Thanks for this response, Doug. Suggests that MacLeod did manage to solve
the local/universal problem rather neatly. Always a problem, particularly
for Glasgow writers. (Tom Leonard and Jim Kelman approached the language
side of this in different ways.)
Given my background, I'd no way of judging how generally successful it was,
so it's interesting to know how it looks from further off.
By the time I realised just how *specific* MacLeod was being, I thought I
should be making notes, but it was too late (and anyway I was simply
enjoying the novels too much to pause). If (when -- he's good enough for
this) I reread them, I'll try and jot the obvious stuff down for you, Doug,
if you'd be interested.
(Unless someone has done this already? -- don't want to reinvent the wheel.)
Though even there, that ten year gap doesn't make me the ideal commentator.
Some of the stuff really *is* that specific. I can see how my QMU turned
into MacLeod's (the real place, that is) but I'm still not sure whether the
politics themselves had changed, or whether MacLeod and I were coming on it
from different dirrections, or what. I think they *had* changed -- the SWP
was never a big thing in Glasgow when I was there but it did grow.
Whatever, thanks for putting me onto him in the first place, Doug.
The Enigmatic Mouse
> An interesting question, Robin. I suspect, that aspect was read (it
> certainly was by me) as, yes, local, but also a socio-cultural aspect
> of the 'past' in that future that we had to take as given, & as a given
> for the development of the future(s) he constructed in those 4 novels.
> MacLeod is such a good writer, creates such interesting characters who
> battle with each other & with the social developments they face, that
> the story carries one through.
>
> But of course I didn't really understand that history, just what he
> showed me, in context...
>
> Doug
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