And the Land Lay Still

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The winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, And the Land Lay Still is a masterful insight into Scotland's history in the twentieth century and a moving, beautifully written novel of intertwined stories. We begin to sense the challenge of imposing a narrative teleology on these developments, key episodes having been driven (quite nakedly) by short-term electoral calculation. Thus, Craig argues, an historical account centred on political parties and positioning will take us only so far. After a précis of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly (from 1980) and its successor the Scottish Constitutional Convention (from 1989), and the emergence of a pro-devolution consensus in Scotland during the Major government, Craig draws a clear and even provocative conclusion: Alongside the recovery and ‘filling-in’ of Scottish cultural identity were several literary interventions which urged caution about national tradition and pre-given modes of belonging. At the 2014 workshop, critic Eleanor Bell surveyed small experimental magazines of the 1960s including New Saltire and Scottish International. These magazines contain a range of cultural explorations which clearly anticipate the debates of the following decades, without being yoked to, or delimited by, the national question as a salient political issue (which was yet to fully emerge). Scottish International magazine (1968–74), for example, set its store on newness and exploration, not recovery of the past. In Bell’s words, You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. To achieve better balance, there should be more reference to the common characteristics of the British people… ( Royal Commission papers, National Archive, HO 221/360).

And the Land Lay Still is nothing less than the story of a nation. James Robertson's breathtaking novel is a portrait of modern Scotland as seen through the eyes of natives and immigrants, journalists and politicians, drop-outs and spooks, all trying to make their way through a country in the throes of great and rapid change. It is a moving, sweeping story of family, friendship, struggle and hope - epic in every sense. The Royal Lyceum Theatre Company and the National Theatre of Scotland will present an online discussion inspired by James Robertson’s acclaimed novel And The Land Lay Still streaming online from Wednesday 5 May at 7.30pm until Friday 7 May 2021. The evening will feature extracts from a reading of playwright Peter Arnott’s stage adaptation of the novel, which is currently in development, presented by the National Theatre of Scotland. In a sense, Robertson says, "this novel is a riposte to that. What I'm trying to say is: 'Immerse yourself. A lot has gone on. The place has changed beyond recognition. We haven't had civil war or bloodbaths, thank God, but we have had change.'" Despite, after the decisive referendum of 1997, the oft-quoted appeal to the fact that the parliament was the ‘settled will of the Scottish people’, there had been, in fact, no Scottish political consensus on devolution. It happened, if not quite by chance, then through a series of apparently accidental and certainly unpredictable intersections of trains of events running in often contradictory directions. (ibid.)

Over-Determinations

The destructive obsession with the need to emphasise and preserve the ‘Scottishness’ of our writing far beyond what comes naturally and truthfully to writers will persist for as long as Scotland remains in a political limbo; in other words, it will last until Scotland either becomes a full nation-state, or loses its sense of nationhood altogether. ( McMillan 1983, 70) This is the culturalist case at its strongest (perhaps slightly needled by revisionist commentary from critics including Alex Thomson and myself), and it features strongly in And the Land Lay Still. One passing irony is that ‘cultural revolution’ should figure as the inspiration of a reformist political project ‘of a strikingly conservative character’, in the words of Vernon Bogdanor, whose core purpose is to ‘renegotiate the terms of the Union so as to make them more palatable to Scottish opinion in the conditions of the late twentieth century’ ( Bogdanor 2001, 119). But this is to view devolution from the centre, as an exercise in containment – even appeasement – rather than peripheral empowerment. Devolution looks very different viewed from Whitehall as compared to the literary pubs of Edinburgh, one key reason Scottish writers and cultural activists have been able to narrate the process in their own image, on terms that arguably inflate their political influence beyond the urban cognoscenti. 4

Writing in The Guardian, the writer Irvine Welsh said of the "highly ambitious" book that it “represents nothing less than a landmark for the novel in Scotland, and underlines the author's position as one of Britain's best contemporary novelists”. [7] Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond selected the novel as his book of the year for 2010, telling the Scotland on Sunday that it was “outstanding”, “important”, and the author’s finest work. [8]

Retailers:

If for Craig the ‘effective cause’ of devolution’s endorsement in 1997 was cultural revolution, there is little doubt that the proximate cause was electoral. This part of the story is well-trodden ground, and vividly told in Robertson’s novel: Winnie Ewing’s sensational victory for the SNP in the 1967 Hamilton by-election, and growing alarm within the Labour government at the threat posed by the nationalists, rising sharply after the discovery of North Sea Oil in 1970. Both to allay and defer these pressures, Harold Wilson announced his intention to appoint a Royal Commission on the Constitution in late 1968. Set in the present day, In Ascension is a modern Scottish novel that follows a Dutch biologist named Leigh, who grew up in Rotterdam and is captivated by sea life. I didn't set out deliberately to follow the Gothic tradition, but there's no question that some of that Hogg and Stevenson stuff does speak to me in a weird way. I am interested in how the past continues to influence the present and how the present changes the way we think about the past."