Lewis Grassic Gibbon Knihy

Po manželovej smrti sa Chris Colquohounová presťahuje spolu so synom Ewanom do priemyselného mesta Duncair. Stane sa spolumajiteľkou penziónu. Ewan preruší štúdium a nastúpi ako učeň do huty Gowans a Gloag. Chris so synom si musia privykať na cudzie prostredie, Ewan sa po počiatočných konfliktochs okolím prisposobí. Stretnutie s učiteľkou Ellen Johnsovou preňho znamená nielen zážitok prvej lásky, ale aj otvorenie cesty k robotníckemu hnutiu. Chris celkom nepreruší spojenie so Seggetom, v ktorom predtým bývala - do penziónu sa nasťahuje Sim Leslie, prezývaný Laba a neskor aj stolár Ake Ogilvie. Keď Ewana zatknú pre účasť na štrajku, mučia ho a súdia, Ake, ktorý sa o Chris uchádza, ho pomože dostať z vazenia. Chris sa zaňho z vďačnosti vydá. Ich cesty sa však zakrátko rozchádzajú. Ake odchádza do Kanady, lebo pochopil, že Chris si nedokáže získať, Ewan žije vlastným životom a Chris sa rozhodne pre návrat do kraja, v ktorom sa narodila a ktorý nikdy neprestala ľúbiť - do Cairndhu.

V druhom diele sledujeme osudy Chris Colquohounovej v malom mestečku Segget, do ktorého sa presťahovala s manželom a synom Ewanom. Sposob jej života sa od základu mení - zo ženy roľníka sa stáva predstaviteľkou malomestskej smotánky, ktorej každučký krok sleduje verejnosť. A je to, pravda, príležitosť, aby autor uplatnil svoju prenikavú iróniu a Šťavnatý humor. Chrisin druhý manžel Robert je rojko, ktorý sa usiluje prispieť k povzdvihnutiu mestečka. Chýli sa k veľkej svetovej kríze, Robert nedokáže stáť bokom a rovnako nestojí bokom ani Chris. Ich vzájomný vzťah sa však pod vplyvom vonkajších udalostí čoraz vačšmi ochladzuje, Robert, bezradný pred krutou tvárou skutočnosti, sa uchyľuje k mysticizmu. Nasledujú tragické udalosti a Chris sa znovu ocitá sama.

Škótska sága I.-III. díl je epická trilógia od autora Lewisa Grassica Gibbona, ktorá zachytáva život a kultúru škótskeho vidieka na prelome 20. storočia. Príbeh sa sústreďuje na postavy, ako sú mladý farmár Robert, jeho manželka Chrystal a ich rodina, pričom skúma ich každodenné boje, túžby a vzťahy v kontexte rýchlo sa meniacich sociálnych a ekonomických podmienok. Trilógia sa zaoberá témami ako sú identita, tradícia, zmena a konflikt medzi modernizáciou a dedičstvom. Gibbon detailne zachytáva psychológiu postáv a ich vnútorné konflikty, pričom reflektuje na dopad historických udalostí na osobný život jednotlivcov. Autor sa zameriava aj na problémy triedneho rozdelenia a postavenie žien v spoločnosti, pričom sa snaží preniknúť do hlbokých emocionálnych a psychologických aspektov svojich postáv. Celkovo dielo ponúka komplexný pohľad na škótsku kultúru a život, pričom čitateľom poskytuje príležitosť zamyslieť sa nad hodnotami a normami, ktoré formovali túto spoločnosť.

Source: Product Description Introduced by Tom Crawford. The compelling saga of Chris Guthrie is continued in this, the middle volume of Grassic Gibbon's great trilogy A Scots Quair. The scene has moved to the small community of Segget, where, after Ewan's death in the First World War, Chris has come to live with her second husband, Robert Colquhoun, an idealistic and liberal minister. Cloud Howe offers a brilliant evocation of small town life set against post-war economic hardship and the General Strike of 1926. Chris loses her baby and has to fight for a sense of her own identity in a world where only the land-and Chris herself-seem to endure with honour. Robert Colquhoun, wracked by war-ruined lungs, has to wrestle with his ideals and a spiritual crisis which will eventually kill him. Grassic Gibbon was already living in England when he wrote his great work. The incomparable artistry of Cloud Howe makes his self-imposed exile all the more poignant

A Scots Quair is revolutionary—innovative in its form, deft and humorous in its use of the Scots language, courageous in its characterization and politics. Central to the trilogy is Chris Guthrie, one of the most remarkable female characters in modern literature. In Sunset Song, Gibbon's finest achievement, the reader follows Chris through her girlhood in a tight-knit Scottish farming community: the seasons, the weddings, the funerals, the grind of work, the gossip. As the Great War takes its toll, machines replace the old way of life. Cloud Howe and Grey Granite take Chris from her rural homeland to life in an industrial Scotland and the desperate years of the Depression. The trilogy as a whole is a major achievement, a picture of a society undergoing traumatic and far-reaching transformation. Always readable, never sentimental, A Scots Quair is one of the most important works of modern Scottish literature.

Sunset Song is the first and most celebrated of Grassic Gibbon's great trilogy, A Scot's Quair. It provides a powerful description of the first two decades of the century through the evocation of change and the lyrical intensity of its prose. It is hard to find any other Scottish novel of the last century which has received wider acclaim and better epitomises the feelings of a nation.

Chris Guthrie and her son, Ewan, have come to the industrial town of Duncairn, where life is as hard as the granite of the buildings all around them. These are the Depression years of the 1930s, and Chris is far from the fields of her youth in Sunset Song. In a society of factory owners, shopkeepers, policemen, petty clerks and industrial labourers, 'Chris Caledonia' must make her living as bets she can by working in Ma Cleghorn's boarding house. Ewan finds employment in a steel foundry and tries to lead a peaceful strike against the manufacture of armaments. In the face of violence and police brutality, his socialist idealism is forged into something harder and fiercer as he becomes a communist activist ready to sacrifice himself, his girlfriend and even the truth itself, for the cause. Grey Granite is the last and grimmest volume of the Scots Quair trilogy. Chris Guthrie is one of the great characters in Scottish Literature and no reader of Sunset Song and Cloud Howe should miss this last rich chapter in her tale.

The Speak of the Mearns, on which Lewis Grassic Gibbon was working just before his untimely death, seemed set to become a worthy successor to Sunset Song, sharing much of the autobiographical content of the earlier novel. The setting is a close rural community, sharply observed by a growing boy. The "speak", the gossip of the region, is as intense and as bitingly observed as elsewhere in Gibbon's work, but the actual territory is moved from Arbuthnott to other parishes nearby. Now the seaa plays a part in invoking the atmosphere of childhood remembered.