Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

A Great Scottish Novel – Book One of the Trilogy 'A Scots Quair'

Nov 10, 2009

First published in 1932, Sunset Song is a lyrical evocation of rural Scotland, the land and its people, in the years before and during the First World War.

Chris Guthrie is the heroine and central character of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's masterpiece, the first novel in what was to become his trilogy, A Scots Quair.

The immediacy and freshness of the writing in Sunset Song puts the reader right by Chris's side as she journeys with grace and courage through struggles and heartbreak and grows from girlhood into womanhood.

Sunset Song is set in the fictional Kinraddie, a rural parish in the farming country of north-east Scotland, specifically in the fertile area known as The Mearns.

Kinraddie was inspired by Arbuthnott, south of Stonehaven and Aberdeen, where Lewis Grassic Gibbon grew up.in the early years of the 20th century. His life and works are commemorated there in the Grassic Gibbon Centre.

Chris Guthrie is at the centre of the novel, surrounded by a vividly-drawn cast of friends, family and neighbours. Toiling hard to win a living from the land, these characters can be brutal, judgmental, gossipy, loving, thoughtful and philosophical.

Hard though their lives often are, there is humour too, most often in wry observation of the foibles and failings of human nature.

The novel is written in a distinctive style, which comes across as very modern even today. Lewis Grassic Gibbon uses long flowing sentences, one leading seamlessly into the other. When the characters speak, this is shown by italics within the text. The writer often directly addresses the reader.

Ostensibly written in standard English, Sunset Song is nevertheless rich in Doric, the vibrant tongue of Scotland's North East. This is very skilfully done so as not to trip up the non-Doric speaking reader. Editions of the book usually include a glossary but the rhythm of Grassic Gibbon's prose is so seductive it is not necessary to consult this to fully absorb and appreciate the story.

Some readers find the style difficult to get into, others the exact opposite. The recommendation from the latter is to read the book quickly, thus allowing yourself to sink into it.

The land Chris Guthrie and her neighbours work and live on and from is as much a character as any of them. It pulsates through the story, (as does sexual desire and sexual attraction.) Growing up with an often tyrannical father, Chris dreams of escape to the city and a career as a teacher. After his death she realizes that she cannot bring herself to leave the land.

'Sea and sky and the folk who wrote and fought and were learn-ed, teaching and saying and praying, they lasted but as a breath, a mist of fog in the hills, but the land was forever, it moved and changed below you, but was forever, you were close to it and it to you, not at a bleak remove it held you and hurted you. And she had thought to leave it all!'

The North East of Scotland is full of standing stones and stone circles. Grassic Gibbon places a fictional one of the latter up behind Chris's home of Blawearie. It's where she retreats when in distress and it's where the memorial to the men of Kinraddie who die in the First World War is made. The book closes with an elegy to these men and, with their passing, 'old Scotland'.

As Lewis Grassic Gibbon put it: 'A new generation comes up that will know them not, except as a memory in a song...'

The Enduring Appeal of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Masterpiece

Lewis Grassic Gibbon - whose real name was James Leslie Mitchell - died young, in 1935 at the age of only thirty-four.

Among other works, he wrote two further books following on from Sunset Song. These are Cloud Howe and Grey Granite. Together, the trilogy is known as A Scots Quair.When it was initially published in the United States in 1933, the critic of the New York Times wrote: 'This book may be read with delight the world over.'

A public vote in Scotland in 2005 made Sunset Song ''the best Scottish book of all time' and it remains much loved by many readers.

Further information on Lewis Grassic Gibbon can be found at Books From Scotland.

The copyright of the article Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon in Scottish/Welsh Fiction is owned by Maggie Craig. Permission to republish Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.