Robot Love

I’m tentatively exploring the idea of the Caledonian antisyzygy. Does The Sensational Alex Harvey Band provide the right soundtrack for this blog post? Read on!

The idea of the Caledonian antisyzygy emerged as a reaction to T.S. Eliot’s assertion that ––

that there is no value in Scottish provincial literature, noting an absence of coherence and an anchor in a single language.

Scots writers and academics subsequently argued that idea of dueling polarities within the Scottish psyche and literature – the Caledonian antisyzgy – is a positive characteristic of Scottish literature – and how could it not be, given creative tensions thrown up by the contrasts between the Highlands and the Lowlands, Protestantism and Catholicism, Britishness and Scottishness, and others?

I’m tempted to include gallusness vs. the Cringe, but the Dictionary of the Scots Language on what it means to be gallus (cf. II.1 and II.2) makes it clear that’s another 10,000-word essay!

Oh, yeah. Did I mention that I’ve got a new story out? And it’s just a few pages! The U.S. link for the ebooks and hard copies is here.

Pleased that my slightly seditious Sco-fi sci-fi story The Abrasive Embrace is out in the world

Seems a propos that it should be picked up first in the US, rather than in Scotland #antisyzygy

In the UK, you can get the ebook anthology here https://t.co/7EucyRefij

— Ricky Monahan Brown (@ricky_ballboy) September 7, 2022

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