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Product Description
Product Description
Living in a bedsit, just coping with the boredom of being a busconductor, and fully aware that his plans to emigrate to Australia won't come to anything, Robert Hines is a young Glaswegian leading a pretty drab life. There are compensations, however, in his wife and child, and his eccentric, anarchic imagination. Kelman provides a brilliantly executed, uncompromising slice of Glasgow life - an intelligent, funny and humane novel. It was first published by Polygon in 1984.
About the Author
James Kelman was born in Glasgow in 1946. After leaving school at 15 he worked in the printing industry and as a bus driver. In 1971 he attended creative writing night classes and in 1973 an American company published his first collection of short stories, An Old Pub Near The Angel. Greyhound for Breakfast won the 1987 Cheltenham Prize; A Disaffection won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; How late it was, how late won the 1994 Booker Prize amidst a storm of controversy. He has also written many plays for stage and radio. He lives in Glasgow with his wife and family.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
James Kelman's novel takes us into the cathartic mind of Rab Hines, bus conductor and social philosopher. Hines is complex, misunderstood and wonderful, but not extraordinary. Infact, I think many readers will identify with Hines' frustration and the erratic wanderings of his mind, which he won't let bus conducting and the rat race in general wear down. Although essentially a working class novel set in 1980's Glasgow, the novel does transcend its setting and Kelman's writing can be compared with Dostoyevsky and Hamsun and read as a flux of consciousness novel that embraces the universal themes of love, hope and despair but all through the individual mind of a Glaswegian bus conductor.
The novel evoked in me a strange mixture of emotions. Sometimes I empathised with Rab and his frustrations at the system. I found the love scenes between Rab and his wife and their mutual understanding of each other, combined with their mutual despair and frustration with life and each other, incredibly moving but never hyperbolic, always in perfect measure. However, although I consider myself something of a socialist there were points in the book where I just wanted to grab Rab and tell him to get on with it. It's this type of characterisation that makes the book so real and so touching. Hines is a true anti-hero, he is self-depreciating, stubborn, able, unable, loving and immense: "a perplexing kettle of coconuts" indeed.
The novel evoked in me a strange mixture of emotions. Sometimes I empathised with Rab and his frustrations at the system. I found the love scenes between Rab and his wife and their mutual understanding of each other, combined with their mutual despair and frustration with life and each other, incredibly moving but never hyperbolic, always in perfect measure. However, although I consider myself something of a socialist there were points in the book where I just wanted to grab Rab and tell him to get on with it. It's this type of characterisation that makes the book so real and so touching. Hines is a true anti-hero, he is self-depreciating, stubborn, able, unable, loving and immense: "a perplexing kettle of coconuts" indeed.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the novel James Kelman should have won the Booker Prize for, his powerful evocation of the 'daily grind' in 1980's Glasgow is haunting and darkly moving. Adhering to the Joycean ethic of making the 'ordinary man' on an 'ordinary day' the hero of the text, Kelman's modernist techniques take this to powerful extremes. This is socialist fiction in a dislocated and marginalised Britain where the character 'Hines' finds himself on the edge of sanity with no promise of the usual 'working class' escapes. There are no Glasgow street fights, drug excesses or football matches here, instead we are drawn into the interior monologue of an everyman, sensitive, intelligent, trapped and falling to pieces. Sounds a misreable read and when Kelman gets criticism it's usually because this is high brow lit which offers no 'plan of action' or 'dramatic entertainment'. But what Kelman does unequivicably is give the under dog a voice, and the everyday a place in art. This is an important book about the 'sectioning' of individual realities in modern Britain. Although this is about Thatcher's Britain, it's just as relevant today as it was when evryone ignored it back in the 80's
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
gritty Rob Hines
23 Sep 2001
Format:Paperback
Hines lives in a crappy flat with no bathrub. He conducts a city bus (he's not passed the driving test, indeed he doesn't even have a driver's license). His job is mind-numbingly boring, his supervisors are daft, and his life is just one lousy day after another.
The weather is horrid. His companions tell the stupidest and worst jokes and tales.
R. Hines regularly shows up late for work, or forgets his hat, and is always in trouble with his supervisors. He's regularly skipping work for one reason or another. Always on the brink of being canned.
Still, he has a lovely wife (who is understandably upset with his work performance), and a charming little toddler boy. They're not going anywhere fast. Hines wants a better life for his family, but they're not going to get it.
Your man Hines, though, he's got a brain, and a biting sense of humor. This, along with a bit of drink, gets him through each day.
Some have written that Irvine Welsh (_Trainspotting_) read _The Busconductor Hines_, which demonstrated to him the possibility of writing in his own Scottish voice, about the real people of Scotland. I can believe that.
James Kelman has created one of the greatest characters you'll ever read-- Rabbie Hines.
ken32
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