Lanark, a modern vision of hell, is set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, and tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary imagination and wide range, its playful narrative techniques convey a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying. Widely recognised as a modern classic, Alasdair Gray's magnum opus was first published in 1981 and immediately established him as one of Britain's leading writers. Comparisons have been made to Dante, Blake, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley and Lewis Carroll. This timely new edition should cement his reputation as one of our greatest living writers.
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Amazon Review
Alasdair Gray's first novel Lanark (first published in 1981) immediately established him as one of the most important Scottish voices of his generation and this astounding work as one of the key British novels of the last century. Magnificent in its reach and unequalled in the adulation of its critical response, Lanark is a massive book.
Perversely we start our reading with Book 3--the hero of this and the last book in the quartet, the eponymous Lanark, lives in a bizarre and fantastical future in a grey, dreary city called Unthank. He doesn't remember how he got there nor who he really is. He hangs around a local cafe with some other young people whose values and mores he can't quite figure. All around people are disappearing. Then he contracts dragonhide... and disappears too. He wakes in an institute and is told the sad but instructional tale of Duncan Thaw (the boy he used to be, the boy, in a sense, Alasdair Gray used to be).
Duncan, unknowingly speaking of the epic of which he is the centre, who we meet as a child and watch grow into an artist , says "I want to write a modern Divine Comedy with illustrations in the style of William Blake." And it is Duncan's story that is the heart of Lanark--and what a poignant, heart-breaking tale it is. From a boy who can never accept or offer or understand love, who cannot connect, to an artist who cannot accept that he cannot have the final word--both in his own life and in his art--Duncan's tale is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age story.
Lanark is a work of huge imagination and wonderful range; it is about all of our selves, how we make them and make them up; it is about place and what that means for identity and it is about love--how we can learn to love our selves, or fail to, how we need to love, both ourselves and others, to create communities in which we can create art that will promote a continuing project of place in which we can love each other better. Lanark is peerless. --Mark Thwaite --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'A quite extraordinary achievement, the most remarkable thing in Scottish fiction for a very long time.' -- Scotsman
'An ambitious and marvellously inventive novel.' -- Malcolm Bradbury
'Remarkable ... Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches.' -- Times Literary Supplement
'Undoubtedly the best work of fiction written by a Scottish author for decades.' -- Time Out --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
'An ambitious and marvellously inventive novel.' -- Malcolm Bradbury
'Remarkable ... Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches.' -- Times Literary Supplement
'Undoubtedly the best work of fiction written by a Scottish author for decades.' -- Time Out --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I was recommended LANARK by a friend and was absolutely bowled over by it - and completely ashamed that I'd never heard of Gray before now.
It's very difficult to describe what the book is about - it has two parallel stories, one of a young idealistic artist in Glasgow trying to develop his art in thankless surroundings; the other of a loner in Unthank, a version of Hell (or Glasgow) trying to save his city (Unthank - or Glasgow) from the depredations of industrial capitalism and the onslaught of big business.
The book is elegiac, wise, beautifully written, very clever, hilarious in points, self-parodying and full of wonderful satire. It is also full of engaging charaters, and has a great storyline. Impossible here to depict how the halves intertwine, or the sheer energy of Gray's fiction.
He took 25 years to write this book - it was worth it. One of the classics of the 20th century. Buy it, read it, give it to your friends!
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I first read this book in the late 1980's, and have kept coming back to it ever since. I've read it in its entirety three times now, and shall no doubt read it again. It is absolutely superb - engaging, challenging, bizarre, beautifully written. It lends the lie to the notion that experimental fiction has to be 'difficult'. Somehow Gray manages to take on just about every important philosophical theme without ever losing sight of the fact that it is the characters, with all their human frailties, that ultimately engage us.
For its sheer ambition and imagination, as well as distinctiveness of voice, this book deserves its place in the canon of great experimental literature - alongside Joyce, Woolf, Kafka, Beckett and the other greats.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the first publication of Alasdair Gray's "Lanark", Canongate have re-issued it in a lavishly-printed four-volume hardcover edition, complete with splendid reproductions of Gray murals and paintings on the covers of each volume. Given that Gray famously intended the component books of "Lanark" to be read in one order but eventually thought of in another, there's a case for saying that this edition is really the first to reflect the shape Gray wanted the book to have. With any Alasdair Gray book, the visuals are as much a part of the package as the words, and both deserve the best possible presentation so this edition of "Lanark" has a fair claim to being essential for anyone interested in Gray's writing. This edition also includes Gray's own wry account of the making and reception of "Lanark".
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, but not great
I loved the first and second parts of this book but towards the end it got a little watered down for my liking and quite confused and bland. Read more
Published 2 days ago by H. Flynn
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lanark
This hard back book was ordered as a gift for my nephew (21). It arrived in time and was received with delight on discovering that it was signed by the author. Read more
Published on 22 Dec 2010 by Museum Mandarin
4.0 out of 5 stars
a trip through your own mind
i can't say that i completely understood it all, and at times i was bored, but when i was captivated it was astonishing. Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2008 by Scooterboy
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious, quirky, funny and challenging. Quite an achievement!
I had heard Lanark described as a Glaswegian cult classic but I didn't quite know what to expect. There are two narrative threads. Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2008 by Wynne Kelly
1.0 out of 5 stars
the dustjacket of Thomas Mann's 'Magic Mountain' padded out with...
I haven't read this for 25 years, and over those 25 years I've repeatedly come across praise for this 'novel'; maybe I need to revisit it, maybe I missed something, but as memory... Read more
Published on 28 July 2007 by Jm Leven
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Twentieth Century Colossus
This is one of the great Scottish novels of the twentieth century. Why? Because of its breadth, scope and vision. Read more
Published on 19 Sep 2005 by Rosie
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