Lanark: A Life in Four Books

by Alasdair Gray

“Examinations!” cried Thaw. “It’s all examinations! Must everything we do satisfy someone else before it’s worthwhile? Is everything we do because we enjoy it selfish and useless? Primary school, secondary school, university, they’ve got the first twenty-four years of our lives numbered off for us and to get into the year above we’ve to pass an exam. Everything is done to please the examiner, never for fun. The one pleasure they allow is anticipation: ‘Things will be better after the exam.’ It’s a lie. Things are never better after the exam. You’d think love was something different. Oh, no. It has to be studied, practised, learnt, and you can get it wrong.”

I remember two or three nights when I got a good view of the stars. Ye can always see more stars when you’re in the country, especially if there’s a nip of frost in the air, and these nights the sky was just hotching with stars. I felt this … this coming nearer and nearer me till I almost had it, but when I tried tae think what it was, it had gone. And this happened more than once.” “I don’t know what you mean. What sort of thing was it? Did it tie up everything you believed? Could ye test things with it?” “You could test nothing with it. It was a feeling, I suppose. It was gentle, and permanent, and more like a friend than anything else.”