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feebles640's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
karp76's review against another edition
3.0
First discovered in some dusty corner of the Internet, I came to this with high expectations and a strong eagerness. Leaving, I cannot say that I feel the same. The book bursts with absurd post modernism, symbolism and strangeness unparalleled. By the end, it becomes a tiresome read, too long, too bloated, too convoluted, too tired to continue, too confused as to its nature: is it a story of a man, a city or the world? In the end, the question is lost. The politics become too much (or too little) and the story drags us and its hero to a slow and grinding halt. I'm glad to found this gem in its corner. I will take it with perhaps less glad than when I found it.
finleyj2's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lueberry's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
bennyandthejets420's review against another edition
5.0
Really quite impossible to describe. One could throw words at it like "big, generous, expansive" but those fail to encompass the woven strands of fantasy, science fiction, children's stories, class commentary, satire, and metatextuality throughout this book (or four books, rather). Being a book that is in some fashion a tragic bildungsroman about an artist, one could also throw words at it like "canvas, diptych, chiaroscuro, painterly," but those would fail to capture how this book is acutely aware of words and they spell they can cast over us. They can make us dream, they can hurt us, they can soothe us against pain, they can offer escape or a sense of purpose. One could call it "gripping," but it also incredibly patient, building up its worlds one stroke (there are the painting words again), one chapter at a time. One could also call it an "epic," but this fails to encompass how the core of the book, the two books of realism nested between two books of heightened fantastical allegory, is a tale of everyday life in industrial Glasgow. It is all of these things and much more than them.
A few words about our hero Duncan Thaw or Lanark. Lanark is the name of a town in Scotland which is thought to come from the word "clear space, glade." Duncan of course is the king in Macbeth but his name comes from the Gaelic personal name Donnchadh, "composed of the elements donn ‘brown-haired man’ or ‘chieftain’ + a derivative of cath ‘battle’" Finally, thaw means of course to become warm and active after being cold and inert. So Duncan Thaw's destiny might be construed of as a "man becoming king" and Lanark's as "a man finding a clear space where he can see the light." But that would be too easy. Duncan Thaw/Lanark is prideful, petty, jealous, self centered, cold, and single-minded. He is both our hero and somebody we would rather not get stuck talking to at a party. I found him both useful as an audience insert and unpleasant as a hero of inaction, merely buffeted along the winds of history, guiding us through this book one fumbling step after another. Bu here I am left thinking that this is most likely the point: being a hero of a fantastical realist story, Duncan is both heroic and pathetic, both larger than life, and ordinary. We're all searching for the light, for the open space in the clearing, and Lanark seems to suggest that we can do it by blending our realism with fantasy.
A few words about our hero Duncan Thaw or Lanark. Lanark is the name of a town in Scotland which is thought to come from the word "clear space, glade." Duncan of course is the king in Macbeth but his name comes from the Gaelic personal name Donnchadh, "composed of the elements donn ‘brown-haired man’ or ‘chieftain’ + a derivative of cath ‘battle’" Finally, thaw means of course to become warm and active after being cold and inert. So Duncan Thaw's destiny might be construed of as a "man becoming king" and Lanark's as "a man finding a clear space where he can see the light." But that would be too easy. Duncan Thaw/Lanark is prideful, petty, jealous, self centered, cold, and single-minded. He is both our hero and somebody we would rather not get stuck talking to at a party. I found him both useful as an audience insert and unpleasant as a hero of inaction, merely buffeted along the winds of history, guiding us through this book one fumbling step after another. Bu here I am left thinking that this is most likely the point: being a hero of a fantastical realist story, Duncan is both heroic and pathetic, both larger than life, and ordinary. We're all searching for the light, for the open space in the clearing, and Lanark seems to suggest that we can do it by blending our realism with fantasy.
rinoa's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
stewbie106's review against another edition
Pretentious overly self-indulgent nonsense.
harriett4's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
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
4.0
tom_f's review against another edition
2.0
packed this in about halfway, just finishing up 'book one' after trudging through 'book three', failing to reach 'book two' or the concluding 'book four'. middling sections giving me ominous flashbacks to machen's The Hill Of Dreams: expressionistically autobiographical account of a brooding, struggling young male artist tearing their hair out in the pursuit of carefree, intellectually inferior young women while shackling themselves with artistic burdens of greater and greater portent and self-seriousness. gray has a good sardonic ear for bitter smalltalk but the ironic humour this provides is a weak flame to huddle round amidst this long and dreary scottish midwinter. i've almost totally forfeited my investment in the novel's fading first quarter, which sharply traded a humdrum dystopian city for a crudely phantasmagorical hopsital. neither scenes were particularly interesting but it's the petty sexuality and sub-blakean bluster of the second quarter that really have allowed the fire to sputter and expire. midway through this experience i ripped through Charles Brandt's luxuriously juicy investigation into the disappearance of jimmy hoffa, I Heard You Paint Houses, which reminder of the joys of reading have saved me from fullblown stockholm syndrome.