Alasdair Gray (1934–2019)

"My imagination had awakened. The imagination is, like the appendix, inherited from a primitive epoch when it aided the survival of our species, but in modern scientific industrial nations it is mainly a source of disease. I had prided myself on lacking one, but it had only lain dormant."

Due to ereader/ebook weirdness I didn't read the introduction until I'd finished the book so I was surprised by the ending letter. I actually think that's a decent way to read the book - it makes bits of the first 90% more irritating, but the impact when you reach the end is a lot stronger when you don't know it's coming. So I guess I'm not about to say anything that's a spoiler if you read the introduction (which is by the author and part of the story, to be clear) but if you want to try it a different way look away now, heh.

The book works by showing the life of a woman through multiple perspectives, with none giving a full and clear picture, and only at the end does she get to speak for herself as herself - and still, although she corrects some things, she glosses over most of the narrative and admits there are facts in there even if it's a fanciful story. Because the vast majority is told by and through McCandless, even the perspectives of the other characters are untrustworthy as we only see them through his eyes. There's a long letter from Bella in the middle, but again it's not entirely clear how much is edited by McCandless - and how much of Victoria disagreeing at the end is a retrospective embarrassment and editing of her past? And it's clear Bella/Victoria is not being entirely honest about a few things even at the end (the true story of what happened with Duncan Wedderburn can only be guessed at). And on top of that we have the judgmental introduction of Alisdair Gray (as character) where he insists McCandless's narrative is basically accurate, even if it has dramatic flair, and constantly reinserts himself through footnotes to justify it through historical fact (and fictional historical fact). The epistolary style and the shifts in reporting combine to give a lot of depth if you think about it and try and piece together a "real" story (you can't obviously, but it's interesting where your own ideas lead you)

My impression was of a story about multiple men - except Godwin - struggling to deal with one woman trying to make her own story and imposing their own stories on her that said more about them than her actions. Someone like McCandless was not as awful as the rest but could still only see her independence and beliefs as something borne from an essentially supernatural event - Frankenstein and Pygmalion combined - rather than something a normal woman in society could develop. He couldn't accept Godwin's goodness because it would make him feel too judged so he created a story about his "friend" to make him seem the pitiable one. … (more)

Big and baffling. Feels like it needs a re-read to comprehend, but it is big. There are Big Themes of socialism and capitalism and Freud and subconscious, but it's hard to know how seriously any of it is being taken. The parts (Books) that are fantastical are sort of compelling and sort of tiresome—lots of visual imagery and description that I find hard to keep in mind. The time-mangling stuff is well done, though. Plot is picaresque in these parts. The parts (Books) that are realist-ish are kind of straightforward and very much a reminder that the 1950s are now an awful long time ago. The protagonist is both fully realised and a cypher. The sexual politics and general attitude to women are both pretty dated. The whole is somehow less playful than I expected from Gray, though there is the odd good joke. It's certainly an achievement but I don't know what it achieves.… (more)