After the publication of his first novel Lanark in 1982, Alasdair Gray quickly joined that set of newly prominent Scottish writers that any self-respecting student had to read or at least have on display on his or her bookshelf.
But where other writers might have used a grim realism to capture what was happening to Britain at the time (and particular industrial Britain) under Thatcher’s monetarist experiment, Gray mixed social realism with, I suppose, magic realism and fantasy. This I think was what made his stories particularly attractive for art students and of course Gray was an artist as well as a writer.
Today Alasdair Gray was at the Lit and Phil Library in Newcastle, reading from his own verse play Fleck and Goethe’s Faust, which Fleck is based upon. The reading was part of the Profane Myth, a series of exhibitions running at various venues in Newcastle until 22 November.
The exhibition is about exploring mythology in contemporary art but I’m not sure that Gray stuck too closely to his brief. Directly contrasting passages from Faust with Fleck, Gray entertained his audience for about an hour and a quarter with his energetic reading from both texts (though particularly his own!).
There’s an element of whimsy or impishness about Gray and his shambling style, as he starts off on one subject, diverting onto another before coming to a sudden halt as we wonders how he has got to where he has, is a bit disarming. When questions were taken at the end, I’m not sure any one of them had a proper or straightforward answer.
Given how obviously well read Gray is, and what’s more impressive his ability to recall what he has read and to use to give context to his writing and ideas, I do wonder if his eccentricity is partly an act. But actually no, maybe he does play up some of the absent or wandering mindedness, but what we saw in Newcastle this afternoon was probably the genuine Alasdair Gray. Which must have made him either an infuriating or inspiring teacher depending on your patience.
martingollan 