Duncan Petrie (2004). Contemporary Scottish Fictions: Film, Television and the Novel. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (ISBN: 074861789) Price: £15.99 (pbk). 223pp.
Reviewed by Monica Germanà (Roehampton University)
This is a wonderful study of late twentieth-century Scottish cultural achievements. The volume follows the parallel development of Scottish fiction - encompassing, in the broadest sense of the term, novels, films and television productions - through the decades which scholarship have often christened the 'second Renaissance'. Petrie's analysis offers a comprehensive study of this extraordinary phase in the Scottish arts both in terms of critical evolution (Part 1: Politics and Aesthetics) and thematic survey (Part 2: Themes and Traditions): the dual approach allows the reader to appreciate a sense of progress and, simultaneously, continuity within the Scottish cultural canon.
The introduction's sub-title - 'Scotland, National Identity and Cultural Production' - reflects the political issues underpinning Contemporary Scottish Fictions. Strong links are established between the political changes, which occurred from the 1979 referendum debacle to the advent of devolution in 1997, and the ongoing transformations affecting perceptions of Scottish national identity and nationalism. References to the critical debates on Scottish identity, particularly alive during the last two decades of the twentieth century, highlight the dynamic complexity and the multi-dimensional body of contemporary manifestations of 'Scottishness'.
Part 1 explores the evolution of such manifestations from the seventies' Clydesideism to the cultural and literary outbursts of the eighties and nineties. From the anxious, masculine, urban representations of Scottish identity interwoven in William McIlvanney's and Peter McDougall's social realism, Petrie traces the development of the Scottish novel through the literary revolution operated - in very different ways - by James Kelman and Alasdair Gray, whose magical-realist Lanark (1981) has come to represent the landmark of the new-found ways of imagining Scotland and Scottish culture. The routes opened by Kelman and Gray are consequently followed in the nineties through the experimental / writings of Irvin Welsh and Alan Warner and the new flourishing of women's writing, featuring A.L. Kennedy and Janice Galloway.
Simultaneously to the launch of a distinctively new literary phase, the volume discusses 'other ways in which the identity, predicament and emotional potential of the Scottish male have been re-imagined in more optimistic, positive and broadly humorous ways' (52) exemplified by Bill Forsyth's That Sinking Feeling (1979) and Gregory's Girl (1981) and John Byrne's Tutti Frutti (1987) television series. But it is immediately after Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave (1994), that the 'watershed' of Scottish cinema is placed. Diversity is the keyword to define the multiple routes taken by Scottish directors over the last twenty years: unsurprisingly, these include film adaptations of distinctively contemporary literary texts - Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996) and Lynne Ramsay Morvern Callar (2002) - as well as further developments in Scottish film realism epitomised by Ken Loach's My Name is Joe (1998) and Sweet Sixteen (2002). The refreshing diversity of the late twentieth-century Scottish film production - Petrie rightly suggests - reinforces both the sense of a general renaissance and, at the same time, the continuous engagement with social and political questions relevant to the Scottish fin-de-siecle.
Undoubtedly, the most innovative facet of this critical analysis is Petrie's investigation of the television programmes broadcast throughout the last two decades of the century. From John McGrath's Blood Red Roses series (1986) to John Byrne's Your Cheatin' Heart (1990) and Lawrence Moody's Taggart (1983 and 1995), the volume follows the evolution of television representations of Scottish stories, cities and characters, highlighting both change and continuity, making this precious volume the first fully comparative text of the three media.
This is further proved in Part 2, which explores 'Themes and Traditions' engaged with by late twentieth century Scottish novels, films and television. The delineation of a cluster of shared themes across the arts suggests continuity with the past, shown in the perpetuation of motifs belonging to a distinctive Scottish tradition. Petrie recognises the persistence of a Scottish fascination with the dark side of human existence - visible both in neo Gothic literary representations as well as in a renewed interest in detective / mystery novels. While reinforcing the current strengths of the genre through and extensive analysis of Ian Rankin's popular novels, it is maybe a shame that female detective writers Denise Mina, Val McDermid and Manda Scott only deserve a few lines. Another gap - and one that Petrie acknowledges in this section - is the missing analysis of the persistence of kailyard and tartanry motifs in contemporary Scottish fictions. But these are almost imperceptible lacunae in this otherwise comprehensive thematic overview.
Particularly interesting in the second part of the volume is the focus on 'narratives of childhood', which include works as diverse as Alan Spence's The Magic Flute (1990) and Andrew O' Hagan's Our Fathers (1999). As well as being rooted in the 'dysfunction that permeates the representation of the Scottish working-class family' (p. 182), recurring references to fatherlessness - Petrie argues - suggest also a metaphorical reading of the theme as a trope for Scotland's own lack of fathers, past, and historical roots.
Contemporary Scottish Fictions engages the reader from the beginning to its 'Afterword'; even beyond this textual threshold, the bibliography provides a wealth of useful sources for future reference neatly categorised by medium. Indeed, it is difficult, once started, to put this book down. Petrie's compelling analysis will enthral any reader with a critical interest in the contemporary Scottish arts.