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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Cheery melancholy, 22 Nov 2006
Kevin MacNeil is a genius writer. No showing off here - just genuine lightning bolts of startling imagination. His writing is simultaneously evocative and funny, melancholy and cheery, heart-warming and utterly devastating. The nearest parallel is probably Alan Warner but - like most parallels - it's misleading. MacNeil is his own man. Looking forward to his next book unless he decides to change career and become a deep-sea diver.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
math dha-riribh!, 12 Nov 2006
If anyone thought that Scottish Gaelic culture is all romantic and other worldly - then reading this would give them a hint of an insight into the realities of island life. It is a funny, sad account - but all too real. His Gaelic subnotes are funny - but you are never quite sure who he is taking the -you know what - out of: no one, you, himself, island life, life. His description of Bongilees is a sad jewel of truth. Theab mi mo mhun a chall! But they all get a going at - even the "Gaelic mafia" and the Leodhasach danger of the Curam.
Reading it, it is all too easy to fall into thinking this is a persons genuine account and not a fictious character - or is it? I am sure there are loads on Lewis who are trying to work out who is who and who has said what to whom- as is the norm.
Romanticised, droopy tourist will get a better indication what goes on in real life there by reading this - but also those who think Lewis is just the religously narrow of view will see that there is more behind the scene. Those who have moved there and have no understanding of the culture, interest in it or hostility to it etc etc - get a going and many a truth told
Oh - and loved the description of the Mod - too true!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
poetic and poignant, uk cult classic, darkly hilarious., 22 Jul 2006
award-winning poet kevin macneil's first novel is already an underground hardback hit in the uk. it tells the tale of a troubled artist who has grown up in the western isles of scotland and of how he does and doesnt cope with the world around him.
written in a sharp and succinct voice, the language is beautiful. one can see the poetic sensibility in the writing. the style is snappy and funny; kevin doesnt use ten words where one will do. it is not showy but a delightful, hilarious and thought-provoking examination of a darkness in the soul.
highly highly recommended.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
a cult classic, 17 Jan 2006
This is a near word-perfect and marvellously cadenced tale of contemporary Hebridean life. A fresh, witty and sometimes quite dark novel, every sentence in it sings with verbal ingenuity. (One person is described pithily as 'a fine doorful of a woman', Calvinism is akin to looking at the world through 'morose-tinted spectacles', a concerned letter 'magic-carpets through the letterbox', an aborted child's 'mouth is the unkissed stamp on the condolence card no one knows to send' - and that's just through flicking through the book at random. This book is loaded with pitch-perfect phrasing and even some neat invented words like 'gloominous'). Very few contemporary novels achieve the verbal energy expressed and sustained in this amazing novel.
Narrow-minded people might not enjoy this book, but open-minded readers of literary fiction will love it. It is a funny, heart-breaking, lyrical novel that has moved me to tears each of the three times I have read it. Right now it is a cult classic - in time it will, I think, be regarded as a masterpiece of 21st century Scottish literature. If you like edgy, well-crafted, supremely moving literary novels then this is for you.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
martin monkey nuts rules!, 16 Aug 2006
this book is a bit of a hebridean rant but it's funny and sad and poetic and a joy to read. the whole martin monkey nuts chapter had me falling off my seat laughing, but then it had me feeling guilty and it haunted me for days. i can't wait for his next one.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
This man is an island., 20 Oct 2005
This is the first Kevin MacNeil book that I have read, and I admit that I bought it on a nostalgic whim, in an attempt to fan a cool, island breeze over the hot Arabian sands of my home in Dubai; a kind of linguistic punkah wallah.However, I got more than I bargained for. It would be wrong to say I was pleasantly surprised, for there is little pleasure in the life of R Stornoway. Rather, I was taken aback by how quickly I became embroiled in his Hebridean life. R Stornoway (not his real name) managed to escape the island of Lewis for a number of years, earning a living (mainly by busking it seems) but has now returned to accept his destiny. It is as though the island is him and he is the island; an embryonic relationship which can never be disconnected. The over-riding power of the novel is engendered by MacNeil's provocative language (100% proof), and I became more and more inebriated by it, as each chapter was distilled. The claustrophobic effects of island life emit from the wonderfully stoic (or should it be stocious?) assortment of characters as they stagger though the pages. Stornoway life is not so much described as experienced. The chilling rawness of the ultimate drama is staggering in its intimacy, as the reader succumbs to a sense of powerlessness. I was there yet could do nothing.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Spirited away, 7 Aug 2005
This is an important book - a hymn to a culture that is dying in the words of a fictional narrator who is dying. And what words - the phrasing is precise, nothing is wasted (although the characters often are). There are big and clever ideas here beautifully realised by a writer who clearly believes in them. It's a love story - addressed to love itself, and whisky, and art, and whisky and whisky again. There is an extraordinary understanding of humanity here - frailty and possibility, longing and (not) belonging. But don't read it because it's intelligent and wise and beautiful - you can love it for these reasons but you should read it because it's funnier than a drunk penguin. Humour as black as a black-house in a blackout maybe but just as warm.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
poetic and poignant, uk cult classic, darkly hilarious,, 25 Jan 2006
award-winning poet kevin macneil's first novel is already an underground hit in the uk. it tells the tale of a troubled artist who has grown up in the western isles of scotland and of how he does and doesnt cope with the world around him.
written in a sharp and succinct voice, the language is beautiful. one can see the poetic sensibility in the writing. the style is snappy and funny; kevin doesnt use ten words where one will do. it is not showy but a delightful, hilarious and thought-provoking examination of a darkness in the soul.
highly highly recommended.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
utterly brilliant, 13 Feb 2006
being a lewis man i can relate to a lot of what is said but i just could not put this book down i recieved this book as a christmas present all i can say is thankyou to my sis who had the forsight to think i would appreciate it.
well done KEVIN MACNEIL
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
awesome, 30 Jun 2005
This novel is first rate. I thought I was the first person to read it (advance copy) and then I come on to Amazon and see that a few people have got there before me. But I'm really glad that other people feel the same way about this remarkable book as I do.
The narrator, pseuodonymously called "R. Stornoway" for two different and very typical reasons - one hilarious, one heartbreaking - speaks with such authenticity that you come to know him as a friend, albeit one who is beyond messed up. I mean, if this book doesn't make you laugh and cry, you're a robot.
You simply have to read this book and make the literary discovery of the year.
My head is still reeling from reading this book.
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