Reviews

Lanark - Dört Kitaplık Bir Hayat by Alasdair Gray

reallivejim's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

4.5

Wanted to love this even more and really thought I would, but ultimately this one let me down a bit by diluting its emotional impact with overwrought cleverness. Alas, this disappointment is relative—midway through, I thought I was perhaps amidst one of my absolute all-timers, but upon finishing it up, I realized it was simply great.

“Man is the pie which bakes and eats itself.”

obstinateheadstrongcurl's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book is bizarre. Overall I don’t feel like it really worked for me, and I think that’s because it’s very much a product of its time. There’s a lot of misogyny in here with some racism peppered in for good measure. It’s definitely a unique story, but is it one still worth talking about all these years later? Probably not. 

killajan's review against another edition

5.0

spent half the time writing down the quotes in this book. i first heard of alasdair gray when he passed (which is so interesting because he actually said that he expected lanark to gain attention posthumously) i was instantly caught by his murals present around glasgow. by chance, some months later i found (t)his book in a free book exchange in my student accommodation. i really do believe that i was meant to find his work. lanark is indescribable. gray touches on love, resistance, bureaucracy and capitalism. though written 40 years ago, i find that his predictions and comments about this little moist blue green ball we call earth ring ever more true. this book is simply beautiful. it was worth the year it took me to read. i will get back to this review once i have finished processing but in any case, may alasdair rest in perfect peace. a change is going to come.

gabbyrossetti's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

Lanark is a modern epic !! I did prefer the sections with Duncan Thaw to the confusing world of Lanark in Unthank, but the more you read the more each story unlocks the other. And after the section with Lanark & the ‘author’ the pace really picked up and developed the themes of the book. Grey writes about a sadness in the modern world - the devastating lack of love :(( 

casparb's review against another edition

5.0

So plenty have mentioned this novel as some sort of Scottish Ulysses - which appears to be rather bizarre to me. There is an entirely delicious flirtation with the Dante-esque here (and, to a lesser extent, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, particularly in the presentation of Hell in Book 1). Gray is incredibly attentive to the details of The Divine Comedy, employing sly references drawn from throughout the trilogy. I'll briefly indulge myself in a few:
Lanark's short flight referencing the last line of the Inferno (rebeholding the stars); The giant and prostitute; the three beasts of the mount embodied by three women in the opening; the delightful attention to the tensions between light and dark, which is particularly elucidated (and often overlooked) in Paradiso; Rima (Dante's rhyme scheme being, of course, Terza Rima); Gray's own appearance that appears to suggest both the God of Paradiso (I think Gray has seized upon Dante's description of God as a volume - the book!?), and more subtly, the devil himself.

I'm sure I'm being tiring already but Thoughts are happening.

I think what is important about this novel, among other things, is the manner in which Gray observes and complicates the classic in a new way. It is one thing to mimic Joyce, and transplant the epic into the modern, but I think Lanark achieves something new, escaping the Modernist structure and diving into a postmodernism so gleefully postmodernist it becomes almost onanistic.

I think I'll contain myself there

So I was thinking 4 stars for a long time but I knew when I encountered the twists and turns of the final book that I'll keep thinking about Lanark - so 5. Terrible rating system anyway.

valerioc's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

inaczej's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

mandooh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

whatsmacksaid's review against another edition

3.0

It had some really fascinating bits, and it was definitely a worthwhile read. I wish I hadn't been on a deadline to finish it, though, because it is a very long book (560 pages) and I would have preferred to take my time.

There were definitely parts where it dragged on and on, but those were balanced out by the rest of the book. I felt as though the entire book kept me fluctuating between the two extremes, where one minute I'd be enthralled and in the next bit I'd be bored (or sometimes confused).

marccolgan91's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5