by Jean McLennan
256 pages, Black and White
Review by Sharon Gunason Pottinger
Blood in the Glens is neither your fudge tin Scotland nor the gritty tartan noir of Ian Rankin and fiction crime writers, but it is all about murders in the Highlands of Scotland, that mysterious, underpopulated, much romanticized land at the far edge of the United Kingdom. If you are curious about stories from the highlands without castles, heather, clearances, or travel memoirs from famous people, then this book should be a welcome read. Likewise, if you enjoy reading analyses of crimes, then this book offers a wealth of information about murders in the Highlands spanning a period of nearly 60 years.
Despite its commercial and therefore blood spattered cover art and subtitle, “True Crime from the Scottish Highlands,” the dozen stories in this book are not grim or grisly (though some of the cases described are). The author, a retired lawyer “with a deep interest in criminal law” writes with a sympathetic but matter of fact tone so that the unpleasant details are part of the overall pattern that she looks for in all the cases. This is her first book and it shows the careful editing of someone working at her new craft. It must have been a challenge both to organize the complex cases into a coherent narrative and to know just how much background knowledge about criminal proceedings to include. For the most part, McLennan got this just right. A few of the longer discussions about the differences between Scottish and English law might be overlong to a non-resident reader, but, as an ex pat living in Scotland, I found them especially interesting. A unique aspect of Scottish law is that it is possible to receive a verdict of “not proven”. “Not proven”, however, keeps the alleged perpetrator and, sadly, the victim’s family and community in a middle ground. Scotland also has more strict guidelines about the time for a trial, limits on incarceration, and rules of evidence, which played a significant role in at least one of the cases MacLennan describes.
McLennan’s Blood in the Glens is good reading even for those readers like myself who prefer safer topics or stories of death at a safe distance of time or place. The book is divided into murders in Scotland, murders by Scots, and then four still unsolved cases, followed by an epilogue in which she reflects on the cases and offers some perspective on patterns or observations from the dozen cases. The organisation made it easy for me to read it in safe doses of a story at time.
One quibble is that the cover, which seems to be all that some reviewers have read, exclaims that the highlands have had more than their fair share of murders. In fact, as McLennan points out, the highlands are comparatively safe and the murder rate is actually lower than elsewhere. Visitors as well as residents are more at risk of motor vehicle accidents or falling off cliffs than being murdered.
The author seems a bit disappointed that no in depth psychological or sociological patterns emerge from the analysis of the cases she selected. As she commented in a presentation to my local SWRI (Scottish Women’s Rural Institute), the only common thread among the murders is a sense that murder appeared to the perpetrator to be the only way out of an increasingly desperate situation. In her epilogue the author does offer statistics that suggest somewhat counterintuitively that longer sentences for murderers are not likely to be effective, and, more reassuringly, that murderers, despite the terrifying headlines of serial killers (one of whom is included in Blood in the Glens), are not likely to murder again.
Showing posts with label Sharon Gunason Pottinger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharon Gunason Pottinger. Show all posts
September 12, 2011
December 11, 2009
TWO CARAVANS
by Monica Lewycka
309 pages. Fig Tree Press.
Review by Sharon Gunason Pottinger
Confessions of a Narrative Junkie: Review of Two Caravans
If I hadn’t arrived at my friend’s house an hour early and the only thing to read was Two Caravans, I probably would not have picked it up even though I enjoyed Monica Lewycka’s first book (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian). I am a narrative junkie—once I start a story I have to see how it ends.
By the time my friend showed up and I set the book aside, I had read 20 pages and that was enough to make me wonder how the story would end. I was hooked. Now the fact that I looked for it in my local library rather than having Amazon zap it to me suggests I was equivocal about it from the get go. Even so, when I the librarian plopped it triumphantly down in front of me, I was happy to see it and read it that same day.
The dedication to Morecambe Bay cockle pickers and the excerpt from the Prologue to the Wife of Bath’s Tale (in older English) suggested it was going to be a more serious book, or at least touch lightly on serious subjects, which she did in Short History. Most of the seriousness in Two Caravans, however, gets lost in slapstick and the fact that the characters describing what they see are limited in the perspective they can offer. The wise fool character types represented in the naïve immigrants and, yes, a dog with more humanity than some of the humans, offer some very funny insights into the chaos that typify too much of contemporary life, but the characters who might provide fuller insights are left on the cutting room floor. That seems to me a great loss, and a disservice to Chaucer whose spirit she evoked.
I like to think I would have recognized the traveller’s tales genre without the excerpt, but it might have eluded me—I leave to your discretion to decide whether that is because it has been too long since I studied literature or Ms. Lewycka needed to signpost her design.
In addition to losing the older, wiser characters, which meant the end of the novel was more of a romance than true traveller’s tales, the bad guys were not well defined. The stage was set for seeing the good and bad characters alike as faced with impossible choices through brief back stories, at least for Vitaly. The young prostitute with dead eyes is a good foil for Irina. Arguably Vulk and Vitaly are the antithesis of Andriy. But we do not get a chance to see how fate shaped Vulk into the complete villain that he is and so we cannot understand the passion he has for Irina, which is a compelling force for much of the plot. What makes one person choose to be “a man” as Andriy decides and another to look at the world with dead eyes? This is an important question that even in a picaresque, light-hearted novel, needs a bit more answering. After all, the book is dedicated to the Morecambe cockle pickers—those poor souls who were left to drown in the incoming tide because their agents didn’t understand or know or care that they were drowning. Other than the dedication, the cockle pickers are mentioned only in passing and we are left to wonder as well about the Chinese girls whose lives have already been so desperately compromised.
When Ms. Lewycka chooses to research and to present a graphic scene of gross exploitation, she can do it ably. The description of the dehumanising events in the chicken factory are a testament to the fact that she can write powerfully within her chosen genre when she chooses to do so. Even more startling than the graphic story in the chicken factory is the stark description of the exploitation of trained medical people subjected to “retraining” at minimal wages, including much the same kinds of deductions as the agricultural workers. Exploitation by the mobilfonmen cuts across classes and continents.
One reviewer described Two Caravans as struggling with second book phenomenon, which, in this case, seems to be a struggle to repeat her initial success and bring out another book fast enough to capitalize on the success of the first one while trying to look serious. I like to think that if she had taken a bit more time and made it a bit more balanced, it would have been a much stronger story. Perhaps there is an editor or a sales and marketing department that leaned a bit too heavily on the author.
Although another reviewer commented that they liked seeing Mr. Mayevskyj, a central figure from her first novel, this cameo appearance seemed to me like a nod to Hollywood type name-dropping. It did not add to the narrative. Many men (and some women, I daresay) have a fondness for things mechanical. The gearbox might have belonged to any number of people, and the plot could have worked well without any more coincidences.
Most puzzling to me was Emmanuel. His story was perhaps one of the most interesting and it is given to us in small doses almost as a subplot, but one that does not quite come to a satisfactory end. Is Emmanuel’s strict faith and love of God the antidote for Britain’s overblown consumerism or is he just one lucky AIDS orphan whose life has come right? Although he has the last word in the novel, his story, sadly, seems to remain a sideshow to the romantic happy ending.
Perhaps I have been so critical of Two Caravans because I did read it—like eating a second piece of chocolate or getting caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar—yes, yes, I read it, but you see I can find all these flaws in it so I am morally and intellectually superior to a book others call a book with “a big heart”. Despite all its limitations, I read it and I enjoyed it. November is the season for Nouveau Beaujolais, wine that is pleasing to the palate but not well aged nor long lived on the shelf. Read Two Caravans quickly and do not expect it to linger on the bookshelf for a re-read and you can enjoy the occasional flashes of insight into a world most of us, thank God, will never experience directly.
Sharon Gunason Pottinger
309 pages. Fig Tree Press.
Review by Sharon Gunason Pottinger
Confessions of a Narrative Junkie: Review of Two Caravans
If I hadn’t arrived at my friend’s house an hour early and the only thing to read was Two Caravans, I probably would not have picked it up even though I enjoyed Monica Lewycka’s first book (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian). I am a narrative junkie—once I start a story I have to see how it ends.
By the time my friend showed up and I set the book aside, I had read 20 pages and that was enough to make me wonder how the story would end. I was hooked. Now the fact that I looked for it in my local library rather than having Amazon zap it to me suggests I was equivocal about it from the get go. Even so, when I the librarian plopped it triumphantly down in front of me, I was happy to see it and read it that same day.
The dedication to Morecambe Bay cockle pickers and the excerpt from the Prologue to the Wife of Bath’s Tale (in older English) suggested it was going to be a more serious book, or at least touch lightly on serious subjects, which she did in Short History. Most of the seriousness in Two Caravans, however, gets lost in slapstick and the fact that the characters describing what they see are limited in the perspective they can offer. The wise fool character types represented in the naïve immigrants and, yes, a dog with more humanity than some of the humans, offer some very funny insights into the chaos that typify too much of contemporary life, but the characters who might provide fuller insights are left on the cutting room floor. That seems to me a great loss, and a disservice to Chaucer whose spirit she evoked.
I like to think I would have recognized the traveller’s tales genre without the excerpt, but it might have eluded me—I leave to your discretion to decide whether that is because it has been too long since I studied literature or Ms. Lewycka needed to signpost her design.
In addition to losing the older, wiser characters, which meant the end of the novel was more of a romance than true traveller’s tales, the bad guys were not well defined. The stage was set for seeing the good and bad characters alike as faced with impossible choices through brief back stories, at least for Vitaly. The young prostitute with dead eyes is a good foil for Irina. Arguably Vulk and Vitaly are the antithesis of Andriy. But we do not get a chance to see how fate shaped Vulk into the complete villain that he is and so we cannot understand the passion he has for Irina, which is a compelling force for much of the plot. What makes one person choose to be “a man” as Andriy decides and another to look at the world with dead eyes? This is an important question that even in a picaresque, light-hearted novel, needs a bit more answering. After all, the book is dedicated to the Morecambe cockle pickers—those poor souls who were left to drown in the incoming tide because their agents didn’t understand or know or care that they were drowning. Other than the dedication, the cockle pickers are mentioned only in passing and we are left to wonder as well about the Chinese girls whose lives have already been so desperately compromised.
When Ms. Lewycka chooses to research and to present a graphic scene of gross exploitation, she can do it ably. The description of the dehumanising events in the chicken factory are a testament to the fact that she can write powerfully within her chosen genre when she chooses to do so. Even more startling than the graphic story in the chicken factory is the stark description of the exploitation of trained medical people subjected to “retraining” at minimal wages, including much the same kinds of deductions as the agricultural workers. Exploitation by the mobilfonmen cuts across classes and continents.
One reviewer described Two Caravans as struggling with second book phenomenon, which, in this case, seems to be a struggle to repeat her initial success and bring out another book fast enough to capitalize on the success of the first one while trying to look serious. I like to think that if she had taken a bit more time and made it a bit more balanced, it would have been a much stronger story. Perhaps there is an editor or a sales and marketing department that leaned a bit too heavily on the author.
Although another reviewer commented that they liked seeing Mr. Mayevskyj, a central figure from her first novel, this cameo appearance seemed to me like a nod to Hollywood type name-dropping. It did not add to the narrative. Many men (and some women, I daresay) have a fondness for things mechanical. The gearbox might have belonged to any number of people, and the plot could have worked well without any more coincidences.
Most puzzling to me was Emmanuel. His story was perhaps one of the most interesting and it is given to us in small doses almost as a subplot, but one that does not quite come to a satisfactory end. Is Emmanuel’s strict faith and love of God the antidote for Britain’s overblown consumerism or is he just one lucky AIDS orphan whose life has come right? Although he has the last word in the novel, his story, sadly, seems to remain a sideshow to the romantic happy ending.
Perhaps I have been so critical of Two Caravans because I did read it—like eating a second piece of chocolate or getting caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar—yes, yes, I read it, but you see I can find all these flaws in it so I am morally and intellectually superior to a book others call a book with “a big heart”. Despite all its limitations, I read it and I enjoyed it. November is the season for Nouveau Beaujolais, wine that is pleasing to the palate but not well aged nor long lived on the shelf. Read Two Caravans quickly and do not expect it to linger on the bookshelf for a re-read and you can enjoy the occasional flashes of insight into a world most of us, thank God, will never experience directly.
Sharon Gunason Pottinger
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