Book reviews for Alasdair Gray’s novel Something Leather
Scot gives his women a good hiding
by Candida McWilliam, 1990
Alasdair Gray has an antic graphic pen which he turns with equal energy and wit to writing and drawing. Decisive black and white line decorations adorn his books, about which there is nothing grey. He is a Glasgow writer, product of that city which the sassenach traditionally held in fear….
More open to Europe and to the multi-talented than England, Scots literature is argumentative, prickly, unafraid of abstraction or physicality, often tragic, always tough. Yet Scotland too often pays for its history, its scenery and its literature by acquiescing in the increasing synonymity of culture with tourism. Something Leather is a considerable reclamation.
Flippant Glesga rudery
by Victoria Glendinning, 1990
The first thing you notice about this novel is that it has been designed. Big black Wasps swarm across the title pages. Chapters begin with huge ornamental capitals, with faces in them. The narrative is itself has been designed to. It is about four women who come together in a violent lesbian Nexus; two of them, Donalda and Senga, manufacture sexy leather-wear, making other women's dream dreams come true. Cool June and introverted Harry, a female sculptor, have to be taught what their dreams are, but prove keen pupils. In fact Harry, who talks posh and is related to royalty, graduates in their sex games to being Miss Cane, the thrillingly sadistic headmistress….
If I were Tom Maschler, from whom Gray obtained an advanced large enough ‘to live without debt for a couple of years while still eating and drinking too much’, I would bite the hand that fed me such a confection of self-indulgent tripe. There, I have finally had to give Gray what he wants: Miss Cane with a southern accent, cracks the whip.
Up to mischief with June
by Paul Driver, 1990
This brilliant book is full of mannerisms. The blurbs on the end papers are facetious (although an accurate guide to the kind of book it is). The boards have ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ in big gold lettering on front and back, and bear a swarm of golden wasps. An illustration of a wasp ends many of the chapters, all of which begin with a sketch (by the author) of the relevant main character inserted into the initial large capital letter. Paragraphing is unorthodox, type setting also (it was done by the author's own Dog and Bone company), and typography is expressive to the extent that a character with a very small voice is assigned very small print like (the gnat in Alice Through The Looking Glass). While the accents of the books Glaswegian characters (the majority) are barely registered orthographically (just a few hasnaes and cannaes) the rendering of Queen’s English is out and out phonetic. Thus Ethel, the hilarious liberal headmistress: ‘My small numba of gels lets me enshaw nobody suffas or is bullied during what can be a very difficult and highly formative few yias.’…
The book's success is as remarkable as it is unlikely. Each of the social ‘types’ is a memorable character with a living speech, when it might have been expected that some, at least, in a work of this brevity, would be merely sketches, merely types. The author flirts outrageously with pornography yet never succumbs to it quite: what might have been pure fantasy scenes are saved by his sureness of voice and many a rawly truthful observation. He is as truthful about fantasy as he is truthful to it, recognising its fundamental role in our lives. He is truthful altogether, but at the same time a splendid storyteller, in command of a vivid and vigorous prose. His book is touching, bracing, and very funny.”
High heels and handcuffs
by Harry Ritchie, 1990
Although he is currently compiling an anthology of prefaces, Alasdair Gray has shown a great fondness for epilogues. In his last novel, 1982 Janine, he provided a three page sign off, in which he listed influences on the book, and further guided reviewers by acknowledging the support of ‘Mad Toad, Crazy Shuggy, Tam the Bam and Razor King, literature loving friends in the Glasgow mafia who will go to any lengths to reason with editors, critics and judges who failed to celebrate the shining merit of the foregoing volume’….
There are individual elements to admire in Something Leather - such as the inspired tactic of consigning to the indignity of phonetic spelling not the Glaswegian dialect which dominates the novel but BBC English - and admirable set pieces, as when a posh English exile gives a galling account of Glasgow’s sandblasted gentrification (‘It all began when John Betjeman discovad Glasgow in the sixties’) and its status as ‘European cultcha capital’. However, Something Leather remains a book that shouldn't have happened. Gray is a magnificent writer but for this novel he'll need to warn Tam the Bam to sharpen his chip.”