George Douglas Brown (1869–1902)

Overall, The House with the Green Shutters was fascinating. I found it interesting in the sense that at the intro, I accepted that I wasn't going to like the main character--and, I assumed, the protagonist. Gourlay Sr., however, is not what I would call a protagonist.

Brown introduced character after character that was not someone I would ever, ever want to spend physical time with (although some of them were amusing, and many had odd little quirks that made observing them worthwhile). The show more small handful of likeable characters were present for only a small portion of the novel. Mostly it was like watching a train wreck--awful people with awful situations, but I just couldn't look away.

Truthfully, it did drag in some places. Gourlay Jr.'s drunken musings are not exactly thrilling, but the narrator recognizes that (and scorns him for it--the narrator's not exactly a nice person, either) and moves the story along as best he can. The ending was horrendous, but mostly in a Shakespearean tragedy kind of way. Murder, madness, and suicide. show less

A Greek tragedy. There's actually a Chorus of 'bodies', the first time I've ever seen this done in modern fiction and it works well. At one point he follows Euripides' Suppliant Women word for word. I wouldn't have noticed but it was the last book I read. Annoyingly, now I come to write this, I can't find the passage in either book.

It is beautifully written. "...the slaver slid unheeded along the cutties... white-mutched grannies were keeking past the jambs...". Great stuff. Completely show more unintelligible of course, but there's a good glossary at the back (and a good introduction which can't be read before the novel as it gives away every plot point). I perhaps had less trouble with the dialect that some would as I can understand Geordie, though not speak it. It was interesting to see ‘div’ for ‘do’. The Geordies don’t have that, they have ‘de’, but they do have ‘divn’t’ for ‘don’t’. I’d never really considered what happened to the counterpart.

It’s a dark book. Truly dark. It’s not like Brown has gone for anything so superficial as a dark mood. I think he has a dark soul. It’s also a very good book and I’d recommend it to anyone. If I had to find a flaw I’d say he sometimes lacks complete control of his authorial voice, but it was only his second novel. Such a shame that he was dead by the time he was my age. I think we’ve been denied a number of superb novels. show less

It is difficult to use the words 'like' or 'enjoyed' about a book this unremittingly grim. However, one can appreciate good writing, and the psychological profiles offered. The book subverts the Kailyard school of - where happy rural communities come together beside bonnie briar bushes. In Barbie, the fictional Ayrshire town where The House with Green Shutters sits, the community of 'bodies' is a malignant Greek chorus spreading gossip and watching with undisguised glee as the haulage empire show more of the town bully Jack Gourlay crumbles around him and he and his weak-minded family are driven to various types of insanity.

So not a cheery read then. But it is the antecedent of strain of Scottish realism, written in the vernacular, that has given rise to everything from [b:Sunset Song|1203812|Sunset Song |Lewis Grassic Gibbon|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359617860s/1203812.jpg|2555083] to [b:Train Spotting|16650491|Railway Top Spots Revisiting the Top Train Spotting Destinations of Our Childhood. Julian Holland|Julian Holland|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358759103s/16650491.jpg|22857267]. show less

This was a tragic book in the main. Following the Gourlay family left me with a negative reaction. It displayed a family often surrounded by evil, bitterness and angry, and completely dis-functional. It is not a book I would personally recommend, unless it offers a fair description of a particular time in Scottish social history to students of that era.