It's ages since I read any Neil Gunn, but I think I'll have a read of 'Higland River' after this very enjoyable trip in Caithness in the company of the poet Kenneth Steven in Sunday Feature this week.
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Yes, it was very interesting. I'd already noticed it while I was loitering on iPlayer...
I haven't read any Neil Gunn, but it reminded me that when I was in Aberdeen BBC Scotland produced a TV series of Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, another of the Scottish Renaissance novelists, which was the talk of the town at that time! Grassic Gibbon died very young but both writers wrote a background of the First World War into their novels and both novels were written in the 30s.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. -
ff, there was talk last year about filming 'Sunset Song', part of Gibbon's Trilogy 'Scot's Quair' and it may have gone into production since. I remember the BBC TV programme from the early 70s which I recall as dark and harrowing.Originally posted by french frank View Post
In some ways Neil Gunn has a more positive vision of hope coming from the destruction of a way of life - Lewis Grassic Gibbon's view always seems more desolate. Both authors are tied to their landscape and when I pass through Gibbon's Howe of the Mearns between Angus and Aberdeen, it often feels bleak, yet in a man-made controlled way. Not so the unharnessed wildernesses of Cathness, which remain gripped by the effects of the elements.
In Gunn's most famous novel, 'The Silver Darlings' he follows the clearances from the land where people moved from the centre of the country to the shore, to the outside, where they have to make a new life, and in some ways Gunn sees this as a better life; but at heart part of his message is of the importance of the preservation of shared language and shared culture that helps to move us all forward.
I do like Kenneth Steven - he usually does a good job. As a poet of the land, I think he presents well when talking about the effects of history, landscape and weather on writing and this programme was no exception.Comment
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f/f,
I too remember, although not altogether happily, as I had been attached for a week or so from other work in order to cover for the film cameraman who became unwell. Methods of working, relationships with director & crew & so on become very personal - however it all worked out well in the end.
Great director, a woman, have forgotten her name !Comment
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Moira Armstrong !!Comment
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