George Gunn and Angus Dunn

1 Oct 2006 in Highland, Writing

Sand and Barley

IAN STEPHEN looks at the work of two very different writers from the Highlands

THOSE WHO know the work of both Angus Dunn and George Gunn might think they’d make strange bedfellows. I own up that the idea of discussing their respective new books together came from the Northings editor (well, their names rhyme – what more do you need … Ed.)

Some readers will know Dunn as the author of a small number of perfect short stories. “Looking for the Spark” or “The Perfect Loaf” seem simple, but you have to write often to reach that fluency.

And the theatre going audiences of the north will know that Gunn has a passion for that medium, flooding village halls with energetic language which drives all on unlikely journeys.

And there it is –that’s what they have in common, an exceptional way with words.

Hang on, don’t all writers have that? Maybe, but some hide it pretty well. What about passion? Most are damned good at hiding that, too. But two writers, each rooted in a very different part of an area we can just about call the Highlands, have just published books which have energy and passion and a love of place and people.

And yet it would be a mistake to imply that the poetry is serious and the novel isn’t

Kenny Mathieson has already discussed the launch of ‘Writing In The Sand’, linked to that of Peter Urpeth’s new shamanistic tale, ‘Far Inland’.
The time-scales to compose the novels and to publish them were very different. Dunn’s book was written as a contemporary equivalent of the Victorian serial – instalments on the internet.

It has parallels with soap-opera, but the pace and ambition become manic. It’s a huge book, but a grand read. Luath Press, like Birlinn|Polygon, are one of the few Scottish publishers still willing to go out on a limb with new writing. And Luath and Chapman are amongst the very few still publishing new poetry. Good on them.

Gunn has published previous collections with Chapman. This one is a handsome production. Ms Hendry, still at the helm, has kept the faith. There is variety in it and a sweep of history, and sometimes even geography outside the north coasts.

The poems have variety, but are a strong grouping. There is just the right number to make a satisfying collection. So, you’re about to say, is Gunn mellowing? Not a bloody chance, thank the lord.

Gunn’s energy enters this language whether he’s talking about Picts or Victorian Caithness or contemporary Palestine. And often there is precision:

“the dried ling swing like salted bats”

or how about this for a burning moor:

“its brown hair combed
with the orange teeth of flames.”

That, for me is an essential part of strong poetry. It comes from loving your subject enough to look closely and to know that it is important in itself. The perspective is from an individual’s viewpoint, but George Gunn, like Angus Dunn in his first novel, assumes the role of spokesman for a whole kingdom with easy confidence.

The place and its people matter so much that you have to get it right:

“salmon nets drying like salt-soaked trampolines
three fields from your sheep-dipper”.

Not two.

So surely this is a very different kind of writing to the prose in Dunn’s comic bible of the Dark Isle with particular reference to the doings of the citizens of Cromness. Not really. Because Dunn also alternates from huge energetic sweeps of narrative to very fine and simple descriptions of the place he loves.

The main difference is structure. In this entertaining novel an intricate machine is developed. All the characters, locals and incomers, boatmen and toffs, mortals and goddesses are heading towards a crisis in their lives. All these individual dramas are orchestrated into the crux of the book – which of course happens on the day of the Dark Isle Show.

And humour. Gunn’s poems are leavened with wit. The politics are mitigated with tenderness and thoughtfulness:

“solutions form and complete themselves
as if they were milk dancing into cheese”

But Dunn gives full rein to the humour, in its own right. He has a close affinity with ‘Monty Python’. I often laughed out loud.

The pub is strong in both books. But “The Central Hotel” in Winter Barley is like a church in one of the most moving poems in the collection. The Cromness Arms is more like the pub in a long-running soap – a device used with strategy by an all-powerful narrator. Dunn’s Dark Isle is more hallucinogenic than boozy.

And yet it would be a mistake to imply that the poetry is serious and the novel isn’t. Both these writers have great skill in their mediums but that’s not what’s to the fore. It’s something more rare. That’s why you’re missing out as a reader if you don’t get both. These two writers both know where they’re coming from.

Their work is lit with love for their places and their people.

(Winter Barley by George Gunn is publsihed by Chapman, £7.95. Writing In the Sand by Angus Dunn is published by Luath Press, £11.99)

Footnote: No surprise that one of Gunn’s poems wishes to throw “A Lifejacket for Shelley”. This month’s ‘Classic Boat’ magazine carries a review of “Shelley’s Boat” by Julian Roach, Harbour Books, £9.99. The known details of the vessel and tragedy are collected.