Product Description

George Mackay Brown wrote this memoir in the years before his death in 1996, offering a simple, bardic honesty turned on himself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4109302 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
George Mackay Brown was one of the major Scottish literary figures of the twentieth century - a prolific poet and novelist, he took much of his inspiration from the myths and landscape of Orkney, and also from his deep Catholic faith. He was born in Orkney in 1921 and died there in 1996. Following his first book in 1954 he published many more, including plays, novels and poems. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has set much of his work to music. In 1988 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Golden Bird. In 1994 his Beside the Ocean of Time was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and judged Book of the Year by the Saltire Society.

Customer Reviews

Autobiography of a Wonderful Talent
GM Brown did not wish this book to be published until after his death. The book makes it clear that he was a person who did not like to talk about himself. He was a self-effacing and extremely humble genius. I am not suprised that several readers had trouble finding Brown here. Brown sought most of all to be a member of his community in Stromness. He was a writer by trade as others were fishermen or cobblers. Brown's observations on life in Orkney and the cycles of History are what make this book so rewarding. Readers looking for heavy self-exploration or a confessional type work will be dissappointed. As was the reader looking for a description of Orkney life. This is Brown's life and observances and influences laid out for those of us who love his work. I, for one enjoyed being able to hear Brown's reminiscences and ideas. This is wonderful reading and necessary for those who want added insight into Brown's work and philosophy. Honest, humble and powerful. A fitting final work from one of the 20th century's greatest writers.

A series of incidents do not a life make
I too failed to find GMB in his autobiography, and I had read some of his fiction and poetry first. Reading this book you learn of some things that happened to GMB, but you never end up feeling like you got to know the man at all. His style of writing in this autobiography is consistent with his style of writing fiction, but it's less satisfying in the context of autobiography.

A Memoir: Spin rather than Substance?
I could not with any certainty find Brown in these pages. Having never read his poems, stories, or novels, I didn't have any preconceived notion for whom I was looking. But I think I only got fleeting glimpses, and I am not sure of whom. I know I didn't find Orcadians, for whom I was definitely looking. So I will try a book of his verse, a collection of stories, and a novel. If I don't, I will be left with the impression of a somewhat self-absorbed, more than somewhat lazy, bit more than average talent.