Scotland’s Top Ten & the Inadequacy of a National Canon: Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981)

Lyall, Scott

Abstract

Discusses the healthy overlap in the recent BBC Scotland poll on Scotland's Favourite Novel between popular appeal and critical recognition; judges Gray's Lanark as "Scotland's greatest modern novel," which "deserves to be much better known internationally," as "the outstanding postmodern challenge to the global conformism of capitalist hyper-individualism," laments that, despite their usefulness, such curated polls and lists are self-perpetuating, to the neglect of many distinctive Scottish novels, and concludes by asking "what would a truly uncurated top 30 look like?"

Citation

Lyall, S. (2017). Scotland’s Top Ten & the Inadequacy of a National Canon: Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981). Studies in Scottish literature, 43(2), Article 9

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 15, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Dec 15, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 15, 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 18, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 18, 2017
• Journal: Studies in Scottish literature
• Print ISSN: 0039-3770
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 9
• Keywords: Genre fiction, "Lanark", Alasdair Gray, postmodern fiction,
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1020735
• Publisher URL: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol43/iss2/9