.
As is increasingly the case these days, the release of the novel was accompanied by this 'trailer'. Take a gander:
Marilyn Monroe was not a great actress, even she would have admitted that, although she wanted to be. What she had was a presence and vulnerability that is difficult to pin down. Those who say her appeal was all about sex are mistaken. Her sex appeal was part of it, but there was also an apparent innocence that many mistook as a lack of intelligence. O'Hagan's novel doesn't play to the myth of 'poor' Marilyn, a weak woman who was destroyed by men and fame. He paints her as someone on a constant quest to better herself, to be respected rather than simply loved. This is not a sensationalist novel, but a respectful one that could only have been written by someone who has at least tried to understand Marilyn the person rather than the legend. Here's a clip of Monroe as Sugar Kane in Some Like it Hot, to my mind the best film she was involved with:
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and Marilyn Monroe is moving but never morose. Like much of Andrew O'Hagan's fiction the novel uses a lot of fact, or at least accepted truths, to give the story credence. The author has dealt with the pressures of celebrity before in his 2003 novel Personality, a barely disguised biography of Scotland's own Lena Zavoroni, a singer who couldn't cope with the pressures of fame. I would say Personality is his weakest novel. It's still a terrific read, but I got the feeling that the balance between fact and fiction was poorly judged. The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog doesn'tfall into that trap, and it doesn't jar when the fiction and biography meet. It is an odd book, but a very good one. This is refreshing as too often Scottish writers write in similar styles and forms and deal with familiar subject matter. And let's face it, a little oddity never hurt anyone.
John Niven first came to my attention when I bought a copy of Kill Your Friends, a psychotic look at the music business in London in the 1990s, and which sparked one of the most indiscreet conversations with a stranger that I have ever had. You can read what I thought about it here indelible-ink-kill-your-friends, (the novel that is) but imagine if Irvine Welsh had written American Psycho and set it in London and you're close to understanding Kill Your Friends. His second novel The Amateur tried to do for golf what he did for music in his debut, but was a disappointment. However he is back with a vengeance, and once again on controversial form, with his third novel The Second Coming.
The premise is genius in its simplicity. God has not taken a holiday since the Haedean aeon. Time moves differently in heaven. For every day there 57 years pass on earth. At the height of the Renaissance he is persuaded that, as we humans seem to be at the height of our creative and intellectual powers, it's time for another break. He takes a couple of weeks off to fish, relax and drink some beers, returning in 2011 and things have not be going so well here on earth. God had left his son in charge, but Jesus has taken his eye off the ball somewhat, preferring to hang out with Jimi Hendrix and learn some new riffs. After much wailing and brain storming with the apostles, (including a wonderfully foulmouthed St Andrew) he decides that there is only one way to combat earth's debauchery, decadence and destruction. Send the boy back.
Jesus Christ, or JC as he is known, of course becomes famous, appearing on a US talent show, and uses that fame to try and change people's lives. The parallels with his original visit to earth, at least as according to Matthew, are marked and deliberate. What surprised me was the integrity that Niven allowed Jesus. I was expecting that he would be terribly corrupted by 21st century America, but despite the best attempts of many of those he comes into contact with, Niven keeps him in character. It is actually a more positive and uplifting novel than I ever thought John Niven capable of, although still a withering commentary on human failings. The Second Coming sees the welcome return of one of Niven's greatest creations. I won't spoil the surprise here, but he arrives just in time to keep things interesting, becoming JC's greatest challenge and arch nemesis.
If you've ever wondered how anyone claiming to be Jesus would be treated today then this book is as good a depiction of how events may unfold as I can imagine. Although, like Niven's previous novels, The Second Coming is blackly comic (the scenes when JC and his dad visit Hell are particularly visceral) there are a lot of serious issues under consideration. Niven has written a fast paced, entertaining, and endearing novel which does so much more than simply comment on religion. TV, fame, celebrity, consumerism, capitalism and modern day America all come under his gaze, and lo, he finds it is not good. But this is not a 'moral' novel, or at least if it is then it keeps those morals well hidden. Here is Niven talking about his debut Kill Your Friends:
The Second Coming is similar in subject and attitude to Richard Herring's stand up show Christ on a Bike (see Herring's Rules: An Interview With Richard Herring...). Like Herring, Niven takes the view that there is nothing inherently wrong with a lot of what is written in the New Testament, if you can ignore the glaring contradictions of the gospels. The problem is with the interpretation not necessarily the text. Niven reduces Christian theology to the simplest of tenets 'Be Nice', apparently the only commandment given to Moses before he decided to embellish it somewhat. What both men do is to puncture the stupidity of much of organised religion, and the very idea that a god of any substance would prefer one group of people over another. In both men's work Jesus is genuinely the hero, if a flawed one. The Second Coming surprised me and made me realise that far from being the one hit wonder that I feared Niven may have become, he is turning into one of the most interesting, and naturally entertaining, writers around.
If you want to hear John Niven being spectacularly indiscreet about his time in the music business then you should download episode 45 of The Word’s weekly podcast, which you can do for free at i-tunes or you can click on the link below. The conversation about ‘bad-cocaine albums’ is interesting. Scottish music fans in particular may be surprised at one of the claims.John Niven talks about ‘Kill Your Friends’ on The Word Podcast
Competition Time! I have a signed copy of The Second Coming to give away. To stand a chance of winning email me the answer to this question:
Q: John Niven was responsible for the success of Mike Flowers Pops. Which Oasis song did they famously cover?
Closing date is the 30th May. Send your answers to scotswhayhae@gmail.com and the best of luck.
Last Sunday and Monday night saw a cracking period drama on BBC1. No change there then, but the period was the early 1980s in Glasgow. The Field of Blood may have done nothing to disuade people of the idea that Glasgow is No Mean City, but when the writing, direction and acting is of this quality then it would be churlish to complain.
The drama was adapted from Denise Mina's novel of the same name and was directed by David Kane, more of whom below. This is a pairing which was bound to provide interesting work. Mina is one of Scotland's most successful novelists and everything Kane is involved in has something that will capture your attention.
The cast is packed with well kent faces, many of whom are from Craiglang and Shieldinch. Ford Kiernon plays a sleazy arsehole in a very convincing manner, and he is joined by Clansman regulars Brian Pettifer and Gavin Mitchell. Also on board are Louise Goodhall, Stephen McCole, Matt Costello and Helen McAlpine and no-one lets the team down. David Morrisey, Derek Ridell and Bronagh Gallagher were also involved and in top form. Morrisey is always worth watching, and Ridell has become one of the best screen presences we have. You'll recognise him from The Book Group (see 'You Have Been Watching' (TV Special) The Book Gro...), State of Mind, and the episode of Dr Who with Queen Victoria and werewolves. I find I always look forward to something just that wee bit more when I find out he's involved.
Jayd Johnson has the unenviable task of being the hero of the piece, and the fact that she holds her own in this company holds out hope that she has a great future ahead of her. River City is regularly given a bit of a kicking, but if they produce talent like Johnson then long may it continue. Then there is Peter Capaldi who, as long time readers of this blog will know, is not only one of my favourite actors but one of my favourite people. In The Field of Blood he has barely any screen time, another example of director Kane's confidence, but when he is you can't take your eyes off him. He is becoming Scotland's character actor par excellence, which I hope won't mean he just appears in such cameos. His character of Dr Pete is an alcoholic journalist whose faith has long since disappeared and who is now battling cancer. Well not exactly battling it, more welcoming it. The scene, which you can see below, of him reciting Dylan Thomas's Death Shall Have No Dominion is the stand out scene of the drama, and you can see it below. Who would have thought that young Danny Olsen from Local Hero would turn into an actor of such gravitas?:
David Kane is one of Scottish films unsung heroes. Whatever he directs or writes is always of interest. From the fondly remembered Jute City, through his features Ruffian Hearts, This Year's Love and Born Romantic, then back to writing for TV with Sea of Souls and Rebus. He directs with a sure touch and a wry, if dark, sense of humour. In other hands The Field of Blood could have been a nostalgic nightmare, like Taggart crossed with Ashes to Ashes. Importantly this was down to the non-obvious details he used to paint the period. The pace of the first part was fairly slow and I do wonder if the two-parter was filmed as one. It would have made perfect sense as a two hour feature. I hope Davie Kane returns to the big screen soon as he is one of the few Scottish directors who doesn't seem restricted by ideas of what a Scottish film maker should be dealing with. Plus, he always puts together excellent soundtracks. Whereas many directors would have gone for the obvious tracks, Kane works hard to get the music just right. An example of this is his choice of music from The Jam. He passes over Town Called Malice and goes for Ghosts:
The Field of Blood was a good example of that all too rare beast, a cracking Scottish drama. There are so many talented people in the arts that there should be such collaborations more often. Great writers, great directors and great actors working together. Just a thought.
It's always exciting when you find somewhere that offers you a different take on music, and Noisey, the new online music channel brought to life by the good people of Vice magazine, brings the best music from around the world directly to your eyes and ears.
Bands already featured include The Vaccines (filmed live at Glasgow's Captain's Rest), Rent Boys, Porcelain Raft, Chad Valley, Flats and the mighty Natur, and that's just the UK section. You can also browse live action and interviews from Australia, through China and Mexico, to the US, and back again. Literally hours of top quality music and chat. You can find all of this at noisey.com.
What brought the channel to my attention was their feature on Mogwai, which has Stuart and Barry visiting Mudchute urban farm in London intertwined with live footage of the band playing the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen. There's over an hour of live material, and all for nought. That's got to be worth it. Below is the introductory video to Noisey followed by some fantastic Mogwai footage:
Noisey will be updated regularly so it's always worth repeat visits. In the meantime there's lots and lots for me and you.
I'm a lucky auld sod. Over the last year or so I've got to interview some of my favourite writers, such as Andrew Collins (see Edinburgh Exchange: An Interview with Andrew Colli...), Rodge Glass (see Edinburgh Exchange: An Interview with Rodge Glass), Alan Bissett (see Some Things Mean More Than Cars and Girls: An Inte...) and Doug Johnstone (see Whisky, Blood and Rock n' Roll: An Interview with ...) and have been able to ask them questions about their writing, but also about wider issues such as the importance, and future, of writing in modern Scottish culture. Some of these thoughts have been rattling around my head for years and to be able to put them to such a range of writers has not only been insightful, but exciting. I can now add to this list Kevin MacNeil, a man who is, in my humble opinion, one of the best writers at work today, both in the form of his poetry and prose.
There is something about the Lewis born and raised MacNeil that sets him apart from other Scottish writers, and it is not simply geographical, although I have a hunch that has something to do with it. It is in his writing. He writes with the care of a poet, with every word considered and deliberate, and that was obvious from his debut novel The Stornoway Way (a review of which you can read here indelible-ink). The result of this is not overcomplicated or unnecessarily showy writing, it feels quite natural. His fiction is subtly layered, and gives further insight with each reading. His most recent novel The Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde was one of the best novels of last year (see Dr Jekyll and Mr MacNeil...) and his forthcoming anthology of Island poetry, The Islands We Sing, is shaping up to be a hugely important publication. Thankfully he took time out from a very busy schedule to indulge me and answer the following questions:
SWH: As a writer from the Isle of Lewis who has also lived and worked in Scotland’s larger cities, it strikes me you are in the unusual position of being both outside and inside the mainstream of contemporary Scottish writing. Do you agree that your background gives you a ‘different’ view on Scottish culture and how do you view the state of Scottish literature currently?
KM: I do. I was born and raised in Lewis, I've lived in Edinburgh (twice), Skye (twice), Glasgow (twice), Sweden, Germany, Shetland and I now live (happily) in London. I've never been part of a writing clique. I've never attended a Writers Group, far less studied towards a Creative Writing qualification. I learned the hard way and, all these years later, I concede that there was merit in this.
When I first started writing seriously, I regretted not having a group of like-minded peers. I began publishing work in literary magazines when I was a student at EdinburghUniversity and I simply didn't know anyone at that time who was my approximate age and writing with the uncharacteristic determination and all-or-nothing attitude I had.
I had good friends, some of whom critiqued my work, but I yearned for something like the companionship the Beats had, or at least the positive elements of it – friends discussing the flaws and successes of each other's latest writings, talking through the practicalities of getting work published, swapping books and ideas, crashing on each other's floors – that kind of support. I had nothing like that.
Being from an island, this felt somehow inevitable and, with hindsight, almost appropriate. Add to the isolation the fact I was too insecure to do public readings. I had to find my own way, albeit with the occasional enlightening, crucial, never-forgotten chat with Andrew Greig, who was Writer in Residence at EdinburghUniversity at the time. He mentored me through my early attempts at writing. The first time he read my work – I wrote poetry exclusively at the time – he said: 'Kevin, these poems are an intriguing combination of real, original talent and cloudy nothingness.' I still smile at that piercing, humbling, beneficial praise-within-limits; it's very Scottish – encouraging, but not overly so. I had a lot to learn and Andrew knew it and I knew it. He understood instinctively that I wanted tough and honest criticism, not the ego-friendly sort.
I was practising zazen, zen meditation, regularly. I gained immensely from Andrew's diamond-sharp wisdom. His office was on the 8th floor of the DavidHumeTower in George Square. A number of years later I would find myself occupying an office there, teaching on the EdinburghUniversity Creative Writing Masters. I'd come full circle, karma-like.
So - yes, I've always felt both inside and outside the mainstream of Scottish literary culture – part of it, but also very much separate from it.
Nowadays I live in London, but I always have an eye trained on the North.
SWH: While your fiction is distinctly individual, there are aspects that you share with other Scottish writers. I’m thinking particularly of the prominence of the ‘damaged individual’ in Scottish literature. Both ‘The Stornoway Way’ and ‘A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde’ have protagonists who could be described this way. Why do you think Scottish writers, and readers, are drawn to such characters?
KM: In most literary contexts the damaged individual makes for an inherently fascinating protagonist – partly because we are, all of us, damaged. Damage is part of the human condition. This is not just about fallibility and existential doubt. We are born into fragmentation. We're fallible, and that's how it is. What then can we do about it? We can explore what it means and, as I'm increasingly inclined to think, we can offer positive ideas on how to improve our situation.
There are solid historical reasons as to why characters from my part of the world might feel culturally slighted – and this certainly has a psychological effect on the remotely engaged individual in society – but wallowing in the past offers little in the way of active solution.
In terms of the traditional Scottish method males use to deal with their sense of damage, this was something I wrote about in The Stornoway Way. In some cultures, people will take out their most enduring frustrations on others, ie externally, whether through ugly violence or fear-mongering or some other kind of demonstration. In the Highlands, men tend to repress or at least internalise their problems and subsequently they will try to 'escape' the problems by anaesthetising themselves through, for example, alcohol. Which, being a poisonous depressant, is more likely to exacerbate than extinguish a problem. I wanted to show in The Stornoway Way how this attempt to resolve such damage only leads to a dead end.
In A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll and Hyde I accepted that the problem of damage is a larger, more existential issue and thus I had to address it at root level. The notion of damage stems from the fact that we cannot be continuously happy in ourselves when the self is so fluid, so inconsistent. This very dynamism in our nature – the fact that we are always changing in reaction to our ever-evolving circumstances – is useful for writers as it allows for meaningful character development. But if we are honest with ourselves – as novelists must be, for all that they tell lies for a living – human life is marked by transience, dissatisfaction and frustration. We are born into this without knowing why.
As science and your own experience frequently demonstrate, there is no such thing as a fixed, unchanging self. You are in flux, changing physically and mentally. All the while your body is ageing. And you are now experiencing this very moment for what is (self-evidently) the first time.
I'm now turning my thoughts to how we can reconcile ourselves to these apparent problems and repair that sense of damage within a literary, but practical, context.
SWH: In both of your novels there are surprising, and quite brilliant, endings. The final section of ‘A Method Actor’s Guide to Jekyll and Hyde’ in particular had me reading the book over again to see if I could pick up clues as to what was to come. When you write a novel, or even a short story, do you have an ending in mind? Or do you start at the beginning with no idea of your destination?
KM: Both novels had clear premises, which lead quite naturally to the conclusions they contain. I did have endings in mind when I started writing the novels. I feel more secure if I know where I'm going to end up when I start writing a story – this is especially true when embarking on a novel.
I plan my novels like going for a long bike ride. I have a decent map, I've trained hard, I've packed well and I know I might get lost or make a few detours as circumstances necessitate, but ultimately I know where I'm heading. The challenge, and fun of it, is getting there in one piece.
I seeded many 'clues', images, phrases and ideas in Method Actor. It's a novel full of echoes and allusions – to itself and to Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (Incidentally, whereas the premise of Stevenson's story is that man is not one, but two, my premise in A Method Actor's Guide to Jekyll & Hyde is one of interconnectedness, of interbeing; we are all not two, but one. Overarching duality and multiplicity is unity.) Perhaps because I began my writing life as a poet, I like the idea of embedding subtleties so that readers will feel compelled to read the novel (at least) twice – and find fresh insights on each reading. As Borges said, 'I sometimes think that good readers are poets as singular, and as awesome, as great authors themselves.' I wanted to write the kind of novel that repays re-reading.
SWH: Could you talk about the forthcoming anthology of Island poetry ‘The Island’s We Sing’?
KM: I'm very excited about These Islands, We Sing. Despite the fact that the Scottish islands have produced, by anyone's standards, an inordinate amount of high quality poetry, there has never been an anthology with a remit wide enough to include poetry from any of the Scottish islands but exclusive enough not to encompass writing from the Mainland or from writers who merely made fleeting visits to the islands. This anthology – of 20th and 21st century poetry from the Scottish islands - is extraordinarily strong.
These Islands, We Sing features writing from the major twentieth century figures such as George Mackay Brown, Sorley MacLean, Iain Crichton Smith, Hugh MacDiarmid and the great contemporary poets such as Jen Hadfield, Anna Frater, Alex Cluness and Christine de Luca. The overall quality is ridiculously high – the book could have been as long as a shelf if that were in any way practicable! It's intriguing to reflect on the similar yet different experiences of poets on different islands, indigenous and incomer alike. Publication of the book ties in with the Year of Scottish Island Culture and I think it's fair to say that the poetic contribution the Scottish islands have offered Scottish and European culture has been disproportionately great and disproportionately overlooked. Editing the book was hard work, but it was an absolute joy – there are so many thrilling poems in there.
SWH: Literature from the Highlands and Islands, whether in Gaelic, Scots or English, is finally getting critical and academic recognition. Do you have any thoughts as to why this is, and is there still a way to go before such recognition is a fair reflection of the literature of the area?
KM: Does literature from the Highlands receive, or has it ever received, sufficient critical and academic recognition? Perhaps not. A prophet without honour, et cetera. I'm actively trying to do something about this issue – editing books such as These Islands, We Sing, editing the two large Iain Crichton Smith volumes Birlinn published a few years ago, teaching writing workshops in the GÃ idhealtachd, writing my own books, reading work by other Highlands and Islands writers when I'm asked to read at festivals, writing occasional critical features for newspapers, and so on. There is a long way to go yet and we must guard against parochialism or tokenism. It's a fight worth fighting.
SWH: Finally, could you talk a little about your play ‘Sweetness’ and other current projects?
KM: Sweetness is a play I adapted from a novel (Hummelhonung) by the wonderful, innovative Swedish writer Torgny Lindgren – who is rightly revered in his home nation but is less well-known elsewhere. I wanted to raise his profile in Scotland by writing a play based around his dark and funny and profound book; his novel sizzles with a vibrant humour; and this humour is always tied to ideas about real life, especially life as it is lived in ‘marginal’ places, where everything can seem simple but is actually intensified and magnified. It’s in the neglected margins that the most central truths often occur; they’re just not widely recognised as such, for self-evident reasons.
Doesn’t make them any less true, though.
The plot, which is well suited to a Scottish audience, develops in delightfully dark and unexpected ways, teasing and entertaining and surprising as it goes. There is profundity beneath the morbidity and the hilarity; the triumph of the story is that the journey through sadness and death and truth and fate and memory is a journey of beauty and resonance. I love Swedish literature.
As for my own work, I'm currently writing a new novel, which is very different to anything else I've written to date...
Scots Whay Hae! and Kevin MacNeil 10/5/2011
I always like to leave you with a little extra so here is a little music for you. This is a clip of Kevin with ex Astrid and Reindeer Section musician Willie Campbell at Belladrum in 2009 with Optimist Dies in a Half Run Bath:
Kevin's books can be bought from The Birlinn and Polygon Book Shop
His website is always worth a visit kevinmacneil where you can find everything MacNeil related, and more.
The photo at the top of the interview was taken by, and copyright belongs to, Francis John MacNeil.
Remember that Doug Johnstone? Yes you do, the one that wrote the whisky and violence novel Smokeheads (see For Peat's Sake: Doug Johnstone's 'Smokeheads'...). Remember I said he was also in the band Northern Alliance, who someone once claimed were like Arab Strap crossed with Sparklehorse? How good does that sound? Well, to add yet another string to an already busy bow he's only gone and released his debut solo EP Keep It Afloat.
What's it like? Well it's a keenly personal collection of songs which touch on parenthood, relationships, homesickness and the way that failure can be a positive thing in the longrun (It's all about character as George C Scott tells Paul Newman in The Hustler). Keep it Afloat also has what I now realise are Johnstone regulars. There's blood, drugs, rock n' roll and, yes, a car crash, with which the man seems to have a borderlline obsession. After listening to the EP a few times now I realise it couldn't have been written by anyone else. See what you think:
Keep it Afloat is an adult collection of pop songs, and that's a good thing because Doug is an adult, and so am I if I really concentrate. In other areas of music it is perfectly acceptable to grow old and write and sing about the changes that accompany life. Think Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield in soul, Billie Holiday in jazz, Richard Thompson in folk, and almost everyone in country music. But there's something about rock and pop in particular that seems to demand that its protagonists remain in a perpetual state of youth. I give you Messrs Pop, Jagger, Jackson and Stewart. It doesn't mean I fall out of love with their records, but it's not exactly dignified behaviour. There is something pathetic about, say, pretending to still be Mr Rock n' roll when you ask the police to get the neighbourhood pub to keep the noise down (I'm looking right at you Gillespie). The best music has an element of truth in it, that's what lends it emotion. Keep it Afloat has an honesty that few of Johnstone's contemporaries would dare, and it still has you on your feet by the end.
If you'd like to get your hands on a copy then visit dougjohnstone.bandcamp.com. It's only £2 for the download and £3 for a lovely hard copy.
He's also undertaken a short tour if you fancy a night oot with some good music:
It is time to talk about Trainspotting. I've been putting this off as the film not only overshadowed Scottish cinema for a while, it also overshadowed the source novel, and, let's face it, most of you will already be familiar with it. Trainspotting became such an all encompassing phenomenon; the novel, the film, the soundtrack and the advertising campaign, that it didn't just change Scottish culture, it sold it to the world.
In reality the book and the film are two very different beasts. Irvine Welsh's novel is really a collection of interlinked short stories which director Danny Boyle had to somehow collate into a coherent narrative. This meant losing some of Welsh's central characters, such as Second Prize, Nina and Davie, or relegating them to cameos, as happens with Alison and Mother Superior (so called due to length of his habit. A great line). The movement from page to screen has other problems, not least the fact that the female characters are as poorly served in the film as they are in the novel where they are one-dimensional at best. Boyle, or rather John Hodge who wrote the screenplay, cannot be blamed for this. Welsh has a real problem writing female characters, something I believe is more than simply bad writing. Boyle tried to make Kelly Macdonald's Diane a central character in the film, but although she appears on the poster (a situation that occurred only because Kevin McKidd was ill on the day of shooting, trivia fans), and has one great piece of dialogue, this is a boy's own tale. Boyle also removed a lot of the amoral behaviour that is to be found in the book. Ewan MacGregor's Renton is hardly a saint, but he does not plumb the depths Welsh's Renton sinks to and the film gives him the hint of conscience which is missing from the original. Perhaps understandably, Welsh's characters are more vivid and interesting, and you can read my thoughts on the novel here indelible-ink-trainspotting, but Boyle makes a great job of bringing the lives of this gang of reprobates successfully to screen.
A major reason for this is the casting. The film boosted the already successful careers of MacGregor and Robert Carlyle immeasurably, and launched those of Ewan Bremner, Kelly Macdonald, Johnny Lee Miller and Kevin McKidd. All of these, with the exception of MacDonald, had made movies before, but Trainspotting thrust them into the limelight, thanks in no small part to that iconic poster which ended up on many a wall. The selling of the film was equally important in its success. The soundtrack was flawlessly compiled, bringing together icons such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and New Order with some of the rising stars of Britpop; Pulp, Sleeper, Blur and Elastica amongst them. And then there was the trailer, which breathlessly sold the film in two minutes:
And so to the two 'Ewans'. In the stage play of Trainspotting Ewan Bremner was the original Renton, and was certainly closer to Welsh's characterisation. But it is unsurprising that they chose MacGregor to front the film as he was Boyle's lead of choice after the success of Shallow Grave. MacGregor only really works for me as an actor when he is playing a morally dubious, smug, yet often charming, arsehole. As evidence I would put forward the aforementioned Shallow Grave and Young Adam. It is this quality that makes him perfect for Renton as he clearly believes he is superior to all his accomplices, something he goes on to prove. If the intent was to suggest that we are all essentially selfish then MacGregor manages to convey this effortlessly. His casting also meant that we got to see Bremner render a heartbreaking yet comic performance as Spud. Spud is the heart of the movie, the one who genuinely believes that friendship is the most important thing in the world. Here he is deliberately sabotaging his own job interview:
The greatest performance comes from Robert Carlyle as the psychotic Franco 'the beggar' Begbie, a turn which is up there with De Niro's Travis Bickle, Malcolm MacDowell's Alex Burgess, and Denis Hopper's Frank Booth as a truly unsettling screen presence. If you've never met a character like Begbie then be thankful, because they are out there. The guys who say you're in their seat when every other one is empty, or claim that you're looking at them the wrong way when the reality is that, for them, there is no right way. The guys whose idea of masculinity is so screwed up that they feel the need to prove themselves constantly through violence and aggression. Real charmers. But if Begbie just stood on his own he would be a one-dimensional monster. What makes him really interesting, and believable, is his relationship with the other characters. They are terrified of him, yet see him as a mate. This is not simply a case of keeping your enemies close, it taps into a skewed concept of loyalty and the belief that bonds forged in early years should never be broken no matter what. It is this 'code' that Renton breaks, and it is this betrayal that is, at least to those he leaves behind, a bigger crime than any theft.
As I was looking for clips to accompany this piece I came across this one of deleted scenes. The picture and vocals are a little out of synch but they're interesting none the less:
Trainspotting is not the greatest film of all time, but it is approaching greatness, and is a damn entertaining movie. Like many of Boyle's other films such as Shallow Grave, the underrated Millions, Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire, the style often takes away from the substance. Or, in the case of The Beach, the lack of any substance. But, there can be little doubt about the impact that Trainspotting had, and continues to have. Many people, from Scotland and elsewhere, decided to study Scottish film and literature due to the impact of Trainspotting, and from that have fallen in love with a wider range of writers, poets, film-makers and artists. It became our cultural Vicodin; a gateway to to the hard stuff.
So, I'm sitting in the bar at The Tron theatre and some well kent faces are mulling around. These include Dave Anderson, Sandy Nelson, Alan Tall, David MacLennan and many more who I still think of as being involved with Wildcat, 7:84 and other independent theatre groups that I used to pay to see back in the day. Then it hit me. It's May, it's the Tron, it can only mean the return of Mayfesto, the agit-prop theatre festival that appeared last year to fill the gap that had been left unfilled since the sad demise of Mayfest. What's on offer? Here we go:
Tonight is It's A Dead Liberty which features all of the above as well as Alan Bissett (you'll have heard of him: see Some Things Mean More Than Cars and Girls: An Inte...) and it promises a night of political commentary, rousing song and a lorra, lorra laughs.
Then there is The King of Scotland written by the always excellent and reliably filthy Iain Heggie which stars TV's Jonathan Watson and which is bound to be a riot. Heggie is perhaps still best known for his play Wholly Healthy Glasgow which made it, controversially, to TV and starred the sadly missed Gerard Kelly. If you remember it you'll know what to expect from this play.
There's also a David Harrower play A Slow Air, Fishamble's Forgotten, an adaptation of Flann O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds and, from Mephisto theatre company, Grenades, as well as Gary Owen's Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco which promises a wild night out.
But the highlight may be David Ireland's Everything Between Us which is set in Northern Ireland's Stormont Parliament Buildings on the first day of the newly formed Truth and Reconciliation Committee and is about the tensions between two sisters which comments upon Northern Ireland's past, present and future. It's sure to be an emotional play which will challenge the audiences beliefs and prejudices. Here's a taster:
Mayfesto runs from Wednesday the 4th to the 28th of May and you can get all the information as well as tickets from www.tron.co.uk . If you haven't been to the theatre in a while this is the perfect opportunity.
As has been discussed regularly on these pages it often appears that great writers arrive in groups, inspiring each other to greater success. This is often idealistic rather than realistic, and is usually to help critics and journalists talk about movements and collectives instead of engaging with an individual writer's work. Having said that, it doesn't harm a writer to be seen as part of such a group, certainly the support and inspiration that is to be found in the company of like-minds is not entirely myth, and if such labelling helps writers to get published and read then it would be churlish to over analyse the phenomenon.
However, sometimes the most interesting writers are those who manage to survive and thrive between such times as they tend to be the ones who inspire the next generation. Put simply, if there are only one or two writers to read, then everyone who loves to read is reading them. With that in mind, say hello to Alan Bissett.
Call me hypocritical after the first paragraph, but there does seem to be something in the air at the moment, with novelists and poets finding ways to be read and heard. I have been to more literary events this year than any time since Glasgow was crowned City of Culture in 1990, and more often than not Bissett is either taking part or supporting from the sidelines. He isn't a man to sit at his desk in the belief that his audience will find him, he goes out spreading the word, and it is this attitude which has inspired writers as much as the fiction itself.
If, as Gorgeous George O'Dowd once claimed, time is a clock of the heart then sometimes it makes your heart sink. Polygon have released a 10 year anniversary edition of Bissett's debut novel Boyracers, and when my copy popped through the door the only thing I could think off was 'didn't I just buy this' (you can read my thoughts on the novel here indelible-ink-boyracers). Then, in a rare moment of empathy, I thought how must the writer be feeling at this landmark. So I thought I'd ask him. He kindly answered this and so much more. If you're interested in all the things that Scots Whay Hae! looks at then this interview is essential reading and should send you out to get some Bissett on your bookshelf:
SWH: Your debut novel Boyracers has just had a 10th anniversary release. If the past is a foreign country how did it feel to revisit the Falkirk of Alvin’s, and your own, youth?
AB: It was strange. Not only are you inhabiting writing that’s ten years old, writing you feel you’ve moved on from, but it’s also clear that the thoughts and feelings which created the book belong to a younger man. So 35 year-old me was inhabiting 24 year-old me who was inhabiting 16 year-old me. And this was a world pre-recession, pre-9/11, a more innocent time, as the phrase goes. It was like opening a series of Russian dolls into the history of your own thought. But I was pleased to discover there was a truth and essence at the centre of the book which I think survives pretty well. Teenage readers still enjoy it for a reason.
SWH: I recently read the novel for the first time since its original publication, and what struck me is how confident the writing is in terms of style. Starting sentences with no capitals, having Alvin’s thoughts about his home life interject in the action, or using song lyrics without the need to explain where they are from. It expects, justifiably, a level of knowledge from the reader. When writing, to what extent do you have a readership in mind, and has this changed over the years?
AB: Thank you, but I actually don’t think it is confident in those things.I think like a lot of young people it is merely projecting confidence.Some of the experiments in that book work and some of them don’t (which is why I’ve rewritten it slightly for this edition).The explosion of Scottish literature in the Nineties which made me want to write about my home culture – the likes of James Kelman, Irvine Welsh, Janice Galloway, Alasdair Gray, Alan Warner, Ali Smith, Gordon Legge, etc – was one of formal experimentation anyway, so that energy was likely to find its way in.I was conscious of wanting to push this in my own direction, though.I wanted speed and restlessness and flashiness to be the bywords for the writing.Scottish novels, even the best of them, always came over as rather dour and adult, because, quite frankly, everyone tends to be at least in their thirties when they’re first published.I was 24, and so wanted the book to feel like youth itself, with all the quickness, colour, sound and light of it.So the readership I was presuming was one who were familiar with dialect and experimentalism – as these were all the rage at the time – but also who knew what it felt like to be young at the turn of the millenium.Now I don’t presume anything about a readership, I just write what wants to be written in the way it wants to come out.Boyracers was absolutely an attempt to speak to my generation, though.
SWH: Although it is obviously a Scottish novel in terms of place and patter, it has an American feel to it. It reminds me of the novels of S.E. Hinton or an early Bruce Springsteen album. Who, or what, were the influences when writing Boyracers, and how do you view them now?
AB: Yes! Born To Run transposed to a Scottish industrial town is exactly what I wanted it to feel like. I actually made a list of the primary influences at the time in case I was ever asked this. They were: Born to Run, Goodfellas, Gregory’s Girl, Trainspotting, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Swingers, Spaced, Generation X, No Logo, Catcher in the Rye, American Psycho and American Graffiti. If you stick all of these in a blender out would come Boyracers. Now these strike me as the very obvious influences of a 24 year-old, but you go with what you feel at the time. The very fact that I even wrote down what these influences are is kinda in-keeping with the pop-culture, list-making Tourettes the book displays. I was in that zone.
SWH: What I find refreshing is that your teenagers are not supping Buckie, huffing gas and looking for trouble, a myth which Scottish culture, particularly in film, seems only too willing to perpetuate. Did you feel any pressure to conform to Scottish cultural stereotypes and what do you feel about the portrayal of young adults in Scottish culture?
SWH: In the Afterword to the revised edition you mention that you re-edited the novel. Why did you feel the need to do this and what did this process change?
AB: Well, basically, I still love vibrancy of the book, but going back to it ten years later I discovered how messy it was. I really didn’t know a lot about craft back then. Some of the experiments with layout and sentence structure were hit and hope. And there were thousands of exclamation marks. Forests of them. Most of them adding nothing, but were a lazy way of saying LOOK AT THIS PROSE! There were also basic errors of plotting and chronology. I realised that by taking a little bit of sandpaper to the sentences I could retain the spirit that the book was created in, but achieve a greater clarity of meaning and make it a smoother reading experience. You’d have to sit down with a copy of each edition and compare things sentence by sentence to notice the difference, and who’s going to do that really? So I figured it was a necessary and safe change to make.
SWH: You also mention that you devoured Scottish literature when at University. How do you view the current state of Scottish writing and how do you see it developing?
AB: Scottish writing is going through an interesting transition period just now. The writers who came through in the boom time of the Eighties and Nineties are international names and have fairly secure careers, but very few younger novelists have achieved their prominence. The reasons for this are as follows: i) By the turn of the millennium novels about the Scottish working-class had become unfashionable in London again; ii) the High Street bookselling culture has changed for the worse, and iii) Scottish Crime fiction has eclipsed everything else.
The last one, of course, is nothing to worry about if you’re a writer or reader of Crime fiction, and we are blessed with some of the finest novelists in that genre in the world. But it does mean that more non-generic, challenging or radical forms have been pushed back into the margins. Who knows, maybe that’s where they have to go to refresh, but no-one wants to be writing in the dark forever.
The demise of independent bookshops, and the dominance of certain chains whose homogenous stock is controlled by the South of England, mean that Scottish writing – unless it’s a saleable brand such as Crime – is seen as being something only for Scots again, so won’t be stocked in the 3/2s in England. So dialect writing? Forget it. Inevitably, this influences the choices which publishers make and the marketing spend they’ll use on Scottish books. This is despite the fact that the likes of Suhayl Saadi and Mark McNay both wrote incredibly powerful and ingenious dialect novels, but the tide of fashion in the Noughties had turned by that point. How can you reduce ethnicity to a fashion! In the Noughties, only James Robertson has managed to carve out a space where he can continue to publish serious, ambitious novels in the Scottish idiom and still be commercially successful. Only one in a whole decade. In the Eighties and Nineties there were dozens. That tells its own story about how capitalism has defeated Scottish literature. I’ve managed to chart a course through, but it’s very hard work and I’ve had to reinvent myself constantly.
However, I can see things changing again. Journals like Valve, Gutter and Fractured West have sprung up, publishing literary fiction. The live literature scene, exemplified by Discombobulate, Words Per Minute and The Golden Hour, is exploding. You go to these things and it’s all people in their twenties, which is hugely encouraging. Cargo, a publishing company run from Glasgow by 23 year-olds who grew up online, are finding innovate ways of getting new work out there, including e-publishing and cross-fertilising with music. Rodge Glass’s The Year of Open Doors anthology, published by Cargo, has been a lightning-rod for this generation. And there are novelists like Sophie Cooke, Ewan Morrison and Kevin MacNeil who are capable of doing even greater work if they’re given the opportunitey to grow. So on the corporate stage, Scottish literature is having a hard time, but at the grassroots level there could be a renaissance afoot.
The stakes are high at the moment. The country is being run by absolute fucking bastards, and Scottish writers, quite frankly, need to put their teeth in.
SWH: My last question is purely to prove, or otherwise, a long held theory. The final words of the novel are ‘YOU ARE NOW LEAVING FALKIRK’. Are these related to the final words in American Psycho, ‘THIS IS NOT AN EXIT’, which is perhaps my favourite ending to any novel?
AB: Yes! It’s my favourite novel of all time. Bret Easton Ellis is all over Boyracers. But it’s an also a nod to the final shot of the film Muriel’s Wedding, fact fans.
Alan Bissett and Scots Whay Hae! 3/5/2011
As a wee extra here is The Rebel On His Own Tonight, the collaboration between Alan and Malcolm Middleton from 2007's The Ballad of the Books album:
You can buy Alan Bissett's books from The Birlinn and Polygon Book Shop and Amazon, or you could take a trip to your local bookshop since the sun's out, and if you're lucky enough to have one. The Ballad of The Books can still be bought at Scots Whay Hae's Local Shop
