Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canons) - Tapa blanda

I was absolutely knocked out by Lanark. I think it's the best in Scottish literature this century -- Iain Banks Probably the greatest novel of the century . . . it marked the beginning of a new era -- James Campbell * * Observer * * It was time Scotland produced a shattering work of fiction in the modern idiom. This is it . . . [Gray is] the best Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott -- Anthony Burgess When dawn comes up and retires in dismay, we find ourselves in the presence of an overpowering surreal imagination. A saga of a city where reality is about as reliable as a Salvador Dali watch -- Brian Aldiss A quite extraordinary achievement, the most remarkable thing in Scottish fiction for a very long time. It has changed the landscape -- Allan Massie * * The Scotsman * * Undoubtedly the best work of fiction written by a Scottish author for decades * * Time Out * * Remarkable. . . Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches -- William Boyd * * Times Literary Supplement * * From a lesser writer, stygian darkness and baroque structure might see off a mass audience and reduce a book to cult status. In Gray's hands, the simple, direct prose found him a wide readership. * * The Times * * A phantasmagorical mixture of realism and fantasy * * The List * * In some ways it's even more relevant today. It's such an elaborate work of both fantasy and political satire, a sort of Gulliver's Travels for 20th Century Scotland * * Scotland on Sunday * *

Set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, this modern vision of hell tells the interwoven stories of two men: Lanark and Duncan Thaw. As the Life in Four Books unfolds, the strange, buried relationship between Lanark and Thaw slowly starts to emerge. Lanark is a towering work of the imagination and is the culmination of twenty-five years of work by Gray, who also illustrated and designed the novel. On its first publication it was immediately recognised as a major work of literature, and drew comparisons with Dante, Black, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley and Lewis Carroll. Thirty years on, its power, majesty, anger and relevance has only intensified.