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The Key of the Chest
When a boat is wrecked on a rocky Highland coast in a wild night, Charlie MacIan drags a drowning seaman out of the pounding waves. The seaman is clinging to a wooden chest. Brought into shelter, he is found to be dead - but was his death accidental? And did the chest once contain money? These questions hang like a threat over the various members of a small community struggling to keep life going on a hard, relentless coast. It is a mystery in which Neil Gunn displays his skills as a writer of depth and subtlety and we emerge from the tale asking questions about the nature and meaning of community itself, and how it can survive in a bewildering and violent modernity.
304 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1988
About the author
Neil M. Gunn
63 books50 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 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 30, 2024
Cruime ist ein kleines Fischerdorf an der schottischen Küste, in dem seit vielen Jahren kein Verbrechen mehr passiert ist. Doch dann kommtnach einer stürmischen Nacht der Schäfer Dougald MacIan ins Dorf und informiert den örtlichen Polizisten, dass sein Bruder Charlie einen Seemann gerettet hat der dann bei ihnen daheim gestorben ist. Als der Arzt den Toten untersucht stellt sich heraus, dass der erdrosselt worden ist. Das macht die beiden Brüder zu den Hauptverdächtigen. Eine für alle Dorfbewohner angenehme Lösung ,denn die beiden sind Aussenseiter. Sie leben nicht im Dorf, sondern ausserhalb und haben nur wenig Kontakt zu den Menschen in ihrer Umgebung. Während der wortkarge Dougald von allen geschätzt wird ist Charlie das schwarze Schaf der Gemeinschaft. Vor Jahren wurde er mit Mitteln aus dem Dorf nach Edinburgh geschickt um dort "für die Kirche zu studieren". Aber er verliebte sich in Flora, die Tochter des Pfarrers aus Cruime die dort zur selben Zeit studierte. Es kam zu einem Skandal und beide kehrten in Schimpf und Schande nach Cruime zurück. Seitdem versteckt sich Charlie förmlich im Haus und nimmt so wenig wie möglich am Leben im Dorf teil.
Ein Motiv für den Mord ist schnell gefunden: der Tote hatte eine Kiste bei sich, zu der der Schlüssel fehlt. Als sie aufgebrochen wird ist sie bis auf die Schiffspapiere leer. Bei der polizeilichen Untersuchung wird Charlie von jedem Verdacht frei gesprochen. Seine mutige Tat bringt ihm sogar die Anerkennung seiner Mitbürger. Aber dann kauft Dougald sich auf einmal eine große Schafherde und der Verdacht keimt von neuem auf, denn eigentlich sind die Brüder zu arm dafür.
Es geht nicht nur um den toten Seeman und ob oder von wem er ermordet wurde. Es geht auch um die Beziehung der beiden Brüder untereinander. Dougald hat seinen Bruder zwar wieder bei sich aufgenommen, aber er meidet ihn wo er nur kann und scheint auch kein gutes Wort über ihn zu verlieren. Dann ist noch Flora, die Charlie immer noch liebt. Eine Liebe die durchaus erwidert wird, aber die am Widerstand des Vaters und an den Vorurteilen der Dorfbewohner zu scheitern droht. Die zeigen Charlie deutlich, dass er ein Aussenseiter ist. Untereinander sind sie freundlich, aber ihm gegenüber sind sie kalt und arrogant.
Ein Motiv für den Mord ist schnell gefunden: der Tote hatte eine Kiste bei sich, zu der der Schlüssel fehlt. Als sie aufgebrochen wird ist sie bis auf die Schiffspapiere leer. Bei der polizeilichen Untersuchung wird Charlie von jedem Verdacht frei gesprochen. Seine mutige Tat bringt ihm sogar die Anerkennung seiner Mitbürger. Aber dann kauft Dougald sich auf einmal eine große Schafherde und der Verdacht keimt von neuem auf, denn eigentlich sind die Brüder zu arm dafür.
Es geht nicht nur um den toten Seeman und ob oder von wem er ermordet wurde. Es geht auch um die Beziehung der beiden Brüder untereinander. Dougald hat seinen Bruder zwar wieder bei sich aufgenommen, aber er meidet ihn wo er nur kann und scheint auch kein gutes Wort über ihn zu verlieren. Dann ist noch Flora, die Charlie immer noch liebt. Eine Liebe die durchaus erwidert wird, aber die am Widerstand des Vaters und an den Vorurteilen der Dorfbewohner zu scheitern droht. Die zeigen Charlie deutlich, dass er ein Aussenseiter ist. Untereinander sind sie freundlich, aber ihm gegenüber sind sie kalt und arrogant.
September 6, 2022
atmospheric
October 10, 2015
Unlike most mysteries, this one doesn't dwell on the mystery itself. Its twisting ways appear to be typical of Scottish speech. The time period is a time before anything we would consider modern. Families and those who dropped by an evening would pass the time by telling stories, both true, embellished from the truth, and completely made up. The storm in the sea scenes are especially riveting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews