My 1st Book Review-- The Fanatic by James Robertson

I just reread the novel The Fanatic by the Scottish author, James Robertson, a novel that I rather enjoyed. The novel is set mostly in Edinburgh and its environs, and I have a fondness for the place ever since I visited the city several years ago. I took the Flying Scotsman train up from London with some friends on a cold February day. From the moment I climbed up the stairs from the train station and gazed on the illuminated city I was really transfixed and knew I would really like the place. A tour guide recommended that a painless way to learn a little bit more about the city was to read Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels. Which I have, and I would recommend highly, as they are well written, have interesting plot twists, and the lead character has a bit of an air of an updated Hebridean Philip Marlowe.

The tour guide who recommended the novels was on one of the many tours available to the interested originating in the Old Town, along the Royal Mile, which leads from Edinburgh Castle, down the tail of the dragon to Holyrood Palace at the bottom. Along the ancient road, there are basically ancient apartment buildings, some five stories high, with many stories underground,separated in spots by narrow alleyways known as closes. There are tunnels underneath these buildings that go on for blocks apparently. In the 1600's ,prior to the construction of the new town, they estimate that there were as many as 30,000 inhabitants living along this street!!! Today the area is a tourist mecca, but in the bad old days, it was a pretty dirty place with a violent history.There are many different types of tours to be had here, from straight regular tours discussing city history or famous politicians, writers artists or celebrities, or more titillating topics such as ghosts, murder, warfare, torture.

And this leads me to this interesting novel by James Robertson. The book, like World's End, by TC Boyle, who is an author originally from my neck of the woods, is a historical novel, which travels back and forth in time, from the Scotland of the 1600's to the 1990's on the eve of a crucial election which ultimately created the Scottish Parliament. Boyle's book travels from the Dutch Hudson Valley of the 1600's to the Peekskill/Northern Westchester of the 1960's & 70's.The main characters from the early days is James Mitchell, who was a real historical character, as were many of the characters in the novel, such as the archbishop James Sharp whom Mitchel attempted to assassinate. Mitchell endures many many hardships as a consequence. I can't say that I am enough of an expert in Scottish history at the time, because it is difficult to understand the sinuousness of events, the political changes, the religious schisms, the witch hunt hysteria that seemed to ultimately affect the shores of my own country. It is hard for me to gainsay how much of the matters that are described in this novel occurred through peoples convictions, or as pure power plays, or matters of greed. Certainly all the tortures that happened were appalling, and it seemed often people were changing sides all the time, and if you were on the wrong side at the wrong time, a heavy price was exacted.

In the present time, the main character is a quiet introspective Andrew Carlin, an intelligent not quite so young man somewhat out of touch with things. Quite by accident he is recruited by the owner of a tour company to play the ghost of the notorious Major Weir, on an evening tour. His appearance is such that the tour owner feels he won't require any makeup to play the ghost. His job is to make an appearance in the distance dressed as Major Weir in order to give the tourist a fright. And he succeeds. But he is obsessive person and takes a special interest in finding out all he can about this reviled historical figure, even though the job pays a pittance and does not require much. He starts get lost between past and present (for anybody who has been there, believe me, it is easy to imagine how things were centuries ago) and increasingly loses touch with reality. Mitchell ultimately had difficulty separating illusion from reality also, creating an analogy between two very different societies.

Some people are probably familiar with the newer Scottish Literature, authors like Irvine Welsh who wrote "Trainspotting" or James Kelman  the author of "how late it was, how late".They write in Scottish, or at least in dialect, written the way the characters would actually speak, as is the case of Robertson's novel. I think to Americans this could be a little disconcerting, but you can get used to it pretty quickly, and sounding out the dialogues can really be helpful, just as it is useful to understand James Joyce's writings at times. There are some words like "ken" which means know or understand and "thole" which means endure. I like this type of writing, as it gives me another level to get some authenticity about another culture that otherwise would pass me by. Definitely a page turner, Robertson has a lot to say about the past and also fairly current events, and the juxtaposing of the two time periods make for compelling reading.

Additionally, Robertson has published three collections of poetry, two collections of short stories "Close" and " The Ragged Man's Complaint", a collection of ghost stories, plus novels The Testament of  Gideon Mack, Joseph Knight, and the recently published "And The Land Lay Still". He also is involved with Itchy Coo a publishing house of Scots language children's books. Included are a Scots only story of Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe (Precious and the Puggies), and translations of Roald Dahl children's books (The Eejits "The Twits", Sleekit Mr Tod "Fantastic Mr. Fox") and even Winnie the Pooh. Definitely an interesting person who is doing is part to keep his culture alive and vital. I haven't read anything else by him, but I find him to be a fine author who deserves more attention across the Atlantic than he is getting.