The Wind that Shakes the Barley: A Novel of the Life and Loves of Robert Burns

Immortal Memory #1

by James Barke

Book by Barke, James

Genres: Biography, Scotland

Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

James William Barke was born in Selkirkshire in 1905 to Galloway parents. He worked on the Clyde shipyards and was involved in local and nationalist politics before starting his writing career. His first novel, The World His Pillow, was published in 1933, but he is best remembered for his five-volume novelization of the life of Robert Burns, which was published in 1946 beginning with The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

The first two books in the Robert Burns quintet (Immortal Memory) were re-published in honor of the 250th anniversary of Burns' birth in 2009 by Edinburgh's Black & White Publishing. Barke also wrote The Land of the Leal (1939), a number of plays including Gregarach, and contributed to anthologies of Burns' poetry.

Reviews

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Barke's first novel about Robert Burns' life as a young man is very well written. He, like the poet, uses a mix of English and Scots cadences to bring to life the landscape, daily life, and people surrounding Burns. Although I am not well-versed in Scots, the online Dictionary of Scots Language was a helpful supplement to this book.

[Marie Carmean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this classic but as it was written with strong Scottish brogue, it was somewhat difficult to understand at times. I loved learning more about Robert Burns in the form of novel, and enjoyed the historic time represented and the beautiful prose. It was well written, but awkward reading at times. As a classic, however, I think it's an important read. It's a lovely little book.

[Jenny Cattanach · Rating 1 out of 5]

couldn't finish. It's not a bad book, but didn't grab my interest

[Andy MacCulloch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for Burns lovers

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first in Barke’s series of books covering the life of Robert Burns, known collectively as The Immortal Memory. I gather Burns scholars did not look kindly upon them.
This one is a strange concoction, seemingly well researched - in a foreword Barke says he did not want to get anything wrong - yet in parts it does not read like a novel. But it is also not a biography, containing scenes that must be imagined, with dialogue certainly so, and larded with a wheen of Scots words and usages that might be off-putting to those furth of Scotland.
I assume Barke has evidence for his family calling their eldest child Robin unofficially - as do some of his intimates - but it was an odd decision to render throughout the town of Mauchline as Machlin.
The young Robert very early in his life becomes aware that the well-off have it their way and there is little to no justice in the world. This is particularly so in the case of his father, William Burns, a staunch Presbyterian - of the Auld Licht persuasion - passionately opposed to fornication, whose position as tenant farmer on successive poor soils which he did much to improve is taken advantage of by unfeeling (or downright criminal) lessors. William recognizes in Robert an innate potential to make a mark but a tendency to passion which he fears will undo him but strives mightily to ensure his two elder sons, Robert and Gilbert, both gain a good education for themselves.
There is a divagation to Irvine where Robert is set to learn heckling as a prelude to growing linen and entering that trade. It is here he gains his first sexual experience with one of the many Jeans – not to mention other lasses – with whom he will be associated but his sojourn is cut short when the linen shop burns down and it is back to the plough and the land. Robert of course imagines himself in love with all the girls with whom he dallies but does not consider any of them marriageable. Not that he has much to offer them anyway beyond a glad eye and the odd verse.
This first instalment goes up to the point of William Burns’s vindication in the eyes of the law, and final death, worn out by a life of toil; toil which has already taken its toll on Robert.
Barke is not a fine novelist. His prose gets the job done but lacks sparkle and there are occasional passages of purple prose. And at the end I did not feel the text had inhabited Robert as a person. Then again, rendering a fictional account of a real person is the hardest job in writing.

[Claudia Barrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expected much more from this book. Beneath the writer's attempt to convey Scotland's dialects and pronunciation, this comes across a thinly-disguised pot-boiler.
Provides insight into the poverty of Robert Burns' family along with many other tenant farmers in Scotland during the late 1700s.

[Barb]

I didn't think I would like this book. I don't rush to pick up the book but when I do I am lost in its world within seconds. The story-telling and sketches of characters are gently but firmly compelling. So far - so good.

[Tito Soto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank You for the window to poets past.

Indeed, where this is Life, there is Death. Where there is Death, Life.. Poets understand the journey and try putting to words, the changing winds of this awesome trek called Life. Super great read!