Now I finally have a place I can call 'home' here in Glasgow, I thought I'd write about my first impressions about this city.
I happened to be reading Alasdair Gray's Lanark back in Spain, and I brought it with me and I finished it here. Gray's fictional Glasgow and its hellish version, Unthank, have proven to be a great picture against which I could try my own thoughts about the actual city.
For those of you who haven't read Gray's most famous novel, I'll tell you a bit of what I grasped of his fictional double city. But first of all, obviously, I'd recommend you read the book itself. Although you have to be aware that this isn't an objective recommendation, coming as it does from a hopeless fan of Gray's work, his literary and visual witty games, and a very enjoyable mixture of erudition and pop culture as well as of his take on sexual fantasising and politics. I enjoy very much having to think deeply at one point, then immediately after that just crack laughing or feel physical (or moral?) repulsion.
In Lanark, two worlds are combined, and the linking points between them are mainly the protagonist (Thaw/Lanark) and the city they live in (Glasgow/Unthank). The first (books 1&2) is a more 'realistic' depiction of Glasgow and a fictionalised version of Gray's own young years, whereas the second (books 3&4) is Gray's version of a descent into hell. His Glasgow is a city full of corners and closed spaces, full of unsatisfactory relationships between human beings, full of cold despair or, at best, of surgical neutrality. Unthank is more emotionally active (in the sense that the city seems to be a reflection of Lanark's distress), though the emotions the city evokes are mainly negative or disturbingly confusing. This also shows in physical but psychologically prompted diseases ('mouths' and 'dragonhide').
I have so far seen the 'bright' side of the Glasgow Gray describes. Obviously, I'll have to wait for the bulk of winter's snowfall to put it against this impression. However, the city I've walked through these last three weeks has been vast but welcoming, warm though it was cloudy, and full of smiling people (though that might have been their natural reaction to my smiling at everyone out of sheer happiness). The city seems to have so much to offer, not least an opportunity for me to study and live here (I'll never thank enough the Stevenson Exchange Scholarship scheme and the University of Glasgow, as well as everyone who has helped me reach this point of my life, for this). I've heard many more languages spoken on the streets other than English, I've smelled food from several corners of the world, and I know of more cultural events than I can physically attend.
I can, at least now, only relate to the feeling of Gray's character at the end of the book: I know I'll only be here (for sure) until September 2014, but my time until then looks as promising and as full of possibilities as it could.
I'll leave you with what might be my favourite passage of the book (or at least, one of the many I enjoyed a lot):
" The cross was a place where several broad streets met and they could see down two of them, though the dark had made it difficult to see far. And now, about a mile away, where the streets reached the crest of a wide shallow hill, each was silhouetted against a pearly paleness. Most of the sky was still black for the paleness did not reach above the tenement roofs, so it seemed that two little days were starting, one at the end of each street. Rima said again, "Look at what?"
"Can't you see it? Can't you see that... what's the word? There was once a special word for it..."
Rima looked in the direction of his forefinger and said coldly, "Are you talking about the light in the sky?"
"Dawn. That's what it was called. Dawn."
"Isn't that a rather sentimental word? It's fading already."
The wind had fallen. Lanark stepped onto the pavement and stood leaning forward and staring along each street in turn, as if wanting to jump to the end of one but unable to decide which. Rima's indifference to his excitement had made him forget her for the moment. She said with slight distaste, "I didn't know you were keen on that kind of thing," then, after a pause, "Good, here's my tram."
She went past him into the road. An antique-looking almost-empty tramcar came groaning along the track and stopped between Lanark and the view. It would have taken him to his lodgings. Rima boarded it. He took a step to follow her, then hesitated and said, "Look, I'll see you again, won't I?"
As the tram started moving Rima waved offhandedly from the platform. He watched her settle in an upstairs seat, hoping she would turn and wave again. She didn't. He looked along the two streets. The wan watery light was perceptibly fading from the ends of them. He abruptly crossed over to the broadest and started running up the middle of it.
He ran with his gaze on the skyline, having an obscure idea that the day would last longer if he reached it before the light completely faded. The wind rose. Great gusts shoved at his back making it easier to run that walk. This race with the wind toward a fading dawn was the finest thing he had done since coming to that city.When the sky had grown altogether black he stopped, rested up a close mouth to recover his breath, then trudged back to the trampstop at the cross. "
[Gray, Alasdair. Lanark, Edinburgh: Canongate, 1981 (2007), p. 11-12]
If you pick up the book, I'd also recommend the end of Chapter 11 & the Prologue immediately following it, and the Epilogue (four chapters before the end of the book).
Have you read Lanark or any of Gray's works? Have you lived in Glasgow? I'd love to hear from you! =)
