Iain Crichton Smith (1928–1998)

This is a peculiar work of fiction about a strange tug of war between a man’s frosty, self-contained, unpleasant and unsympathetic wife and his elderly widowed mother who comes from Edinburgh to stay for a few months in the couple’s Scottish town by the sea. The story centres around what to me seemed a highly unlikely dinner party (arranged by the calculating wife who doesn’t want her mother-in-law to stay) at which too much liquor is consumed, brains become uninhibited, and nasty show more words fly. The prose is fine enough and there are lots of literary allusions, but, in the end, I thought there was just too much introspection (some of it frankly unconvincing) for the rather insubstantial plot structure to carry. This novella was interesting (and short) enough to complete but it ultimately didn’t work for me. show less

While set during the Highland Clearances, "Consider the Lilies" isn't really about them, rather it's a character portrait of 70 year-old Mary Scott, and the family and cultural influences that lead her to be living a lonely, embittered existence. The Clearances are a shock, causing Mary to confront her assumptions about social and religious authority, to re-evaluate her life relationships, and her moral judgements about her neighbours. A resounding 5/5 🌟

All interesting stories that emphasize among other things, the losses of a once well-knit community (for the most part those of the Highlands or Western Isles), the pain of the scape-goat and the limits that low social value impose on individual lives.
For all that, on occasion an affirmation of life often redeems a situation, but Smith writes of a world where one's self-validity is at risk in an unsettled and banal world.
Well worth reading.

I was initially put off Iain Crichton Smith by my husband's dire warnings about Remember the Lilies but was glad I read this in the end