James Robertson
Millennium Hotel, Glasgow 05.04.14
by Andrew McAinsh (@monsterseas)
James Robertson is one of Scotland’s most respected and admired novelists, and was once described by the Guardian as a “one-man literary industry”. The reasons for this become apparent during the course of our meeting with him, as the conversation turns from his novels, to his short stories and poetry, then on to his work in publishing and education. Although he is only in Glasgow for a weekend, Robertson’s diary is packed with meetings, interviews and an afternoon appearance at the Aye Write festival.
We begin by talking about Robertson’s ambitious 365 project; writing and posting a new short story online every day for a year, with the requirement that all stories are exactly 365 words long. I must confess to being slightly disappointed to learn that the stories were all written last year, as this seems to destroy the feeling of immediacy and proximity to the creative process that good digital publishing can give. Nonetheless it’s an impressive endeavour, and the stories are of a consistently high calibre. Readers can sign up to receive an email alert when each story is published, and the website includes a partial archive. The project was launched with a few technical difficulties regarding the archive, insofar as it didn’t work. I found the ephemerality of such short, fleeting stories, while not entirely practical in the modern world (lives and people are busy, emails pile up etc), an immensely satisfying phenomenon. This approach is obviously not the most effective way of getting one’s work to the audience, so those who have missed the first few months of stories, or those lamenting the demise of the printed book, will be cheered to know that a physical copy is due for release around November this year. Accordingly, as the archive grows the stories from the beginning of the year will begin to disappear.
Back in the realms of more traditional publishing, Robertson’s latest release focuses on the story of Robert the Bruce. In addition to text, the book features illustrations by Scottish artist Jill Calder, but Robertson is keen to point out that the book is not a novel (graphic or otherwise), nor is it a biography, but rather a straightforward and fairly traditional retelling of the Bruce story. He describes the book as “really quite minimalist, in terms of the text” and the majority of the space on the page is given over to Calder’s illustrations. The concept for the book and the choice of illustrator originated with the publishers, Birlinn, which helps to explain the uncharacteristically short textual content. It’s difficult to imagine the man who brought you And the Land Lay Still opting to re-tell such a fundamental part of Scottish history in so few words, unless he had some outside encouragement. The book, concise as it is, presents a careful balance between simple historical facts and the myths surrounding the Bruce story. It’s not intended as a children’s book (Robertson points out that the illustrations are “quite dark and bloodthirsty in places”) but the highly accessible format means it will appeal to a very wide readership, including those with no prior knowledge of the subject matter.
Despite his impressive writing output, Robertson’s time is only partly devoted to his own material. He also runs a small publishing imprint, Kettillonia, which he uses to publish occasional pamphlets and books by writers he feels deserve a louder voice. Kettillonia’s latest release is a book of Scots poetry by Eunice Buchanan, a retired schoolteacher who completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing and a PhD under Tom Leonard in her mid-seventies, and went on to win the Saltire Society’s First Book of the Year award. Robertson is also involved in writing for, translating for, and running Itchy Coo, an imprint which publishes Scots language books for children. He has become something of an authority on teaching Scots to children, and he is involved in advising the SQA on teaching Scots texts in English classes, as well as having his own book, The Testament of Gideon Mack, included in the list of set Scottish texts for National 5 and Higher English.
All of this time and effort is expended, it seems, purely for the love of it. Kettillonia was set up with a “spare thousand pounds” which is recycled between publications, and Robertson receives no payment for the hours spent on his extracurricular activities. I ask him, does he have any sage words of advice from a part-time publisher to an upstart literary journal? “Don’t expect to make any money from it.”
Robertson’s own writing is often politically minded and always unmistakably Scottish in terms of its content, tone and use of language. I ask him if he thinks attitudes towards Scottish writing and the Scots language have changed since devolution in 1999, and whether they are likely to change in the event of a Yes vote in September. He takes a long pause. “I don’t think there has been much change in attitude since devolution, no, and I don’t think independence will make a massive difference one way or the other […] In terms of the relationship between culture, literature and politics, my view is that culture comes first.” He adds to this point later: “The political changes are going on because there are cultural and other shifts going on”.
Discussing Scots writing in more general terms, Robertson muses that writing in Scots tends to go through peaks and troughs, but currently seems to be going through “a slightly odd phase”. He cites the popularity and success of his Itchy Coo books for children as a positive example but contrasts this by adding, “I don’t detect a huge groundswell of new writing going on in Scots […] I think there is potentially great [new] work in Scots that is out there and will come to the fore, but I haven’t seen it yet.” His novel And the Land Lay Still was seen by some critics as an argument against the idea of Scotland as a cultural and political backwater. Again, Robertson is keen to stress his opinion that the culture of the country informs its politics and not the other way around. “Regardless of what happens in the referendum, there’ll still be plenty to write about in Scotland.”
I tell Robertson that one of my favourite things about Scottish culture is the frequent inter-communication between creative spheres, particularly between writers and musicians. Projects like Ballads of the Book, Aidan Moffat’s forthcoming children’s book, and the work of The Grind favourites Mouse Eat Mouse often represent more than the sum of their parts, and are a great way to promote Scottish writing to a wider audience. Are there any Scottish bands or musicians he can imagine working in collaboration with? “I’ve never really gotten into any kind of relationship with a band or musician where that’s happened. I know one or two people in the more traditional music scene, and we’ve toyed with the idea of doing stuff. I’m a great admirer of Karine Polwart, for example […] She and I keep talking about it at a distance, but whether anything will ever come of it I’ve no idea”. One to look out for then, but don’t hold your breath.
We get to talking about the programme for this year’s Aye Write, and Robertson laments that he will be too busy to attend anything other than his own talk. I mention some of the events I’m looking forward to, including Remembering Iain Banks (Robertson describes Banks as being “absolutely independent minded, but also very generous and supportive of other writers”), Michael Schmidt’s The Novel: A Biography, and a joint discussion between American authors Mark Z Danielewski and Ben Marcus. The last two involve some debate about the future of the novel, so I take the opportunity to ask Robertson how he feels about the argument that the novel has had its day. “I think that the fundamental format of a novel still has plenty of life left in it, because it’s about storytelling […] That’s what human beings want. They want stories to make sense of who they are and what’s going on in the world”. He goes on to stress the importance of experimentation and trying new things in writing, admitting that he often struggles when starting a new book, simply because he feels the need to do things slightly differently each time.
A theme that permeated our conversation with Robertson, and much of his writing, for that matter, is that of Scottishness. There is a wonderful passage in The Testament of Gideon Mack where the Devil professes his love of Scotland, citing its miserable people, miserable weather, and violence bubbling just under the surface as reasons for his frequent residence here. We speak about this inherent sense of doom that Scottish people tend to carry. “There’s that pride before a fall thing that we’re all very aware of”, Robertson says. “There’s always a caveat […] we feel as if we should deprecate ourselves whenever we big ourselves up”. This dour outlook goes hand in hand with the simmering violence of Scottish culture (Glasgow, perhaps, in particular); the accent can be rough and guttural, the expressions often crude and vulgar. We speak briefly about the upcoming Commonwealth Games, the plans for which, at the time, represented a perfect microcosm of the Scottish experience. “It’s very interesting that Glasgow City Council are planning on demolishing five buildings for the opening ceremony of the commonwealth games. […] I can’t imagine any other city, any other place in the world doing it. That’s sending out a message of some kind, isn’t it?” Thankfully, common sense has prevailed and the plans were abandoned. Had they not been, could there have be a more apt manifestation of Scottish fatalism? The eyes of the world are upon our tiny nation, possibly on the brink of independence, and we choose five controlled demolitions to introduce ourselves to the world stage.
I glance at the time before asking my next question and realise that we have been talking for almost an hour already. Although Robertson is incredibly affable and generous with his time, I’m all too aware of how busy he is and decide not to push his generosity much further. For a final question, I ask how work on his new novel is progressing. He refuses to be drawn, however, believing it would definitely be “bad karma” to discuss the book publicly at this stage. Given the sheer breadth of subject matter and style in his previous work, it would be foolish to make any guesses about his newest effort, but we can be sure that it will benefit from Robertson’s keen sense of history and his careful, studied approach to writing.
Follow James Robertson’s 365 project online here: http://fivedials.com/365
Robert the Bruce: King of Scots will be released by Brilinn on 1st May.
The paperback of The Professor of Truth, Robertson’s last novel, will be released by Penguin on 26th June.
Millennium Hotel, Glasgow 05.04.14
by Andrew McAinsh (@monsterseas)
James Robertson is one of Scotland’s most respected and admired novelists, and was once described by the Guardian as a “one-man literary industry”. The reasons for this become apparent during the course of our meeting with him, as the conversation turns from his novels, to his short stories and poetry, then on to his work in publishing and education. Although he is only in Glasgow for a weekend, Robertson’s diary is packed with meetings, interviews and an afternoon appearance at the Aye Write festival.
We begin by talking about Robertson’s ambitious 365 project; writing and posting a new short story online every day for a year, with the requirement that all stories are exactly 365 words long. I must confess to being slightly disappointed to learn that the stories were all written last year, as this seems to destroy the feeling of immediacy and proximity to the creative process that good digital publishing can give. Nonetheless it’s an impressive endeavour, and the stories are of a consistently high calibre. Readers can sign up to receive an email alert when each story is published, and the website includes a partial archive. The project was launched with a few technical difficulties regarding the archive, insofar as it didn’t work. I found the ephemerality of such short, fleeting stories, while not entirely practical in the modern world (lives and people are busy, emails pile up etc), an immensely satisfying phenomenon. This approach is obviously not the most effective way of getting one’s work to the audience, so those who have missed the first few months of stories, or those lamenting the demise of the printed book, will be cheered to know that a physical copy is due for release around November this year. Accordingly, as the archive grows the stories from the beginning of the year will begin to disappear.
Back in the realms of more traditional publishing, Robertson’s latest release focuses on the story of Robert the Bruce. In addition to text, the book features illustrations by Scottish artist Jill Calder, but Robertson is keen to point out that the book is not a novel (graphic or otherwise), nor is it a biography, but rather a straightforward and fairly traditional retelling of the Bruce story. He describes the book as “really quite minimalist, in terms of the text” and the majority of the space on the page is given over to Calder’s illustrations. The concept for the book and the choice of illustrator originated with the publishers, Birlinn, which helps to explain the uncharacteristically short textual content. It’s difficult to imagine the man who brought you And the Land Lay Still opting to re-tell such a fundamental part of Scottish history in so few words, unless he had some outside encouragement. The book, concise as it is, presents a careful balance between simple historical facts and the myths surrounding the Bruce story. It’s not intended as a children’s book (Robertson points out that the illustrations are “quite dark and bloodthirsty in places”) but the highly accessible format means it will appeal to a very wide readership, including those with no prior knowledge of the subject matter.
Despite his impressive writing output, Robertson’s time is only partly devoted to his own material. He also runs a small publishing imprint, Kettillonia, which he uses to publish occasional pamphlets and books by writers he feels deserve a louder voice. Kettillonia’s latest release is a book of Scots poetry by Eunice Buchanan, a retired schoolteacher who completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing and a PhD under Tom Leonard in her mid-seventies, and went on to win the Saltire Society’s First Book of the Year award. Robertson is also involved in writing for, translating for, and running Itchy Coo, an imprint which publishes Scots language books for children. He has become something of an authority on teaching Scots to children, and he is involved in advising the SQA on teaching Scots texts in English classes, as well as having his own book, The Testament of Gideon Mack, included in the list of set Scottish texts for National 5 and Higher English.
All of this time and effort is expended, it seems, purely for the love of it. Kettillonia was set up with a “spare thousand pounds” which is recycled between publications, and Robertson receives no payment for the hours spent on his extracurricular activities. I ask him, does he have any sage words of advice from a part-time publisher to an upstart literary journal? “Don’t expect to make any money from it.”
Robertson’s own writing is often politically minded and always unmistakably Scottish in terms of its content, tone and use of language. I ask him if he thinks attitudes towards Scottish writing and the Scots language have changed since devolution in 1999, and whether they are likely to change in the event of a Yes vote in September. He takes a long pause. “I don’t think there has been much change in attitude since devolution, no, and I don’t think independence will make a massive difference one way or the other […] In terms of the relationship between culture, literature and politics, my view is that culture comes first.” He adds to this point later: “The political changes are going on because there are cultural and other shifts going on”.
Discussing Scots writing in more general terms, Robertson muses that writing in Scots tends to go through peaks and troughs, but currently seems to be going through “a slightly odd phase”. He cites the popularity and success of his Itchy Coo books for children as a positive example but contrasts this by adding, “I don’t detect a huge groundswell of new writing going on in Scots […] I think there is potentially great [new] work in Scots that is out there and will come to the fore, but I haven’t seen it yet.” His novel And the Land Lay Still was seen by some critics as an argument against the idea of Scotland as a cultural and political backwater. Again, Robertson is keen to stress his opinion that the culture of the country informs its politics and not the other way around. “Regardless of what happens in the referendum, there’ll still be plenty to write about in Scotland.”
I tell Robertson that one of my favourite things about Scottish culture is the frequent inter-communication between creative spheres, particularly between writers and musicians. Projects like Ballads of the Book, Aidan Moffat’s forthcoming children’s book, and the work of The Grind favourites Mouse Eat Mouse often represent more than the sum of their parts, and are a great way to promote Scottish writing to a wider audience. Are there any Scottish bands or musicians he can imagine working in collaboration with? “I’ve never really gotten into any kind of relationship with a band or musician where that’s happened. I know one or two people in the more traditional music scene, and we’ve toyed with the idea of doing stuff. I’m a great admirer of Karine Polwart, for example […] She and I keep talking about it at a distance, but whether anything will ever come of it I’ve no idea”. One to look out for then, but don’t hold your breath.
We get to talking about the programme for this year’s Aye Write, and Robertson laments that he will be too busy to attend anything other than his own talk. I mention some of the events I’m looking forward to, including Remembering Iain Banks (Robertson describes Banks as being “absolutely independent minded, but also very generous and supportive of other writers”), Michael Schmidt’s The Novel: A Biography, and a joint discussion between American authors Mark Z Danielewski and Ben Marcus. The last two involve some debate about the future of the novel, so I take the opportunity to ask Robertson how he feels about the argument that the novel has had its day. “I think that the fundamental format of a novel still has plenty of life left in it, because it’s about storytelling […] That’s what human beings want. They want stories to make sense of who they are and what’s going on in the world”. He goes on to stress the importance of experimentation and trying new things in writing, admitting that he often struggles when starting a new book, simply because he feels the need to do things slightly differently each time.
A theme that permeated our conversation with Robertson, and much of his writing, for that matter, is that of Scottishness. There is a wonderful passage in The Testament of Gideon Mack where the Devil professes his love of Scotland, citing its miserable people, miserable weather, and violence bubbling just under the surface as reasons for his frequent residence here. We speak about this inherent sense of doom that Scottish people tend to carry. “There’s that pride before a fall thing that we’re all very aware of”, Robertson says. “There’s always a caveat […] we feel as if we should deprecate ourselves whenever we big ourselves up”. This dour outlook goes hand in hand with the simmering violence of Scottish culture (Glasgow, perhaps, in particular); the accent can be rough and guttural, the expressions often crude and vulgar. We speak briefly about the upcoming Commonwealth Games, the plans for which, at the time, represented a perfect microcosm of the Scottish experience. “It’s very interesting that Glasgow City Council are planning on demolishing five buildings for the opening ceremony of the commonwealth games. […] I can’t imagine any other city, any other place in the world doing it. That’s sending out a message of some kind, isn’t it?” Thankfully, common sense has prevailed and the plans were abandoned. Had they not been, could there have be a more apt manifestation of Scottish fatalism? The eyes of the world are upon our tiny nation, possibly on the brink of independence, and we choose five controlled demolitions to introduce ourselves to the world stage.
I glance at the time before asking my next question and realise that we have been talking for almost an hour already. Although Robertson is incredibly affable and generous with his time, I’m all too aware of how busy he is and decide not to push his generosity much further. For a final question, I ask how work on his new novel is progressing. He refuses to be drawn, however, believing it would definitely be “bad karma” to discuss the book publicly at this stage. Given the sheer breadth of subject matter and style in his previous work, it would be foolish to make any guesses about his newest effort, but we can be sure that it will benefit from Robertson’s keen sense of history and his careful, studied approach to writing.
Follow James Robertson’s 365 project online here: http://fivedials.com/365
Robert the Bruce: King of Scots will be released by Brilinn on 1st May.
The paperback of The Professor of Truth, Robertson’s last novel, will be released by Penguin on 26th June.