I am Spartacus

James Leslie Mtichell took the pseudonym of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and was author of the classic A Scots Quair, the best known (and best liked) being Sunset Song.
I can't say I know a lot about the man. He died young, in his early
thirties in the 1930s. He was a Socialist that lived in Aberdeen and
like his heroine Chris Guthrie had a strong link with the Cloud of the
Howe land and a calling to be educated with a love of books and
learning.   Mitchell wrote 4000 words a day. He put this down to
grounding himself in a language and time he was familiar with. It's a
half-breed lilting language not of the written word or the spoken word
but musical in tone. Try writing 4000 words.  It's a prodigious amount.
He also learned Russian so he could speak with the Soviet envoy that was
arriving in Aberdeen to meet with fellow Communists.

Spartacus is for me Kirk Douglas with a sword and some of the more rowdy kids in the
ABCminors shouting 'get into those Roman bastards'. It was nearly as
good as Ben Hur. It was based on a historical novel by Howard
Fast. The novel plays fast and easy with the rules of writing and is
awful. Now get into those Romans.

Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Spartacus is a different kind of beast. A slave revolt against a controlling
state and you know whose side he's going to be on. Kleon stabs his
master in the throat. The reader's sympathy is with the slave. His
master enjoyed tracts like 'the Nine Rapings of the Greek Ataretos' (a
book that I've never read) and likes to have young Kleon whipped with
wire before indulging in carnal pleasure with him. There are echoes here
of Guthrie's father calling to Chris to come to him because she is his.
But Chris Guthrie belonged to no one but herself, as unchanging and
changeable as the land. Kleon I fear is a truncated figure that will
never grow to the stature of a Guthrie. I'm sure Spartacus is a juvenile work. Twenty pages in I ditched it.

http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole

Comments

4,000 words a day! CM,I've no idea how long it would take me to write that many.I have not read Spartacus but I love the Sunset song trilogy. The first one, where the nine households 'the  last of the peasants'(authors words) toil and gossip up to the end of WW1- he writes about the people he knew and they are all complete individuals with that element of unpredictability and dry humour - love it. Cloud Howe mixes religion and everyday reality, using Chris' second husband the minister as a key figure.The final book Grey Granite does the same for politics and trade union struggle and Chris' son, Ewan takes centre stage. Should all be a TV series; worst case scenario it will be Sunday evening 'chuchter' costume drama and make a change from Olde Worlde England.

They did make a television series of Sunset Song elsie.

 

I need to watch more TV!

Less tv and more reading Elsie, or you're brain turns to mush (but in saying that The Secret History focuses on Glasgow's Duke Street 9pm).