Publication
Canongate UK (2007), 573 pages
Original publication date
1981
Collections
Subjects
Awards
Scotland's National Book Awards (Winner — 1982)
Description
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. First published in 1981, Lanark immediately established Gray as one of Britain's leading writers.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Brasidas
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT -- STILL READING
This novel is a mix of futuristic dystopia with fantasy elements and bildungsroman. We start in the future where we come across a dysfunctional group of pseudo-cognoscenti. In this part, our hero, Lanark, living rather purposelessly in Unthank (a kind of parallel
This novel is a mix of futuristic dystopia with fantasy elements and bildungsroman. We start in the future where we come across a dysfunctional group of pseudo-cognoscenti. In this part, our hero, Lanark, living rather purposelessly in Unthank (a kind of parallel
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universe Glasgow), cavorts with these layabouts before being sucked underground by a vast pair of lips. Here he he enters a vast Orwellian compound where everyone's a doctor, or becomes one. Here Lanark saves a woman, Rima, one of the layabouts, from turning salamander. Then Lanark is told the story by a portable oracle about his former life as one Duncan Thaw. Thaw lives in the real Glasgow, which I was pleased to see meticulously described for the first time in any fiction I have ever read. Over 300 pages Thaw grows from child to neurotic art student. He has terrible asthma. He masturbates endlessly. He can't get a girl. His mother dies horribly--and touchingly. The relationship with his father is also deeply moving. The relationships are so real, so genuine, and vivid. This is an element lacking from the framing dystopia, because the setting, and all the whacky goings on, distract from the relationships, which are, at any rate, less emotionally deep. But the dystopic sections are valuable for other reasons: for their depictions of vast, illogical space, for their sheer imaginative brio. Show Less
LibraryThing member danimosity
By far the weirdest book anyone will ever read. Too weird, almost. When someone asks you what's it about, you will only get as far as "It's about this guy." Really. That's all I can say about it.
LibraryThing member greeniezona
I'd had this book on my to-read list for ages. Jessa put it on the 100 Best Books of the 20th century list for Bookslut, and had raved to me about Gray enough that I'd read and loved Poor Things and 1982, Janine (the latter is perpetually on my list of 10 favorite books). I'd had an eye out for
I really do not want to give this book back. It's clear from the condition of the book that it had never been read. And now it's got some foxing and bumping to corners and actually looks loved and they can't have it back. I am tempted to ask them about the replacement price, but I also do want to send it back in the hopes that someone else will eventually pick it up and read it.
You may be able to tell, but I'm having a hard time approaching discussing the actual contents of this book. Lanark is the story of Lanark and of Thaw, who may or may not be the same person. Lanark's story is dystopian science fiction in parts, wildly speculative fantasy in others, sometimes reminding me of Brazil, or LOST, with occasional bouts of biting political satire. Thaw's story is more grinding realism, the story of a young artist with mysterious health problems, limited income, and trouble with authority. It sometimes reminded me of 1982, Janine. The stories are linked twice, once, by an oracle, who tells Lanark (who does not remember his life before waking on a train to Unthank), that before Unthank he was Thaw. The second time, Lanark meets The Author a few chapters before the end, who intimates that he started writing a story about Thaw, but found him too unlikeable, and so started over with Lanark.
This section on the conversation between Lanark and The Author was my favorite of the book -- I was grinning madly in the airport as I read it. It is, of course, a meta meditation on the roles of characters, authors, and readers, and what is the point of it all? And why are so few characters in literary novels ever happy? Amongst other things.
I can imagine this would be a love it or hate it kind of book. Despite Thaw's Serious Women Problems (and, to a lesser extent, Lanark's), something that often turns me off of a book, I loved it. Adored it. Will have to reread it again, sometime in the future.
Fabulous.
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Lanark for at least a decade, but not stumbled upon it anywhere. Finally, it occurred to me that I could make an interlibrary loan request. (Seriously a dangerous thing.)I really do not want to give this book back. It's clear from the condition of the book that it had never been read. And now it's got some foxing and bumping to corners and actually looks loved and they can't have it back. I am tempted to ask them about the replacement price, but I also do want to send it back in the hopes that someone else will eventually pick it up and read it.
You may be able to tell, but I'm having a hard time approaching discussing the actual contents of this book. Lanark is the story of Lanark and of Thaw, who may or may not be the same person. Lanark's story is dystopian science fiction in parts, wildly speculative fantasy in others, sometimes reminding me of Brazil, or LOST, with occasional bouts of biting political satire. Thaw's story is more grinding realism, the story of a young artist with mysterious health problems, limited income, and trouble with authority. It sometimes reminded me of 1982, Janine. The stories are linked twice, once, by an oracle, who tells Lanark (who does not remember his life before waking on a train to Unthank), that before Unthank he was Thaw. The second time, Lanark meets The Author a few chapters before the end, who intimates that he started writing a story about Thaw, but found him too unlikeable, and so started over with Lanark.
This section on the conversation between Lanark and The Author was my favorite of the book -- I was grinning madly in the airport as I read it. It is, of course, a meta meditation on the roles of characters, authors, and readers, and what is the point of it all? And why are so few characters in literary novels ever happy? Amongst other things.
I can imagine this would be a love it or hate it kind of book. Despite Thaw's Serious Women Problems (and, to a lesser extent, Lanark's), something that often turns me off of a book, I loved it. Adored it. Will have to reread it again, sometime in the future.
Fabulous.
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LibraryThing member antao
(Original Review, 1981-03-10)
I don't have problem with intertextual interpretation as such. It's only that I've always seen reading as a collaborative process between an author and a reader. If you look at it that way, it makes you wonder which parts of deep reading “Lanark” come from the mind
I've, finally, got around to finishing the last few chapters of “Lanark”, and found the wonderful bit at the end where the “Alasdair Gray” appears in his own work having a conversation with his hero. He explains the sources of his writing and ends up apologising to his character for having to end the book the way he feels he must. He includes the line 'a parade of irrelevant erudition through grotesquely inflated footnotes' to describe the list of intertextual references he used in his novel. There is something characteristically Glaswegian about the humour in that whole chapter.
I think that's what made me start considering the value of hunting out references against letting a work stand by itself as separate entity. It reminds me of Hammett who does seem to avoid places where he could insert deeper meaning in the text. His performance of Shylock might be related to the character of Cairo, but it is a fleeting touch, not the heavy reference of Lowry's “Hands of Orlac.”
Over the last years or so I've been gradually reading “Ulysses”. Sometimes I can skip over the surface enjoying the beauty of the language. At other times I can sink without a trace, following references into the depths until I am studying and not reading. At present rate of progress, it will probably take me another twenty years to finish it, but I'm never going to have fully 'deep read' it. Perhaps just like “Lanark”.
I don't have problem with intertextual interpretation as such. It's only that I've always seen reading as a collaborative process between an author and a reader. If you look at it that way, it makes you wonder which parts of deep reading “Lanark” come from the mind
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of Alasdair Gray and which come from the attic of your own subconscious. I also wonder if it matters which mind it comes from, at least when reading fiction.I've, finally, got around to finishing the last few chapters of “Lanark”, and found the wonderful bit at the end where the “Alasdair Gray” appears in his own work having a conversation with his hero. He explains the sources of his writing and ends up apologising to his character for having to end the book the way he feels he must. He includes the line 'a parade of irrelevant erudition through grotesquely inflated footnotes' to describe the list of intertextual references he used in his novel. There is something characteristically Glaswegian about the humour in that whole chapter.
I think that's what made me start considering the value of hunting out references against letting a work stand by itself as separate entity. It reminds me of Hammett who does seem to avoid places where he could insert deeper meaning in the text. His performance of Shylock might be related to the character of Cairo, but it is a fleeting touch, not the heavy reference of Lowry's “Hands of Orlac.”
Over the last years or so I've been gradually reading “Ulysses”. Sometimes I can skip over the surface enjoying the beauty of the language. At other times I can sink without a trace, following references into the depths until I am studying and not reading. At present rate of progress, it will probably take me another twenty years to finish it, but I'm never going to have fully 'deep read' it. Perhaps just like “Lanark”.
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LibraryThing member melaniemaksin
Lanark is a story (or two) told in the wrong (but really quite right) order, a dystopian take on all the things that so readily lend themselves to the dystopian treatment: capitalism, power, love, etc. There are funny bits, fantastical bits, postmodern bits, and depressing bits, and Alasdair Gray
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is beyond smooth at weaving them all together. Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Because it falls in what I would consider the "whacky" end of things, I found this a bit of a chore to read at first. However, once one gets past the stylistic aspects, there is treasure to be had.
LibraryThing member bookwitch
The subtitle of Lanark is ‘A Life in Four Books,’ and although there seems almost to be more than four books here, or if not then a smaller number of divided books, one has the sense that two complete and totally separate books could have been made from the whole, although that’s not to say
Lanark begins with book three, most of which takes place in a surreal world where one senses that anything could happen. There’s a prodigious imagination at work here, and one can only read on in fascination wondering who or what the central character Lanark is, and hoping to find out.
Books one and two follow, and chronicle the life of Thaw in a recognisable Glasgow from childhood to death, by way of sex, art, religion and obsession. It reminded me of Patrick White’s The Vivisector and The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Carey, and undercurrents of myth and literature run through this section (as through the other parts) that made me wish I’d had a Classical education. At one point Thaw, who seems not only to be Lanark but also Alasdair Gray himself (as the detail in this section feels overwhelmingly autobiographical ), is asked by the registrar of the School of Art what he’d like to do. When he replies that he’d like to write a modern Divine Comedy with illustrations in the style of William Blake it seems like a message directly from the lips of the author and a clue to the objectives of the book itself.
Which is why, on reaching the epilogue, which occurs roughly five sixths of the way though the book, I laughed with delight to find Lanark confronting his fictional author, who then insisted on listing each act of carefully defined plagiarism and explaining how the book had come to be and what it meant.
After this epilogue the story continues, but after a while seems to slow and lose impetus. I was left feeling that the author had said everything he wanted to say, and perhaps that was slightly too much for me. Yet this is a definitely a great work, with masterly prose that carries the reader on feeling that s/he is in safe hands. One of those books to which you return to make new discoveries.
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they should have been. Lanark begins with book three, most of which takes place in a surreal world where one senses that anything could happen. There’s a prodigious imagination at work here, and one can only read on in fascination wondering who or what the central character Lanark is, and hoping to find out.
Books one and two follow, and chronicle the life of Thaw in a recognisable Glasgow from childhood to death, by way of sex, art, religion and obsession. It reminded me of Patrick White’s The Vivisector and The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Carey, and undercurrents of myth and literature run through this section (as through the other parts) that made me wish I’d had a Classical education. At one point Thaw, who seems not only to be Lanark but also Alasdair Gray himself (as the detail in this section feels overwhelmingly autobiographical ), is asked by the registrar of the School of Art what he’d like to do. When he replies that he’d like to write a modern Divine Comedy with illustrations in the style of William Blake it seems like a message directly from the lips of the author and a clue to the objectives of the book itself.
Which is why, on reaching the epilogue, which occurs roughly five sixths of the way though the book, I laughed with delight to find Lanark confronting his fictional author, who then insisted on listing each act of carefully defined plagiarism and explaining how the book had come to be and what it meant.
After this epilogue the story continues, but after a while seems to slow and lose impetus. I was left feeling that the author had said everything he wanted to say, and perhaps that was slightly too much for me. Yet this is a definitely a great work, with masterly prose that carries the reader on feeling that s/he is in safe hands. One of those books to which you return to make new discoveries.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
Duncan Thaw, an artist living in Glasgow, and the man who arrives in the city of Unthank by train at the beginning of the book and takes the name Lanark, are one and the same person. Lanark isn’t quite as useless as Thaw, but it's hard to like a book with such an unlikeable protagonist, even
I like the way the book is organised. Books 1 and 2 are about Thaw, and books 3 and 4 are about Lanark (and they happen in that chronological order), but book 3 comes first, which means that as Lanark arrives in Unthank knowing nothing about his past or the city that will become his home, the reader is in the same boat.
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though the book covers interesting political and social issues. I only really started to enjoy it in the final quarter, when time becomes unreliable (even outside the Intercalendrical Zones), and Lanark meets someone who can tell him what is going on.I like the way the book is organised. Books 1 and 2 are about Thaw, and books 3 and 4 are about Lanark (and they happen in that chronological order), but book 3 comes first, which means that as Lanark arrives in Unthank knowing nothing about his past or the city that will become his home, the reader is in the same boat.
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LibraryThing member symcbean
Quirky dual threaded fantasy. I loved it.
LibraryThing member whatsmacksaid
It had some really fascinating bits, and it was definitely a worthwhile read. I wish I hadn't been on a deadline to finish it, though, because it is a very long book (560 pages) and I would have preferred to take my time.
There were definitely parts where it dragged on and on, but those were
There were definitely parts where it dragged on and on, but those were
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balanced out by the rest of the book. I felt as though the entire book kept me fluctuating between the two extremes, where one minute I'd be enthralled and in the next bit I'd be bored (or sometimes confused). Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Alasdair Gray notes in the Epilogue section, strangely on p. 493 of his 560 page novel: " A possible explanation is that the author thinks a heavy book will make a bigger splash than two light ones. This note, well the entire section, appears to reconcile the disparate narratives which occupy the
Digressions and comparisons ensue. The artist's failure to love is mirrored with Hell's thwarting of contentment. I see that. It does beg some reflection.
It was good novel for one's birthday week, especially while entertaining dear visitors from overseas. It was a whirlwind of trips and laughs. A beer or two may have been swallowed along the way. Lanark was good for all that. Folks were taken back to the airport. The heat actually left the area and this allowed the delegate theme at the end to be absorbed without enkindling any serial rage.
Lanarks works and it is good to love and endure.
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novel. Seldom have I ever encountered such polarizing sections; the Thaw scenes I absolutely loved and the Lanark/Unthank episodes were perfectly dreadful. The latter was likely intentional, portraits of hell should be infernal, I suppose.Digressions and comparisons ensue. The artist's failure to love is mirrored with Hell's thwarting of contentment. I see that. It does beg some reflection.
It was good novel for one's birthday week, especially while entertaining dear visitors from overseas. It was a whirlwind of trips and laughs. A beer or two may have been swallowed along the way. Lanark was good for all that. Folks were taken back to the airport. The heat actually left the area and this allowed the delegate theme at the end to be absorbed without enkindling any serial rage.
Lanarks works and it is good to love and endure.
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LibraryThing member N.W.Moors
Lanark is an autobiographical novel composed of four books: books 1 and 2 are in the middle supported on either side by book 3 at the beginning and then book 4 at the end. Books 3 and 4 are dystopian, the story of the man named Lanark who lives in the city of Unthank. They depict his struggle to
I'm a quick reader, but it's taken me a long time to read this book, mostly because I wanted to ponder what was written. It's a hard book to explain; it's mystical with a touch of the ordinary, often cruel with just a few moments of tenderness, and always thought-provoking in what is said about working men and women. The drudgery of Duncan Thaw's everyday life is offset by the weirdness that Lanark lives through.
Other reviewers have noted what an excellent portrait of the city of Glasgow this book reflects. It's is Gray's city in real life and in the guise of Duncan Thaw, but Unthank is also Glasgow as Grays sees it. In many ways, this is his tribute as much as Ulysses was Joyce's tribute to Dublin, the high points and the flaws.
This is a book I'll go back to again and again, I suspect. It's probably not for everyone, but there is much here to digest.
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understand class and politics against a weird backdrop where people are swallowed by gullets and suffer from diseases that turn them into dragons. The middle sections, books 1 and 2, are Lanark's alter-ego named Duncan Thaw, a boy growing up in Glasgow in a working class family who is devoted to his art. I'm a quick reader, but it's taken me a long time to read this book, mostly because I wanted to ponder what was written. It's a hard book to explain; it's mystical with a touch of the ordinary, often cruel with just a few moments of tenderness, and always thought-provoking in what is said about working men and women. The drudgery of Duncan Thaw's everyday life is offset by the weirdness that Lanark lives through.
Other reviewers have noted what an excellent portrait of the city of Glasgow this book reflects. It's is Gray's city in real life and in the guise of Duncan Thaw, but Unthank is also Glasgow as Grays sees it. In many ways, this is his tribute as much as Ulysses was Joyce's tribute to Dublin, the high points and the flaws.
This is a book I'll go back to again and again, I suspect. It's probably not for everyone, but there is much here to digest.
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
the author aimed to land somewhere between Peter Ackroyd and James Joyce. While he did that, I'm a long way from entranced by the way he did it. I also am not fond of the POV character. He seems a general purpose Sulky Briton to me. I agree that it's no fun to live in the poorer parts of the U.K.,
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or anywhere poor, for that matter. It just never managed to engage me. there's also a hue of Melville and John Dos Passos in the air. Show Less
LibraryThing member ivanfranko
A masterpiece of huge imagination. Its message is more prescient than ever. (The dangers of "fracking" are given mention, as Unthank/Glasgow subsides in Chapter 44 - End).
Hail, Alasdair Gray!
Hail, Alasdair Gray!
LibraryThing member m.a.harding
boring, astounding. a posmodernist version of Ulysses.
LibraryThing member wandering_star
It's not easy to describe this book. Half of it (the middle half) is a semi-autobiographical tale of a young artist growing up in Glasgow and trying to make his mark on the world, but failing partly because of his unique vision and partly because his difficulty understanding and engaging with other
I wasn't sure whether I was meant to sympathise with the main character and dislike the people (mainly women) who criticise his personality, or whether they were meant to be throwing light on his nature. And - although I enjoyed reading it - I never really wanted to pick it up.
I think in the end the overwhelming (literally!) thing for me was that there was just too much in the book. The middle sections, where Thaw is struggling to contain the art he wants to express into a manageable format, were fascinating - I could imagine it was almost a narrative about how the book in my hands was being written.
The problem was that I started to feel that Gray didn't trust his readers - he had to put in everything, and explain as much as possible, rather than leaving some of it up to us. The edition I read even had an afterword where Gray explained that in the sections he wanted the reader to go more slowly, he'd put in more punctuation, with correspondingly less if he wanted the reader to go quickly.
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people. This is embedded in a book about the same man in a science fiction style dystopian futuristic universe, with flashes of (rather unsubtle) satire about the contradictions and shortcomings of global capitalism.I wasn't sure whether I was meant to sympathise with the main character and dislike the people (mainly women) who criticise his personality, or whether they were meant to be throwing light on his nature. And - although I enjoyed reading it - I never really wanted to pick it up.
I think in the end the overwhelming (literally!) thing for me was that there was just too much in the book. The middle sections, where Thaw is struggling to contain the art he wants to express into a manageable format, were fascinating - I could imagine it was almost a narrative about how the book in my hands was being written.
The problem was that I started to feel that Gray didn't trust his readers - he had to put in everything, and explain as much as possible, rather than leaving some of it up to us. The edition I read even had an afterword where Gray explained that in the sections he wanted the reader to go more slowly, he'd put in more punctuation, with correspondingly less if he wanted the reader to go quickly.
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LibraryThing member timjones
Lanark is divided into four books; the outer, fantastic, two tell the story of Lanark, a man who awakes to find himself in a decaying world ruled by the feuding Institute and Council, in which increasing numbers of people are either disappearing altogether or suffering from strange maladies such as
The inner, realistic, two books tell the story of Thaw, a young art student in Glasgow. Thaw is similar in character to Lanark, suffers from eczema, and is in other ways an analogue of Lanark, just as Unthank is Glasgow in a state of severe collapse. As Gray himself was born in Glasgow, and trained as an artist there, there is clearly an element of autobiography in this story - and, having spent a mere two days in Glasgow myself, I could recognise a distinctive Glaswegian air about the work.
Such a bare summary does little justice to the book, which is a bizarre mixture of Kafka, Dante, Orwell and Robert Sheckley, part horrific, part humorous, part soberly descriptive. Gray even reminds me of Gene Wolfe at times in the way he provides explanations for seemingly incongruous events just after you’ve given up hope of understanding what’s going on.
All these comparisons may make the book seem forbiddingly intellectual, but it’s actually very readable. I particularly like the way in which the humour in the book arises naturally out of the situations Lanark and Thaw find themselves (themself?) in, whereas many SF humorists appear to insert their jokes on a so-many-per-page principle after the rest of the book has been completed.
As a bonus, Gray has illustrated the book himself, and the illustrations are remarkable - rich and detailed panoramas of his gloomy cities.
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having their skin converted into tough, reptilian ‘dragonhide’, and time passes at unpredictable and varying rates. Lanark rises, mainly by accident, to a high position in this society, but finds this to be of questionable benefit.The inner, realistic, two books tell the story of Thaw, a young art student in Glasgow. Thaw is similar in character to Lanark, suffers from eczema, and is in other ways an analogue of Lanark, just as Unthank is Glasgow in a state of severe collapse. As Gray himself was born in Glasgow, and trained as an artist there, there is clearly an element of autobiography in this story - and, having spent a mere two days in Glasgow myself, I could recognise a distinctive Glaswegian air about the work.
Such a bare summary does little justice to the book, which is a bizarre mixture of Kafka, Dante, Orwell and Robert Sheckley, part horrific, part humorous, part soberly descriptive. Gray even reminds me of Gene Wolfe at times in the way he provides explanations for seemingly incongruous events just after you’ve given up hope of understanding what’s going on.
All these comparisons may make the book seem forbiddingly intellectual, but it’s actually very readable. I particularly like the way in which the humour in the book arises naturally out of the situations Lanark and Thaw find themselves (themself?) in, whereas many SF humorists appear to insert their jokes on a so-many-per-page principle after the rest of the book has been completed.
As a bonus, Gray has illustrated the book himself, and the illustrations are remarkable - rich and detailed panoramas of his gloomy cities.
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LibraryThing member Charon07
Fascinating, confusing, weird. I can't even begin to offer a plot synopsis. I was fascinated by parts and bored to tears by other parts. Epic strangeness that nevertheless strikes amazingly close to home at times. A novel not soon forgotten.
Media reviews
Bulk alone--560 or so pages--signals Scottish first-novelist Gray's determination: he means to make a detailed, leisurely analogue to today, to set it in a future-world city much like Glasgow. The main of Gray's big metaphorical structure is built on fantasy. And though this construct has its
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moments, it never even comes close to cohering. The eye, instead of being scathing, is more simply chafed; there's a sharp edge here, but it glints only once in a long while. Some appeal for fanciers of grand-scale sociological futurescapes, then, with more ambition than real imagination or power. Show Less
The Guardian
What's worth saying, these decades on, is that Lanark , in common with all great books, is still, and always will be, an act of resistance. It is part of the system of whispers and sedition and direct communion, one voice to another, we call literature. Its bravery in finding voice, in encouraging
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the enormous power of public, national, artistic, sexual and political imagination, is not something to take for granted.
Alasdair Gray's big book about Glasgow is also a big book about everywhere. Its insistence on the literal if mistrusted truth - that Glasgow and Scotland and every small nation and individual within it are part of the whole wide world - is something worth saying indeed. Dear reader, delay no longer. Engage with the text. Imagine. Admire the view. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1841959073 / 9781841959078
Physical description
592 p.; 13 inches
Pages
592