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Weekend
In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a study weekend, though studying is not exactly what some of them have in mind. And the weekend does prove to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people - just not quite in the way any of them expected. As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, William McIlvanney's novel brilliantly illustrates the essential conundrum of human nature - that we are driven by animal instincts, but have the mental capacity to analyse, harness and rue them. Which also means we continue to dream, even when our dreams fail us.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
13 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
William McIlvanney
39 books226 followersWilliam McIlvanney was a Scottish writer of novels, short stories, and poetry. He was a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s. He is regarded as "the father of 'Tartan Noir’" and has been described as "Scotland's Camus".
His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.
Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) and Strange Loyalties (1991) are crime novels featuring Inspector Jack Laidlaw. Laidlaw is considered to be the first book of Tartan Noir.
William McIlvanney was also an acclaimed poet, the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story Dreaming (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.
Since April 2013, McIlvanney's own website has featured personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.
Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.
Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) and Strange Loyalties (1991) are crime novels featuring Inspector Jack Laidlaw. Laidlaw is considered to be the first book of Tartan Noir.
William McIlvanney was also an acclaimed poet, the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story Dreaming (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.
Since April 2013, McIlvanney's own website has featured personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.
Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 14, 2008
I wanted to like this book. I really did. The book has been hailed since its release by the critics and public alike. So, what went wrong?
The main action in the novel takes place in an old Victorian hotel on a Scottish island. A group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather ostensibly for a study weekend but predictably that's not all that's on the agenda.
The novel has a relatively low-key beginning as some female students discuss the possibilities of the forthcoming weekend. We meet Jacqui who has been let down by a man and regards them all as "three-legged slob[s]"; Kate who is desperate to lose her virginity; thirtysomething Vikki who is hoping for a last fling before facing treatment for cancer and Marion, "the mouse", the watcher of the group.
There are three lecturers: Harry Beck who, for me was the most interesting character, has had one big success, years ago, but never managed to follow it up; David Cudlipp is a hard-bitten man with a penchant for seducing his students and Andrew Lawson, organiser of the weekend, drinks to blunt the stress of years caring for a disabled wife.
This doesn't sound like a lot of characters to keep track of but McIlvanney jumps between them all providing a tapestry of events. On top of all the shenanigans he also includes bits from the lectures: Lawson on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Beck on the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx. These were quite fascinating and I half-wished I had been there at the lectures myself.
The book is not an easy read. Its central focus – at least the surface focus, academia and its pretensions – is very different from what we have come to know as typical McIlvanney fair, the testosterone-soaked world of the Scottish working-class mentality. All McIlvanney's heroes are flawed but I could warm to Jack Laidlaw, the Glasgow-based detective that brought McIlvanney to the public's attention back in the seventies, the men in Weekend are all, to borrow a Glasgow expression that really doesn’t need any explaining, sad cases. Perhaps because of my age I couldn’t relate to any of the students.
One thing that will stretch readers is the fact that after introducing us to these characters McIlvanney doesn't pamper to his readers by telling us who he's talking about in each new section, the reader has to keep track in his own head. I found this hard personally and a little unnecessary.
The bottom line for me is that it doesn’t matter how well a book is written – and I underlined several sections in the book as I went through it so I could find them in the future (the man can write) – I didn't like the people and I didn't find myself caring about what happened to them. And I found that mattered to me more than I expected.
The main action in the novel takes place in an old Victorian hotel on a Scottish island. A group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather ostensibly for a study weekend but predictably that's not all that's on the agenda.
The novel has a relatively low-key beginning as some female students discuss the possibilities of the forthcoming weekend. We meet Jacqui who has been let down by a man and regards them all as "three-legged slob[s]"; Kate who is desperate to lose her virginity; thirtysomething Vikki who is hoping for a last fling before facing treatment for cancer and Marion, "the mouse", the watcher of the group.
There are three lecturers: Harry Beck who, for me was the most interesting character, has had one big success, years ago, but never managed to follow it up; David Cudlipp is a hard-bitten man with a penchant for seducing his students and Andrew Lawson, organiser of the weekend, drinks to blunt the stress of years caring for a disabled wife.
This doesn't sound like a lot of characters to keep track of but McIlvanney jumps between them all providing a tapestry of events. On top of all the shenanigans he also includes bits from the lectures: Lawson on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Beck on the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx. These were quite fascinating and I half-wished I had been there at the lectures myself.
The book is not an easy read. Its central focus – at least the surface focus, academia and its pretensions – is very different from what we have come to know as typical McIlvanney fair, the testosterone-soaked world of the Scottish working-class mentality. All McIlvanney's heroes are flawed but I could warm to Jack Laidlaw, the Glasgow-based detective that brought McIlvanney to the public's attention back in the seventies, the men in Weekend are all, to borrow a Glasgow expression that really doesn’t need any explaining, sad cases. Perhaps because of my age I couldn’t relate to any of the students.
One thing that will stretch readers is the fact that after introducing us to these characters McIlvanney doesn't pamper to his readers by telling us who he's talking about in each new section, the reader has to keep track in his own head. I found this hard personally and a little unnecessary.
The bottom line for me is that it doesn’t matter how well a book is written – and I underlined several sections in the book as I went through it so I could find them in the future (the man can write) – I didn't like the people and I didn't find myself caring about what happened to them. And I found that mattered to me more than I expected.
August 12, 2016
Ah. This is a difficult one to assess. So very, very good in parts - the writing, the insightful level of philosophising to be found in Laidlaw - and utterly - not incomprehensible - but of little interest to me in others. Which I accept is because I can be a lazy reader; I had a similar problem with A S Byatt's 'Possession. Confusing too at times to know who is who and eventually at times I regret I ceased to care.
June 13, 2023
Undoubtedly high quality in terms of what was written, how thought-provoking it was, the ideas which this tried to examine, I did however find this let itself down a little in the execution. Something about the style, how McIlvanney chose to explore the compulsions and internal dialogues of a clutch of students and lecturers on a study weekend away without doing enough to delineate these characters fully (most were variations on a theme of women and men repressed to a greater or lesser degree making poor choices), and also flitting between POVs without making it clear who we were 'with' in that section - it made it all harder to follow than it needed to be, and harder to enjoy as a consequence, for all that I found the themes interesting and in the main fairly compelling.
September 25, 2021
Not in the same league as Docherty. Good in parts, but many of the lead players were too indistinct to keep track of. Interesting, but flawed.
July 10, 2016
This McIlvanney novel has none of the visceral authenticity of the Laidlaw books, though the novel is set in Edinburgh and the Western Isles there is very little use of the vernacular and essentially the novel purports to deal with a diverse group of English Literature students who travel from city to an old Victorian Hotel on an island for a study weekend. Among other texts lectures are delivered on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the Oedipus trilogy by Sophocles. In the midst of attending lectures the community interact with each other both physically and cerebrally.
McIllvanney like his fellow Scot Alasdair Grey is an experimenter and this novel looks at the way fiction works. The reader is presented with a host of diverse character voices which often elide one into another, not only do the character elide with one another but sections of lectures, short stories and letters are also included. Though at times this can be confusing I chose to just go with it and wait to see what emerged almost allowing meaning and sense to emerge through the gloaming. Though this worked for me I imagine that his technique would be irritating for some.
A literary novel about writing which I particularly enjoyed for the risks he takes with the narrative form and sentence construction. Well worth a read
McIllvanney like his fellow Scot Alasdair Grey is an experimenter and this novel looks at the way fiction works. The reader is presented with a host of diverse character voices which often elide one into another, not only do the character elide with one another but sections of lectures, short stories and letters are also included. Though at times this can be confusing I chose to just go with it and wait to see what emerged almost allowing meaning and sense to emerge through the gloaming. Though this worked for me I imagine that his technique would be irritating for some.
A literary novel about writing which I particularly enjoyed for the risks he takes with the narrative form and sentence construction. Well worth a read
July 14, 2013
It says on the cover 'The finest Scottish writer of our time'if that were true Scottish writing would be in serious trouble. The story flicks from character to character and with no strong characters its very hard to tell who he's on about.If he wasnt a guest at the Harrogate crime writing festival i would not have bothered finishing it.
July 11, 2022
This was like being trapped in a room full of interminably boring men who won’t stop talking. I couldn’t follow who everyone was and only half way through realised I’d conflated two female characters. The lecture parts were just dire. It felt like something from the 1970s. Why were there only male staff?
July 14, 2020
McIlvanney decides not to create one main character, but rather jumps between 6/7 characters and follow them during a study weekend. He jumps between one story to another without specifying who is talking, where or when the action takes place, adding a superflous layer of complexity.
There are definitely good ideas, but they did not work for me.
There are definitely good ideas, but they did not work for me.
April 24, 2016
The reader has to work a bit to follow the author because he doesn't name names. Several sections have only the he/she pronouns. Since there are many characters one can go a few pages not knowing whose thoughts one is hearing. There are even switches from one character to another occuring between paragraphs, with no name given. Maybe this was a young author's attempt at defining his own style. Yes, it is unique. And it detracts from the well crafted characters working through mostly mundane youthful crises of identity or midlife mediocrity.
March 16, 2016
I'm perplexed at all the negative reviews of this, I thought it was both a great piece of writing as well as really enjoyable. I liked the undercurrent of evolutionary science interspersed and granted the build up was much better than the pay-off, I would even read again. Different from his crime novels but good perspective into the early-20s female mind for a old male writer. It felt very current as well.
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March 28, 2016Although it has a few passages of exquisite McIlvanney prose, I wish he had not published this. It was difficult to follow and frankly , not worth the effort of reading. As a social commentary it is perhaps fairly accurate but truly, unworthy of his name.
October 17, 2011
...the blurbs on the back indicated that it was supposed to be 'delightfully funny', 'hilarious' and 'witty', but could only make me smile...
August 26, 2012
Weird
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews