RE: RARA-AVIS: Read Ian Rankin

Enrique Bird (ebird@gmgroup.com)
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 12:13:37 -0500 I confess not knowing much about Scotland and did not mean what I wrote to
be offensive. My image has been formed, of course, from bagpipes and skirts,
centuries of peaceful(!?) "submission" to England, and the beautiful
sceneries seen on TV and in the movies. It looks and sounds like a place I
would enjoy visiting and people I would enjoy meeting! I have met some Scots
in international chess competitions but that is about it. Incidentally,
please do correct me if Scots is politically incorrect.

Thank you for the note; your point is very well taken!

Enrique Bird

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ANONYMEINC@webtv.net [SMTP:ANONYMEINC@webtv.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 1999 9:02 PM
> To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
> Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Read Ian Rankin
>
> Enrique wrote of Ian Rankin:
>
> But it is, in reality, truly tough crime fiction, anything but tame or
> gentle or Scottish as we perceive it!
>
> First, I totally agree on how great the Inspector Rebus books by Ian
> Rankin are. But I've got to ask, Enrique, where does the conception
> that Scottish lit is tame and gentle come from? Just about everything
> I've read from there is pretty dark stuff, although it is often joined
> with a wickedly nasty sense of humor (or should that be humour?).
> Although for the most part not crime books, the "Acid Plaid" writers
> like Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner, plus their forbear Alex Trocchi are
> full of existential dread, so is much of the music from those realms,
> Jesus and Mary Chain and Mogwai, in particular.
>
> I see Rankin also writes as Jack Harvey (why would he pick a pseudonym
> so close to John Harvey? Was John already established when Rankin
> started using the penname? Shades of John Ross Macdonald). I haven't
> read any of these. Are they as good as the Rankins and are they in
> print in the US?
>
> Mark
>
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