A middle-aged professor goes in search of the mythical well at the world's end in the Scottish Highlands.

Structurally, The Well at the World's End is a picaresque; the hero, Peter Munro, embarking on a quest to find the legendary well, which is rumoured to hold both the secret of eternal life and knowledge, finds himself drawn into a number of adventures - including a ghost story, a storm at sea, a run-in with moonshiners, and a hunt with an old schoolfriend who now could be a spy. Picaresque narratives are, by their nature, fragmentary and usually through a series of adventures the hero finds enlightenment. To an extent, this happens here but Gunn never seems particularly interested in the adventures, he is more interested in the protagonists talking to each other about the importance of land, ways of live, etc., which means the narrative never quite fully gels.

The second strand of the novel is a love story - the professor's wife, Fand, is widely acknowledged as being modelled on Gunn's own wife. Throughout the novel Munro has flashbacks to his courtship, and we see how important she has been, and is, to all aspects of his life. To use a cliche - she is more than his wife, she is his soul-mate. Interestingly, the segment where this is to the fore, the first 30 pages or so, are strangely clunky - they read poorly and the novel is in danger of completely stalling. It is only when Munro has his first "adventure" that it really the novel gains any real momentum. In writing this paean to his real wife Gunn seems have forgotten that he also has to appeal to the general reader. In the end, these segments do have an important impact on the novel for as Peter moves closer to enlightenment the more he understands how important Fand, and their love for each other, is in giving his life meaning.

Throughout the novel, the hero is searching for the "other" - that intangible sense of communion with the universe (for want of a better expression). In each of the places he visits one of the characters (a shepherd, a bootlegger, a sailor, for example) describe to him a specific moment in their life when they have felt the sensation of passing beyond the reach of human experience. It is no accident that the people who experience this moment exist so close to nature as the Highlands themselves have a almost mystical atmosphere - not only may they contain the eponymous well and a rare plant that can rekindle love, but they seem to conspire with those that accept them and against those who would exploit them. Even whisky has a spiritual aspect, being in Gaelic is "usquebaugh", translated literally as 'the water of life'. Gunn is too clever to openly acknowledge the existence of the supernatural though - these things have the impression of happening out of the corner of the eye, so the narrator (and the reader) is never quite clear if something magical has happened, or it was just a trick of the light (or imagination).

At least one study has looked at Gunn as a Zen writer but it seems to me that this state of transcendence that the characters are searching for relates closer to the spiritual quest within the works of Dostoevsky (this can be seen much clearer in an earlier novel, The Serpent). Through his adventures Peter Munro has to travel through an invisible barrier to true understanding of what is really important. It is this semi-mystical spiritual quest that lifts Gunn's novels out of the ordinary.

The Well at the World's End is not one of Gunn's best novels. At times the writing is unusually awkward and the narrative structure is not fully satisfying but Gunn is always reading - even more today than when this novel was published he offers an alternative view of Scotland and Scottishness to the dominant urban view. Gunn is one of few Scottish writers who looks up at the stars rather down at gutter.
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