The BBC recently ran a poll to find ‘Scotland’s Favourite Book’ (the poll closed a few days ago and the results won’t be announced until October). Which is cool, but it wasn’t really a poll to find the book that people living in Scotland like best, it was a poll to find pretty much anyone’s favourite novel written by an author born or based in Scotland. I’m being a little bit nitpicky, I admit, but those two things are not the same. Scotland’s favourite book may well be by a Scottish author, but it might also be Catch-22, you know? And does an author based in Scotland really qualify as a Scottish author? J.K. Rowling and Kate Atkinson both appear on the list as they both live in Scotland, but to me, they’re both English authors. I know that Hogwarts is located somewhere in Scotland, but it feels like a quintessential English boarding school in many respects, especially given that very few characters are explicitly not English.
For me, for a book to qualify as ‘Scottish’, I would expect a Scottish setting and a Scottish feel in either characters or dialogue. Is that a fair expectation though? Is it limiting to say that Scottish books should just deal with Scottish issues? Possibly, but then Scottish issues are a microcosm of world issues. And then you have the thorny issue of the author’s nationality. How big of a part should that play? As you can see, I’m quite conflicted about the whole thing, so I should just show you the list and let you make up your own mind.
- An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn (The Night Before We Sailed) – Angus Peter Campbell
- Garnethill – Denise Mina
- Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
- How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
- Imagined Corners – Willa Muir
- Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin
- Laidlaw – William McIlvanney
- Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
- Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
- Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
- Rob Roy – Walter Scott
- So I Am Glad – A.L. Kennedy
- Sunset Song – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Cone-Gatherers – Robin Jenkins
- The Cutting Room – Louise Welsh
- The Panopticon – Jenni Fagan
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Testament of Gideon Mack – James Robertson
- The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
- The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell
- The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
- The White Bird Passes – Jessie Kesson
- Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
- Trumpet – Jackie Kay
- Under the Skin – Michel Faber
- Wire in the Blood – Val McDermid
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, despite being written by a Scottish man and having its main character based on another Scottish man, has little of Scotland about it. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is, again, written by a Scottish man but set in England. Life After Life is also set in England, but written by an English woman living in Scotland. Under the Skin is written by a Dutch-born, Australian-educated, Scotland-residing man, but is the only book of the four to actually be set in Scotland. It’s all quite messy! What makes a book ‘Scottish’? And what qualifies one book over another?
I’ve read five of these titles (Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, Morvern Callar, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), started but not finished two (The Thirty-Nine Steps and Trainspotting), and would quite like to read five (Lanark: A Life in Four Books, Life After Life, The Panopticon, The Wasp Factory and Under the Skin). All of which leaves me singularly unqualified to vote, even if I hadn’t missed the deadline 😀
What about you? Any thoughts about what makes a book Scottish? Have you read any of the books on the list, or are there any on your wishlist?