894 Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott (read 3 Mar 1967) (Possible SPOILER) This is the fourth Scott novel I have read. It has a frightfully undeveloped ending, but much of it is power-laden and intriguing. Frank Osbaldistone is sent from his father's home to his uncle in North England. There he meets Die Vernon--and Rashleigh Osbaldistone, his cousin. Rashleigh brings Frank's father to the edge of ruin, and Frank rides to Glasgow, meets Bailie Jarvie, goes into the Highlands, has much adventure, meets with Rob Roy at crucial times--etc. Time: 1715, just before the Old Pretender's rising. I was struck by Scott's imagery, e.g.:"The moon, which was now high, and twinkled with all the vivacity of a frosty atmosphere, silvered the windings of the river and the peaks and precipices which the mist left visible, while her beams seemed as it were absorbed by the fleecy whiteness of the mist, where it lay thick and condensed, and gave to the more light and vapoury specks, which were elsewhere visible, a sort of filmy transparencey resembling the lightest veil of silver gauze." So he begins and up comes Diana Vernon and a gentlemen (her husband, Frank supposes, tho we learn much later tis her father). A very worthwhile book. ( )

Much, much different from the movie and much, much better. ( )

Paula

Loved the beginning, but the Scottich dialect was too much for me, and I ended up leaving the novel unfinished. Might come back to it at some point, when I have a bit more time to dig through the dialogue. ( )

I was strucj by the fact that when I saw the film of this name, it stuck much more closely to the historical facts about Rob Roy (as given in an appendix here) than the novel does, inwhic Roby Roy appears only as a friend of the hero ( )