Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)

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Perhaps the best thing I could do is write a story in which adjectives like commonplace and ordinary have the significance which glorious and divine carried in earlier comedies. What do you think?" Gray's first plays were broadcast on radio ( Quiet People) and television ( The Fall of Kelvin Walker) in 1968. [7] Between 1972 and 1974 he took part in a writing group organised by Philip Hobsbaum, which included James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, Aonghas MacNeacail and Jeff Torrington. In 1973, with the support of Edwin Morgan, he received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council to allow him to continue with Lanark. [15] From 1977 to 1979 he was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow. [35]

In 1961, Gray married Inge Sørensen, a Danish nurse then in her teens. They bought the wedding ring from a jeweller’s shop on the way to the registry office. “I believe she married me because she found me more interesting than men with steady jobs and money,” Gray stated – not out of boastfulness but as an explanation for an otherwise puzzling acceptance. He and Inge had a son, Andrew, the subject of many affectionate portraits. The couple separated after eight years and later divorced. He had a long relationship with another Danish woman, Bethsy Gray, and in the late 1980s met Morag McAlpine. They married in 1991. She died in 2014. Ferguson, Brian (19 May 2013). "Alasdair Gray puts Mor of us in the picture". The Scotsman . Retrieved 6 January 2020. a b Ferguson, Brian (30 November 2019). "Lanark author Alasdair Gray gets lifetime achievement honour for his contribution to Scottish literature". The Scotsman . Retrieved 6 January 2020. In the run-up to Gray Day, Dallas has been posting video clips titled Gray Of The Day in which various people read from Lanark. Among those who have recorded a reading is Katie Bruce, Producer Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow and one of the people involved in that 2014 retrospective. Alasdair Gray died at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on 29 December 2019, the day after his 85th birthday, following a short illness. He left his body to science and there was no funeral. [99]

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Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards. Gray'in entellektuel birikimi, Lanark ve Thaw ikilisinde kendisini birçok farklı şekilde okura göstermesi ve mizah anlayışı kendisine hayran bıraktı. Özellikle kapitalizm ve entellektüeller üzerine getirmiş olduğu eleştiriler, kitabın tartışılması ve sunduğu çok katmanlılık açısından da kitabı son derece değerli kıldı. a b Lea, Richard (29 December 2019). "Alasdair Gray, influential Scottish writer and artist, dies aged 85". The Guardian . Retrieved 6 January 2020.

It is a dangerous thing to suddenly deprive a man of hope—he can turn violent. It is important to kill hope slowly , so that the loser has time to adjust unconsciously to the loss. We try to keep hope alive till it has burned out the vitality feeding it. Only then is the man allowed to face the truth.” Others, Lanark observes, have obviously succeeded; they have “disappeared when the lights go out.” This is a risky business. On the one hand, “the only cure for these—personal—diseases is sunlight.” On the other hand, “When people leave without a companion their diseases return after a while.” So the problem of reunification is not just cosmic as the Manichaeans thought; it is also personal and involves relationships with others. We’re in it together. Therefore Lanark’s plan is simple:I wish I could make you like death a little more. It’s a great preserver. Without it the loveliest things change slowly into farce, as you will discover if you insist on having much more life.” His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003. Gray came to fiction late, publishing his first novel Lanark at the age of 46 in 1981. A experimental, pornographic fantasy – 1982, Janine – followed three years later, with his rambunctious reworking of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Poor Things, appearing in 1992. As his literary reputation increased, winning both the Guardian fiction prize and the Whitbread novel award in 1992, the elaborate illustrations he created for his books began to draw attention to the pictorial art Gray had been producing all along. The stream of commissions for murals and portraits gradually increased, and he finished his career as one of Scotland’s most admired and versatile artists. When you come down to it…I just didn’t like it. Admittedly, one could write an elaborate PhD thesis about the themes, symbolism, structure and style of this book. If I were willing to take it seriously, I probably could wing a few deep thoughts about it. But I can’t bring myself to because I just disliked it.

Gray was born in the Riddrie area of Glasgow. During the Second World War he was evacuated to Perthshire, then Lanarkshire, experiences which he drew on in his later fiction. His family lived on a council estate, and Gray received his education from a combination of state education, public libraries and public service broadcasting. Williamson, Kevin (2009). "Language and culture in a rediscovered Scotland" (PDF). In Perryman, Mark (ed.). Breaking up Britain: Four Nations after a Union. London: Lawrence & Wishart. pp.53–67. ISBN 978-1-905007-96-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 February 2011.a b c Fleischer, Evan (26 August 2015). "How Alasdair Gray Reimagined Glasgow". New Yorker. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017 . Retrieved 6 January 2020. Settlers and Colonists by Alasdair Gray". Word-power.co.uk. 20 December 2012. Archived from the original on 21 May 2014 . Retrieved 21 May 2014.