Rob Roy (1817)

liked it enough to rent the movie :) ( )

Rob Roy is an historical novel set in 1715, a year when many Scots and some English rose up against England's Hanoverian king, George I, in an attempt to restore the Stuart monarchy. The narrator of the story, Frank Osbaldistone, is a young man unwittingly caught up in these events. The only son of a London merchant, Frank announces to his father's intense dismay that he would rather be a poet than a businessman. Frank is exiled to the home of his estranged uncle in the far north of England near the Scottish border. There he is to recruit one of his cousins to replace Frank as his father's assistant and heir.

In contrast to his stern, sober, Puritan father, Frank's uncle and family are fun-loving, hard drinking Catholics. They are also Jacobites--supporters of the Stuart Pretender, even though they are English. Frank finds rapport with only one member of the household, a more distant cousin named Diana Vernon. She is serious and studious and appreciates Frank's poetical talents. He falls in love with her, but she warns him off, saying she is obligated by her late father's will to either marry one of his Catholic cousins or enter a convent. One of those cousins, Rashleigh Osbaldistone, ugly, twisted and sinister, becomes both Frank's surrogate in the family business and his jealous rival for Diana's attention.

Through Rashleigh's machinations, Frank is accused of a crime and his father is robbed of his fortune. Frank is drawn into Scotland to restore both his name and his father's credit. There he meets Rob Roy MacGregor, an historical figure known as the Scottish Robin Hood, a remarkable man who is at the center of the intrigues that will soon break out into open warfare, though the motives and allegiances of Rob Roy himself are often ambiguous and mutable.

Aside from being an entertaining novel, what Rob Roy perhaps does best is to portray the complex pattern of loyalties and rivalries of the time. It wasn't just a case of Jacobite versus Hanoverian, but Catholic versus Protestant, Tory versus Whig, those favoring the Act of Union and those wanting to restore Scotland's independence, Scots Highlanders versus Lowlanders, and Highland clan against clan. Every possible combination of allegiances was possible, leading to a very fluid and unstable political situation. Many Scotsmen favored union with England and its Protestant monarch, especially the Presbyterian citizens of Glasgow who were thriving from new access to American markets. Walter Scott vividly contrasts the bustling prosperity of Glasgow with the severe poverty of the Highlands. But he also gives us a very sympathetic portrait of Highland culture, proud and independent, which was threatened by the imposition of English law, English taxes, and the English language. He also lovingly depicts the Scottish landscape, especially that of Loch Lomond, Rob Roy MacGregor's home and refuge.

The novel stays on the periphery of the major historical events, focusing on the fictional character of its narrator, Frank Osbaldistone, more than Rob Roy MacGregor himself. Of the latter we are given more of a personality study than a biographical treatment. There is plenty of humor and suspense, and even some Gothic elements. The most challenging thing about the novel is the extensive dialogue in Scots dialect, which the author has rendered differently in order to reflect the character's origins, education, and even his mood at the time. MacGregor's dialect changes, for example, depending on whom his is talking to, what he is talking about, and how much he has had to drink. But it's all comprehensible with a bit of work and practice.

This is a very good novel, a little slow in spots but filled with historical and cultural insight and some memorable scenes. It should appeal to anyone who likes historical fiction or is interested in Scotland and its history. ( )

I really like Frank Osbaldistone, but then I would: he's the son of a man who throws himself into his work constantly, not because he needs the money, but just because he isn't possible of doing anything else, and is very, very good at what he does. Then there's his son, Frank, who wants to be a poet. Frank was a fun narrator, and made this story for me, which was pretty interesting, but perhaps not interesting enough for its length. But when it was fun, it was very fun-- a rollicking adventure-- and Diana Vernon a fabulously compelling love interest. It's more than a bit misnamed, though.

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. ( )