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More About the Author
Product Description
Don Paterson
'(...)to my mind, Duncan is the most original new voice of the post-Irvine Welsh era'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
From the enclosed, austere fishing community of Broughty Ferry to the implacably encroaching tower-blocks of nearby Dundee, Bill Duncan's narrative resonates with the voices of the living and the dead. Haunting, evocative and eccentric, THE SMILING SCHOOL FOR CALVINISTS memorably conjures up a traditional community reluctantly confronting the modern world.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hugh MacDiarmid wrote that if Dante had visited Dundee before he wrote the Divine Comedy, he'd have stuck another layer in Hell. If Borges had grown up in a council flat in Dundee, he might just have written stories like these. The Smiling School for Calvinists is a series of hilarious, surreal, poignant, remarkable stories linking a spurious history of the fishing industry in Broughty Ferry to an equally spurious description of life in the Dundee multis - the Blackness Towers. But this book is much more than a collection of funny tales. This is magical realism brought to Tayside. Duncan uses job descriptions, spoof newspaper articles and extracts from a museum catalogue to construct a fictitious history of Dundee, linking both the Broughty Ferry fishermen and the dour, hopeful, hopeless inhabitants of the tower blocks to their Pictish past. In the story 'Trance' Duncan might well be describing his own book: 'A funny story. A story aboot love. A story somebody told ye that never happened, but wiz true jist the same. A story within another story.' And I think that's what made these tales so memorable for me. However surreal, however funny they might be, they have an inner truthfulness which lifts them far above the ordinary. Read them and (assuming you've done it once) you'll never quite look at Dundee the same way again. Oh and by the way, if you do read this book, as I recommend you should, you'll find out exactly where Hell is, Virgil or no Virgil.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't claim to be any great literary critic - just someone who had a Granny in Dundee and who spent 5 years there as a student. This book pulled me right back to the multis of Blackness Road and the litter strewn Broughty Ferry beach of the 80's (much improved now, I believe!!)I roared with laughter at the dry dundonian wit - recognising in the many characters people met from the council estates in the 'biggest village in Scotland.' Reading the tales, Dundee was brought to life in all its beauty and all its darkness. Highly recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Smiling School for Calvinists is tremendous. Set in Dundee and offering a tour of the city's people through anecdote and social insight, the Smiling School is brilliantly moving and mirthful in equal measure. Characters dredged up from the Dundee environment, the affinity with the sea, the high rise flats, the local pubs and school, all tell stories just as if sat nearby in the tavern.
Each chapter is a story told by a different character and most speak with slightly different accents. At times it is a little hard to follow the internal consistency of some of the accents as the subtle differences between speakers is subjugated to the broader distinction between writing in Standard English and Scots English. The Scots is where most of the humour flows from and some of the misfortunes and mis-perspectives of the speakers are intentionally hilarious.
When I first picked up the book and found the first character to be speaking in broad Scots about a folk hero named Rab I found myself remembering the fare of Rab C. Nesbitt - it would perhaps have been more effective for Boat Rab not to have been the first named person but as soon as he was out of the way the brilliance of the book shined through.
I could not stop myself from giggling on my morning commute to some of the tales including of Big Sheila bursting into the wrong house and the superbly captured bragging of the know-it-all with the Universal Zapper. Still, the Smiling School does not shy away from serious issues - taking issues such as alcoholism and depression head on. The disturbing descent of The Gravedigger and the character in The Fall point towards the understanding that Duncan has of his people.
It is in the tale of The Gravedigger that The Smiling School for Calvinists gets it's only mention and it is in light of that character's morbid depression and deliberate isolation - there are bleak tales here that mirror some of the gloomier elements of scottish mental health.
Structurally this book is exceptionally well put together. Speakers are differentiated not only into broad distinctions of Standard and Scots English speakers but also in how the format of the page is laid out. The excitable and passionate Scots speakers typically provide a verse of text unbroken by paragraphs. This highlights their earnest desire to get the story across and includes all the asides and mannerisms of speech expertly. The occasional interceding of real world (mostly spoofed) events and activities such as a superb spoof advert for a darkness box or news clippings that shake some of the reality of the situation the characters face break up the flow magnificently.
This is social commentary as told through the the voices of those who could be there. It is a trumphant exposition of the people and the place, it is laugh out loud funny and bitterly morbid, it is a credit to Bill Duncan and to Dundee.
Each chapter is a story told by a different character and most speak with slightly different accents. At times it is a little hard to follow the internal consistency of some of the accents as the subtle differences between speakers is subjugated to the broader distinction between writing in Standard English and Scots English. The Scots is where most of the humour flows from and some of the misfortunes and mis-perspectives of the speakers are intentionally hilarious.
When I first picked up the book and found the first character to be speaking in broad Scots about a folk hero named Rab I found myself remembering the fare of Rab C. Nesbitt - it would perhaps have been more effective for Boat Rab not to have been the first named person but as soon as he was out of the way the brilliance of the book shined through.
I could not stop myself from giggling on my morning commute to some of the tales including of Big Sheila bursting into the wrong house and the superbly captured bragging of the know-it-all with the Universal Zapper. Still, the Smiling School does not shy away from serious issues - taking issues such as alcoholism and depression head on. The disturbing descent of The Gravedigger and the character in The Fall point towards the understanding that Duncan has of his people.
It is in the tale of The Gravedigger that The Smiling School for Calvinists gets it's only mention and it is in light of that character's morbid depression and deliberate isolation - there are bleak tales here that mirror some of the gloomier elements of scottish mental health.
Structurally this book is exceptionally well put together. Speakers are differentiated not only into broad distinctions of Standard and Scots English speakers but also in how the format of the page is laid out. The excitable and passionate Scots speakers typically provide a verse of text unbroken by paragraphs. This highlights their earnest desire to get the story across and includes all the asides and mannerisms of speech expertly. The occasional interceding of real world (mostly spoofed) events and activities such as a superb spoof advert for a darkness box or news clippings that shake some of the reality of the situation the characters face break up the flow magnificently.
This is social commentary as told through the the voices of those who could be there. It is a trumphant exposition of the people and the place, it is laugh out loud funny and bitterly morbid, it is a credit to Bill Duncan and to Dundee.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Satirical and magical, Bill's opus yells creative excess
Finally, a book that puts Dundee on the map; placing it slightly to the east of Pandemonium. Bill Duncan - along with an increasing number of Scotch writers (Peter Burnett, Andrew... Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2002
A superb debut of a book
I laughed and hooted, wet-eyed. No really, I did. Bill Duncan's 'The Smiling School for Calvinists' has a cumulative effect on the laughter buttons. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 2001
A Book to Make Anyone Smile
The stories contained in "The Smiling School for Calvinists" are some of the most original I have ever read. The characters are simultaneously common-place and absurd. Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2001
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