Lanark: A Life in Four Books - Review

Once in a while you're lucky enough to stumble across a little known modern classic. While touring Wigtown (Scotland's Book Town), my son-in-law pointed out a used copy of a book called Lanark: A Life in Four Books, by Alasdair Gray. This was Book 1.

I'd read that Lanark is considered one of the masterpieces of UK literary fiction of the 1980s, part autobiography, part science fiction, and part allegory set in Hell. So far, so good. As I started to read, I found that Book 1 is not where you start. You start with Book 3. A young man wakes up on a train in a dark, fictional city called Unthank (modeled after a disintegrating Glasgow) not knowing or remembering who he is. He's given social security and the nickname Lanark, but he's not happy. And that's how he stays for 600 pages.

After finishing Book 3, I moved on to Books 1, 2, and 4. Much of Book 1 is autobiographical, set in the real Scotland in the life of a sickly, sensitive young artist named Duncan Thaw. Unable to find love or a decent job, he takes a walk off a cliff and drowns in the loch. This is just the first time he dies.

Gray is a masterful writer, and you can't help but love Duncan/Lanark. Your heart breaks for him, as you're inexorably drawn into his journey.

The book was written over a 30-year period, and Gray includes an appendix of the many literary works that inspired him to write Lanark. He also inserts a long interlude where Lanark meets "The Author" (presumably himself), with whom he argues about whether he's just writing science fiction. Well, he is, and it is awesome.

Gray is also an accomplished artist, and the covers and illustrations are masterpieces of surrealistic symbolism. Gray's done many murals in Scotland, and I will look for them the next time I ride the Glasgow Subway.

Available from Canongate Books on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1782117148