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The Green Isle of the Great Deep
In The Green Isle of the Great Deep, Gunn continues the adventures of the two protagonists from his 1942 novel Young Art and Old Hector. The unlikely friends, representing the extremes of age and youth, are out on an undercover poaching trip when they become swept up in the currents of a salmon pool. When they awaken they have been transported from the Highlands of our world to an alternative Highland a beautiful, fertile land called the Green Isle.
Despite the abundance of the land, and the trees dripping with fruit, the population are subdued and miserable, ruled over by a strict upper class and forbidden to touch the fruit. Young Art, however, is not so easily controlled and his actions begin a chain of events which will change the Green Isle forever. Gunn draws many parallels in this tale, from the biblical references to Eden and the Tree of Knowledge, to contemporary commentary on the Nazi situation in 1940s Europe.
Despite the abundance of the land, and the trees dripping with fruit, the population are subdued and miserable, ruled over by a strict upper class and forbidden to touch the fruit. Young Art, however, is not so easily controlled and his actions begin a chain of events which will change the Green Isle forever. Gunn draws many parallels in this tale, from the biblical references to Eden and the Tree of Knowledge, to contemporary commentary on the Nazi situation in 1940s Europe.
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First published January 1, 1944
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About the author
Neil M. Gunn
63 books49 followersNeil Gunn, one of Scotland's most prolific and distinguished novelists, wrote over a period that spanned the Recession, the political crises of the 1920's and 1930's, and the Second World War and its aftermath. Although nearly all his 20 novels are set in the Highlands of Scotland, he is not a regional author in the narrow sense of that description; his novels reflect a search for meaning in troubled times, both past and present, a search that leads him into the realms of philosophy, archaeology, folk tradition and metaphysical speculation.
Born in the coastal village of Dunbeath, Caithness, the son of a successful fishing boat skipper, Gunn was educated at the local village primary school and privately in Galloway. In 1911 he entered the Civil Service and spent some time in both London and Edinburgh before returning to the North as a customs and excise officer based (after a short spell in Caithness) in Inverness. Before voluntary retirement from Government service in 1937 to become a full-time writer, he had embarked on a literary career with considerable success.
His first novel, The Grey Coast (1926), a novel in the realist tradition and set in Caithness in the 1920's, occupied an important position in the literary movement known as the Scottish Renaissance. His second novel, Morning Tide (1931), an idyll of a Highland childhood, won a Book Society award and the praise of the well known literary and public figure, John Buchan. The turning point in Gunn's career, however, came in 1937, when he won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial prize for his deeply thought-provoking Highland River, a quasi autobiographical novel written in the third person, in which the main protagonist's life is made analogous to a Highland river and the search for its source.
In 1941 Gunn's epic novel about the fishing boom of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, The Silver Darlings, was widely acclaimed as a modern classic and considered the finest balance between concrete action and metaphysical speculation achieved by any British writer in the 20th century. It was also the final novel of a trilogy of the history of the Northlands, the other novels being Sun Circle (1933) on the Viking invasions of the 9th century and Butcher's Broom (1934) on the Clearances. In 1944 Gunn wrote his anti-Utopian novel, The Green Isle of the Great Deep, a book that preceded George Orwell's novel on the same theme, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by five years. The novel, using an old man and a young boy from a rural background as characters in a struggle against the pressures of totalitarian state, evoked an enthusiastic response from the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung.
Some of Gunn's later books, whilst not ignoring the uglier aspects of the modern world, touch more on metaphysical speculation in a vein that is not without humour. The Well at the Worlds End (1951), in particular, lays emphasis on the more positive aspects of living and the value of that approach in finding meaning and purpose in life. Gunn's spiritual autobiography, The Atom of Delight (1956), which, although similar in many ways to Highland River, incorporates a vein of thought derived from Gunn's interest in Zen Buddhism. The autobiography was Gunn's last major work.
In 1948 Gunn's contribution to literature was recognised by Edinburgh University with an honorary doctorate to the author; in 1972 the Scottish Arts Council created the Neil Gunn Fellowship in his honour, a fellowship that was to include such famous writers as Henrich Boll, Saul Bellow, Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, Nadine Gordimer and Mario Vargas Llosa.
Born in the coastal village of Dunbeath, Caithness, the son of a successful fishing boat skipper, Gunn was educated at the local village primary school and privately in Galloway. In 1911 he entered the Civil Service and spent some time in both London and Edinburgh before returning to the North as a customs and excise officer based (after a short spell in Caithness) in Inverness. Before voluntary retirement from Government service in 1937 to become a full-time writer, he had embarked on a literary career with considerable success.
His first novel, The Grey Coast (1926), a novel in the realist tradition and set in Caithness in the 1920's, occupied an important position in the literary movement known as the Scottish Renaissance. His second novel, Morning Tide (1931), an idyll of a Highland childhood, won a Book Society award and the praise of the well known literary and public figure, John Buchan. The turning point in Gunn's career, however, came in 1937, when he won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial prize for his deeply thought-provoking Highland River, a quasi autobiographical novel written in the third person, in which the main protagonist's life is made analogous to a Highland river and the search for its source.
In 1941 Gunn's epic novel about the fishing boom of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, The Silver Darlings, was widely acclaimed as a modern classic and considered the finest balance between concrete action and metaphysical speculation achieved by any British writer in the 20th century. It was also the final novel of a trilogy of the history of the Northlands, the other novels being Sun Circle (1933) on the Viking invasions of the 9th century and Butcher's Broom (1934) on the Clearances. In 1944 Gunn wrote his anti-Utopian novel, The Green Isle of the Great Deep, a book that preceded George Orwell's novel on the same theme, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by five years. The novel, using an old man and a young boy from a rural background as characters in a struggle against the pressures of totalitarian state, evoked an enthusiastic response from the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung.
Some of Gunn's later books, whilst not ignoring the uglier aspects of the modern world, touch more on metaphysical speculation in a vein that is not without humour. The Well at the Worlds End (1951), in particular, lays emphasis on the more positive aspects of living and the value of that approach in finding meaning and purpose in life. Gunn's spiritual autobiography, The Atom of Delight (1956), which, although similar in many ways to Highland River, incorporates a vein of thought derived from Gunn's interest in Zen Buddhism. The autobiography was Gunn's last major work.
In 1948 Gunn's contribution to literature was recognised by Edinburgh University with an honorary doctorate to the author; in 1972 the Scottish Arts Council created the Neil Gunn Fellowship in his honour, a fellowship that was to include such famous writers as Henrich Boll, Saul Bellow, Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, Nadine Gordimer and Mario Vargas Llosa.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 28, 2020
This was another book picked up on a whim in a second-hand bookshop - I was aware than Dunn was a close friend of Nan Shepherd, and I am always interested in writers associated with the Scottish Highlands, so although this book was probably aimed at a YA readership (not that such a term existed in 1944), I was curious to read it. I found it interesting and rather charming, if something of a flawed period piece. Gunn's writing is steeped in the Scottish landscapes of his boyhood, and the folklore of the area.
The starting point for this book is a fishing trip on which an old man (Hector) plans to introduce his 8-year old friend Art to the delights of salmon poaching in the big river. An accident plunges both of them into a fantasy netherworld, which initially seems almost heavenly, but is governed by strictly authoritarian principles. Most of the rest of the book takes place in this imagined landscape, and concerns their resistance to being assimilated.
The starting point for this book is a fishing trip on which an old man (Hector) plans to introduce his 8-year old friend Art to the delights of salmon poaching in the big river. An accident plunges both of them into a fantasy netherworld, which initially seems almost heavenly, but is governed by strictly authoritarian principles. Most of the rest of the book takes place in this imagined landscape, and concerns their resistance to being assimilated.
July 7, 2016
A Wondrous Highland Haggis
It's best not to look too closely at what goes into a Scots haggis—that wondrous concoction of oats, animal parts, and spices boiled up in a sheep's stomach—but when good, it can be very good indeed. And so it is with this fantasy novel by Neil M. Gunn, published in 1944, and a cult classic for those that know it. If I were to tell you that its spiritual setting is somewhere between Narnia and Brigadoon, that its narrative recalls The Pilgrim's Progress, and that its unlikely ingredients include responses to Hitler and Stalin, would you not be curious enough to taste? I have to say, it seems a dated book now, from the fringe of world events, but it is precisely the date and the Highland context that make it so interesting.
It begins in a village called Clachdrum. A wiry old man, Old Hector Macdonald, takes his young friend, an eight-year-old boy named Art, poaching for salmon. They fall into a pool and drown, only to wake up in the Celtic Paradise, known as the Green Isle of the Great Deep. And a verdant place it is, with blue skies, towering mountains, and orchards laden with rich fruit. But this paradise is also a totalitarian regime, whose inhabitants are brainwashed into contentment "like clean empty shells on a strange seashore." They are forbidden to eat the fruit and fed only processed gruel, but go out into the fields singing and bring in bumper harvests. The administration has little need of physical tortures. Newcomers and backsliders are brought before the Questioner at the Seat on the Rock, who can break a person's spirit in a matter of hours. Old Hector and Art encounter a small pocket of crofters mounting their own quiet resistance, but it is the boy's uncanny ability to escape capture that triggers the crisis that will eventually bring the regime to its knees.
Gunn uses his Highland setting to evoke both humanity and tragedy. Although we see little of it, it is clear that Clachdrum is a close-knit community, with each member looking out for others; the pair will encounter similar values on the Green Isle in the croft of the two resisters who take them in. But the regime there clearly also reflects the bitter history of the Highland Clearances in the 18th century, and the current status where the natives may till the land as tenants, but may not partake of the abundant wildlife in its moors and streams. Also Scottish is the Calvinist concern for personal conscience and the Biblical underpinnings of moral debate. Although moral and even political philosophy may seem a poor response to the torture cellars of the Gestapo or KGB, it is fascinating to see the author grappling with these problems in a time when the full horrors were not yet known, and the War had hardly touched the remote landscape from which he was writing.
It's best not to look too closely at what goes into a Scots haggis—that wondrous concoction of oats, animal parts, and spices boiled up in a sheep's stomach—but when good, it can be very good indeed. And so it is with this fantasy novel by Neil M. Gunn, published in 1944, and a cult classic for those that know it. If I were to tell you that its spiritual setting is somewhere between Narnia and Brigadoon, that its narrative recalls The Pilgrim's Progress, and that its unlikely ingredients include responses to Hitler and Stalin, would you not be curious enough to taste? I have to say, it seems a dated book now, from the fringe of world events, but it is precisely the date and the Highland context that make it so interesting.
It begins in a village called Clachdrum. A wiry old man, Old Hector Macdonald, takes his young friend, an eight-year-old boy named Art, poaching for salmon. They fall into a pool and drown, only to wake up in the Celtic Paradise, known as the Green Isle of the Great Deep. And a verdant place it is, with blue skies, towering mountains, and orchards laden with rich fruit. But this paradise is also a totalitarian regime, whose inhabitants are brainwashed into contentment "like clean empty shells on a strange seashore." They are forbidden to eat the fruit and fed only processed gruel, but go out into the fields singing and bring in bumper harvests. The administration has little need of physical tortures. Newcomers and backsliders are brought before the Questioner at the Seat on the Rock, who can break a person's spirit in a matter of hours. Old Hector and Art encounter a small pocket of crofters mounting their own quiet resistance, but it is the boy's uncanny ability to escape capture that triggers the crisis that will eventually bring the regime to its knees.
Gunn uses his Highland setting to evoke both humanity and tragedy. Although we see little of it, it is clear that Clachdrum is a close-knit community, with each member looking out for others; the pair will encounter similar values on the Green Isle in the croft of the two resisters who take them in. But the regime there clearly also reflects the bitter history of the Highland Clearances in the 18th century, and the current status where the natives may till the land as tenants, but may not partake of the abundant wildlife in its moors and streams. Also Scottish is the Calvinist concern for personal conscience and the Biblical underpinnings of moral debate. Although moral and even political philosophy may seem a poor response to the torture cellars of the Gestapo or KGB, it is fascinating to see the author grappling with these problems in a time when the full horrors were not yet known, and the War had hardly touched the remote landscape from which he was writing.
May 15, 2011
This book was published in the 1940s by a Scottish writer. And I have never heard of him. Is it just me or has this guy become forgotten.
This is a real curiosity of a book, and I think it needs more than one reading to get everything out of it. Because it does get a bit phillosophical, in a way that Herland did, with this quiet kind of brooding atmosphere at times.Set in the Scottish Highlands, Old Hectar and a young boy, Art, go fishing and end up drowning in a pool. They wake up in the Green Isle, which was a Celtic myth of paradise/the other side. Here it's very similar to the land where they were. There are masses of fruit trees everywhere laden with food and it all looks idyllic and wonderful. Heaven?
Not quite. They're told that they have to go to the seat, a rocky outcrop where those on high controlling the population are. Almost made me think of Arthur's Seat!! And to do this they are told they must follow the road, stay at the inns and eat the porridge. And never eat any fruit - all sounds like a strict pilgrimmage. Except that they don't do this. People in this land are all brainwashed into a way of thinking, living and working, by the Controller and the Questioner. There's no brutality or force, but if you question the way of things, the questioner will question you and make all your ideas and thoughts look ridiculous until you come away around to their way of thinking. God is also in this world, being the ultimate one in control, but because he's busy off meditating most of the time, people like the Controller and the Questioner are left in charge to tell the people what to do. Everyone is allowed to ask for an audience with God, but as they have to go through the questioner, who will question their motives to death until they change their mind, people never get as far as God.
But things change when the little lad, Art, gets frightened and refuses to join in; instead running away and hiding in the countryside and living off the forbidden fruit. And a massive hunt (witches?) is set up to find and capture him, and those who have helped him are taken away for questioning which seems to brainwash them and rob them of their souls.
There's a lot going on in this book, which is why I think it's one of these things that needs multiple readings.
This is a real curiosity of a book, and I think it needs more than one reading to get everything out of it. Because it does get a bit phillosophical, in a way that Herland did, with this quiet kind of brooding atmosphere at times.Set in the Scottish Highlands, Old Hectar and a young boy, Art, go fishing and end up drowning in a pool. They wake up in the Green Isle, which was a Celtic myth of paradise/the other side. Here it's very similar to the land where they were. There are masses of fruit trees everywhere laden with food and it all looks idyllic and wonderful. Heaven?
Not quite. They're told that they have to go to the seat, a rocky outcrop where those on high controlling the population are. Almost made me think of Arthur's Seat!! And to do this they are told they must follow the road, stay at the inns and eat the porridge. And never eat any fruit - all sounds like a strict pilgrimmage. Except that they don't do this. People in this land are all brainwashed into a way of thinking, living and working, by the Controller and the Questioner. There's no brutality or force, but if you question the way of things, the questioner will question you and make all your ideas and thoughts look ridiculous until you come away around to their way of thinking. God is also in this world, being the ultimate one in control, but because he's busy off meditating most of the time, people like the Controller and the Questioner are left in charge to tell the people what to do. Everyone is allowed to ask for an audience with God, but as they have to go through the questioner, who will question their motives to death until they change their mind, people never get as far as God.
But things change when the little lad, Art, gets frightened and refuses to join in; instead running away and hiding in the countryside and living off the forbidden fruit. And a massive hunt (witches?) is set up to find and capture him, and those who have helped him are taken away for questioning which seems to brainwash them and rob them of their souls.
There's a lot going on in this book, which is why I think it's one of these things that needs multiple readings.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2013
Just re-read this, but this time just after reading Young Art and Old Hector. I would recommend everyone to do the same. It adds a great deal of richness to the characters to understand their lives before the journey to the Green Isle.
November 17, 2025
In this book we return to the pairing of Young Art and Old Hector from a novel which I read in 2016.
After a night where the adults of Clachdrum talk about ongoing events in Hitler’s Germany and the terrifying thought that your mind could be broken, the pair go on a fishing expedition.
While attempting to catch a salmon they fall into the pool and apparently drown, waking up in another world, the Green Isle of the Great Deep of the title. This is a place which is recognisably Scottish rural, but with variations. A watcher tells them to travel to the Seat of the Rock and warned only to stay at the Inns along the way.
The land is fertile and fruit abundant but they are warned not to eat it, only to eat at the inns. However, Art is fractious, does not want to stay at the inns and eats the fruit, with no ill effects.
There are, of course, biblical connotations to this, but also questions of free will. On the Green Isle, life is regimented - an allegory of Nazi Germany, true, (there is talk of expansion into other lands,) but equally applicable to the feudally circumscribed life of the Highlands.
While Art makes the most of his ability to roam, escaping the clutches of the authorities Hector falls into their sway. He finds that fruit was forbidden “so that man would be restored to his original innocence,” be without blemish, the perfect worker, do all things he was told to do, all to ensure perpetual order. Hector is told “obedience is the highest of virtues.”
Art is sought out by the Hunt but continues to evade his pursuers, which leads to doubts spreading at the Seat.
There are echoes in the novel of George MacDonald’s Phantastes (though Gunn is much the better writer) and similarities to Gunn’s later novel The Well at the World’s End.
Many of Scottish fiction’s dealings with the fantastic feature meetings with the Devil. The Green Isle of the Great Deep is different in that here Hector demands from the Seat a meeting with God - and gets it. This gives Gunn the opportunity to philosophise about totalitarianism and freedom, knowledge and wisdom, thinking and feeling and the necessity for governance to be tempered by wise counsel, armed with which Hector and Art can return to life in Clachdrum.
After a night where the adults of Clachdrum talk about ongoing events in Hitler’s Germany and the terrifying thought that your mind could be broken, the pair go on a fishing expedition.
While attempting to catch a salmon they fall into the pool and apparently drown, waking up in another world, the Green Isle of the Great Deep of the title. This is a place which is recognisably Scottish rural, but with variations. A watcher tells them to travel to the Seat of the Rock and warned only to stay at the Inns along the way.
The land is fertile and fruit abundant but they are warned not to eat it, only to eat at the inns. However, Art is fractious, does not want to stay at the inns and eats the fruit, with no ill effects.
There are, of course, biblical connotations to this, but also questions of free will. On the Green Isle, life is regimented - an allegory of Nazi Germany, true, (there is talk of expansion into other lands,) but equally applicable to the feudally circumscribed life of the Highlands.
While Art makes the most of his ability to roam, escaping the clutches of the authorities Hector falls into their sway. He finds that fruit was forbidden “so that man would be restored to his original innocence,” be without blemish, the perfect worker, do all things he was told to do, all to ensure perpetual order. Hector is told “obedience is the highest of virtues.”
Art is sought out by the Hunt but continues to evade his pursuers, which leads to doubts spreading at the Seat.
There are echoes in the novel of George MacDonald’s Phantastes (though Gunn is much the better writer) and similarities to Gunn’s later novel The Well at the World’s End.
Many of Scottish fiction’s dealings with the fantastic feature meetings with the Devil. The Green Isle of the Great Deep is different in that here Hector demands from the Seat a meeting with God - and gets it. This gives Gunn the opportunity to philosophise about totalitarianism and freedom, knowledge and wisdom, thinking and feeling and the necessity for governance to be tempered by wise counsel, armed with which Hector and Art can return to life in Clachdrum.
July 29, 2014
Suffice it to say that expectations are a funny lot. I had none when I picked up this book, but I think that brought its own set of concerns despite the absence. The cover lauded The Green Isle as a “Modern Scottish Classic”—a phrase that is only slightly baffling and very nearly oxymoronic—but I didn’t read too much into it (pun intended) because that could simply be the name of the brand—there’s nothing stopping me from branding my reviews as “Esteemed Classic Super-fun-times;” it just might sound weird given the actual level of enjoyment provided (it’s very low). In any case, books are made and broken by expectations. You’re going to get tired of me referencing Stephen King, but honestly, he’s the most accessible writer we have, today—in the sense that you know him, I know him, and your Neolithic grandparents know him. King’s books have a certain expectation attached to them, by now. He’s written some of the best horror novels in our time, calling to mind The Shining, Salem’s Lot, and the first part of The Stand—I’m serious about that that last part, if you don’t believe me you can refer to his book, On Writing, he knows the back half is shit. These gems have given readers that subtle addictive taste, that little bit of cocaine in your salt shaker. When a book of his releases, odds are—if you’ve read some of these successes—you’ll be interested in it. This may not mean that you’ll buy it, I’ve certainly resisted the temptation on all but a few of his newest works, but it has a level of notoriety or fame (depending on your view). You have certain expectations of the novel: it’ll be spooky and scary and possibly supernatural. In theory, you like these things, and in practice, you know King can deliver. What I’m so long-windedly describing is the momentum of authors, the ability to keep selling books no matter how dry your muse is (isn’t that an image you’re trying to forget). No matter what, readers will hang on to the last drops that spill from tired authors for the chance that another It will be written. It may happen and it may not, what’s important is that the readership will be there. Expectation is a powerful thing, but it’s a blade the cuts both ways.
Having no expectation can open you to a new experience of literature, a new environ, and a new cast of characters hereto untouched by your fragile little mind. Having no expectation of The Green Isle probably ruined it for me. I don’t know if I expected the same levels of interwoven mythology as The Once and Future King, but the book didn’t deliver on any front. There are a horde of allusions—from Art (the boy whose name must be Arthur) to countless obscure references to what I assume are Scottish folk myths, there is an amount of room for confusion. Without expectation, I don’t know what to expect. Does that sound completely and unabashedly dull to you? Great, that’s how I wrote it. I am lost in the maelstrom of unfamiliarity. If your first book is packed with references that no one understands, it might be hard to sell that damn thing.
Now, maybe I’m being unfair. As an American, it may be difficult to realize this, but there are other countries in the world with their own culture and set of values. What seem like non-comprehensible allusions to me and my intellectually-backward compatriots may be commonplace for the Scotts. And to me, the people of Scotland are even more complicated than say, the rest of Europe. Scotland is a subset of the British culture that has mutated and developed beyond our cousins’ understanding. This could all be horseshit, and I don’t mean to say that the Scotts are mutants, but the comparison seems reasonable in regards to their history. Either way, much of the value that makes The Green Isle a Modern Scottish Classic is lost on me. It’ll probably be lost on you, too—unless, of course, you’re a scholar of the Scottish arts which until now I assumed were limited to bagpipes and creatively-disgusting foods.
But what is the book about? You know, I’m really glad that I asked myself that question. As far as I can tell, it’s about a boy and his grandfather (?) that get swept into a folkloric quest. The parenthetical question mark in the previous sentence is there because I honestly could not tell if Hector was Art’s grandfather. I swear, there were times when the novel insists on it and times in which the matter is put back up for grabs. Mind you, this isn’t Faulkner level interaction—history and familial ties aren’t being questioned in a systematic and beautiful way—it’s just the weird way in which the author goes about writing the book. The adventure that our heroes find themselves on is interesting enough—in the sense that a four hour lecture on wiping your ass is interesting enough—but it’s written in such an odd way. Much like a folk tale, the book is written quite bare. Description is sparse and what gets described is usually unnecessary. Dialogue lines the pages with characters speaking in cryptic sentences that don’t amount to anyhting. It was just a strange cadence, like an arrhythmia on a drum made of rabid squirrels. It’s a case of the entire work compounding the issues of the minute as they stack. There are a lot of little snags in the book that build up to the strange whole.
Nothing happens in the book. Art and Hector get transported to the Green Isle of the Great Deep and there they’re told that they have to go straight to the Seat and not eat any of the fruit, but what do they do? They eat it. I understand that rules and traditions must be transgressed for there to be any action at all, but when it’s done for no reason, the novel is worse for it. Give me a reason for the transgression, anything, I’m forgiving, I’m willing to go along with a lot if it means that we can keep the story in the vein of the non-preposterous. I know that some folk tales tend toward less explanation and more toward the idea that things just are the way they are, but if you promise a novel, a novel you must deliver, not a shamanistic story in which common sense in conspicuously absent.
In totality, I don’t think there’s a good reason to read The Green Isle of the Great Deep. It’s a nice little story with a few interesting blips across the heart monitor, but I can’t see why you’d spend your time in that world when so many more developed ones await. If you have a particular penchant for Scottish folk-myth, go for it. If you’re looking for a good fantasy novel, this is not one of them. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure that The Green Isle is a fantasy novel. There are elements of fantasy throughout the book, but I found it far more mundane than fantastical. Maybe I’m just oversaturated, but it is what it is. Without having anything overtly wrong with the novel, it’s not worth committing that elusive resource, time, to it. I could be wrong, but I think we can let this one slide, kind of like the hanging joke earlier in the paragraph when I said that I was oversaturated.
Having no expectation can open you to a new experience of literature, a new environ, and a new cast of characters hereto untouched by your fragile little mind. Having no expectation of The Green Isle probably ruined it for me. I don’t know if I expected the same levels of interwoven mythology as The Once and Future King, but the book didn’t deliver on any front. There are a horde of allusions—from Art (the boy whose name must be Arthur) to countless obscure references to what I assume are Scottish folk myths, there is an amount of room for confusion. Without expectation, I don’t know what to expect. Does that sound completely and unabashedly dull to you? Great, that’s how I wrote it. I am lost in the maelstrom of unfamiliarity. If your first book is packed with references that no one understands, it might be hard to sell that damn thing.
Now, maybe I’m being unfair. As an American, it may be difficult to realize this, but there are other countries in the world with their own culture and set of values. What seem like non-comprehensible allusions to me and my intellectually-backward compatriots may be commonplace for the Scotts. And to me, the people of Scotland are even more complicated than say, the rest of Europe. Scotland is a subset of the British culture that has mutated and developed beyond our cousins’ understanding. This could all be horseshit, and I don’t mean to say that the Scotts are mutants, but the comparison seems reasonable in regards to their history. Either way, much of the value that makes The Green Isle a Modern Scottish Classic is lost on me. It’ll probably be lost on you, too—unless, of course, you’re a scholar of the Scottish arts which until now I assumed were limited to bagpipes and creatively-disgusting foods.
But what is the book about? You know, I’m really glad that I asked myself that question. As far as I can tell, it’s about a boy and his grandfather (?) that get swept into a folkloric quest. The parenthetical question mark in the previous sentence is there because I honestly could not tell if Hector was Art’s grandfather. I swear, there were times when the novel insists on it and times in which the matter is put back up for grabs. Mind you, this isn’t Faulkner level interaction—history and familial ties aren’t being questioned in a systematic and beautiful way—it’s just the weird way in which the author goes about writing the book. The adventure that our heroes find themselves on is interesting enough—in the sense that a four hour lecture on wiping your ass is interesting enough—but it’s written in such an odd way. Much like a folk tale, the book is written quite bare. Description is sparse and what gets described is usually unnecessary. Dialogue lines the pages with characters speaking in cryptic sentences that don’t amount to anyhting. It was just a strange cadence, like an arrhythmia on a drum made of rabid squirrels. It’s a case of the entire work compounding the issues of the minute as they stack. There are a lot of little snags in the book that build up to the strange whole.
Nothing happens in the book. Art and Hector get transported to the Green Isle of the Great Deep and there they’re told that they have to go straight to the Seat and not eat any of the fruit, but what do they do? They eat it. I understand that rules and traditions must be transgressed for there to be any action at all, but when it’s done for no reason, the novel is worse for it. Give me a reason for the transgression, anything, I’m forgiving, I’m willing to go along with a lot if it means that we can keep the story in the vein of the non-preposterous. I know that some folk tales tend toward less explanation and more toward the idea that things just are the way they are, but if you promise a novel, a novel you must deliver, not a shamanistic story in which common sense in conspicuously absent.
In totality, I don’t think there’s a good reason to read The Green Isle of the Great Deep. It’s a nice little story with a few interesting blips across the heart monitor, but I can’t see why you’d spend your time in that world when so many more developed ones await. If you have a particular penchant for Scottish folk-myth, go for it. If you’re looking for a good fantasy novel, this is not one of them. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure that The Green Isle is a fantasy novel. There are elements of fantasy throughout the book, but I found it far more mundane than fantastical. Maybe I’m just oversaturated, but it is what it is. Without having anything overtly wrong with the novel, it’s not worth committing that elusive resource, time, to it. I could be wrong, but I think we can let this one slide, kind of like the hanging joke earlier in the paragraph when I said that I was oversaturated.
November 30, 2024
Die Geschichte um Art und Hector in der anderen Welt ist durchaus interessant. Nach und nach enthüllt der Autor, wo die beiden bei ihrem Sturz in den Teich eigentlich gelandet sind.Aber kaum dass dieser Punkt geklärt ist, beginnt er sich zu wiederholen. Anders als Hector konnte Art dem System entkommen und befindet sich auf der Flucht. Nach ein paar Tagen finden sie in einem Schäferpaar Verbündete, die wie sie auch Früchte essen können. Hector wird immer wieder zu "Befragungen" über Arts Aufenthaltsort geholt. Jede dieser Befragungen läuft gleich ab und bringt auch das gleiche Ergebnis. Als die Schäferin Mary ebenfalls abgeholt wird kam es mir vor als ob nur die Namen ausgetauscht wurden.
Im Verlauf der Geschichte treffen Art und Hector immer öfter auf Bekannte: einen Mann, der Schiedsrichter bei einem von Arts Rennen war oder Menschen aus benachbarten Tälern. Auch die Menschen auf die sie treffen gleichen immer mehr ihren Freunden und Verwandten. Ganz zum Schluß begegnet Hector allerdings dem "Einen", von dem der Leser gelich weiß wer gemeint ist. Die Diskussion zwischen Hector und Gott war mir zu viel. So sehr ich die Geschichte und die Idee auch mochte, so wenig wollte ich mir die Überzeugung des Autors aufdrängen lassen.
Im Verlauf der Geschichte treffen Art und Hector immer öfter auf Bekannte: einen Mann, der Schiedsrichter bei einem von Arts Rennen war oder Menschen aus benachbarten Tälern. Auch die Menschen auf die sie treffen gleichen immer mehr ihren Freunden und Verwandten. Ganz zum Schluß begegnet Hector allerdings dem "Einen", von dem der Leser gelich weiß wer gemeint ist. Die Diskussion zwischen Hector und Gott war mir zu viel. So sehr ich die Geschichte und die Idee auch mochte, so wenig wollte ich mir die Überzeugung des Autors aufdrängen lassen.
February 6, 2019
At times lyrical and affecting, at others dense and dragging. I understood what he was trying to do, but it felt overdone - perhaps that is just a sign of it's era?
A book I will mull over though, so that has to be good.
A book I will mull over though, so that has to be good.
November 28, 2022
quite unsure what went on in that ending
February 6, 2024
There’s some sort of Orwellian Narnia thing going on here, which would have appealed to me as a teen but now it’s too late
July 22, 2018
Odd anti-rationalist fantasy on the model of TH White. (What’s the word for the pre-Tolkien, pre-swords-and-sorcery model of fantasy?) Everything is oblique, from the discussion of Auschwitz at the start, to the Kafkan bureaucracy seated in a pastoral landscape. I admire his portrayal of the totalitarian Administrators: when defeated, they are not destroyed but put in their place. There are also passages like this:
A good children’s book: pure of heart and finely weighted. But too didactic for me.
…to achieve the blessed intention, something practical had to be done. Things could not be left in the hands of the Administrators. In the story of man, that had been tried times without number and always it had failed. (The revolving Earth, pitted with its tragedies, cried in a far voice from the midst of space: ‘You cannot leave me to politicians.’)
But administrators are needful, are necessary. To fulfil their high function they work with the cunning of the head. But to leave destiny to the head is to leave the trigger to the finger. And after the trigger is pulled they cry above the desolation – (and the desolation was terrible to behold): ‘We will make a new earth, and share the fruits thereof and the fishes of the deeps.’ But what happens?
The fruit is processed and the salmon is canned.
A good children’s book: pure of heart and finely weighted. But too didactic for me.
May 22, 2015
I picked this book up for £1 in my local Oxfam book stores and gosh, was it a great find. Compared to much of the tat that is considered either a classic of literature of a classic of its particulate genre, this book stands out for being under appreciated. Written by Neil M.Gunn in the 40's its biblical allegory at its finest. The two protagonists are from the highlands of Scotland and manage to fall into a pool of water and arrive in the Green Isle of the Great Deep, which has many comparisons to paradise. The people in this strange and fantastical place all seem brainwashed as they pick fruit they are not supposed to eat, day in and day out. Questions must not be asked and anyone showing "rebellious" behavior is punished in the mines. The two friends are supposed to go to the 'Seat' via pubs and isle porridge in the centre of the county they arrived in, but instead they befriend a local couple. The meeting is the small starting point for grand changes in the Green Isle.
Note - some of the later stages of the book feel like you are waging through mud when reading. Can be a bit stifling at times.
Note - some of the later stages of the book feel like you are waging through mud when reading. Can be a bit stifling at times.
April 21, 2013
Neither as skillfully crafted nor as beautifully evocative as some of Gunn's other novels, The Green Isle nevertheless stands up alongside other distopian genre works as a cry against the creep of the mind-numbing formula for realizing the corporate social State.
March 22, 2016
Brainwashing and paradise, too weird for me, and in a very dated way. Coolest part was that the copyright pages notes "This book is produced in conformity with the authorized economy standards." 1944.
July 8, 2008
One of the most intense of Gunn's books. Young Art and Old Hector, who have appeared in some of his other books, find themselves in another world, wich might be heaven or hell.
April 25, 2016
Great book bridging highland croft life and fantasy worlds. Very faux-political in its meanderings.
January 16, 2016
My dad's favourite book. It's sad.
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