After the dance: selected stories of Iain Crichton Smith

✍ Scribed by Alan Warner

• Book ID: 100361478
• Publisher: Birlinn; Polygon
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 168 KB
• Category: Fiction
• City: Scotland
• ISBN: 0857903756

✦ Synopsis

Introduction -- Murdo leaves the bank -- Mr Heine -- The play -- The telegram -- Murdo's Xmas letter -- The red door -- The button -- Murdo's application for a bursary -- The mess of pottage -- The old woman and the rat -- The crater -- The house -- A September day -- The painter -- In church -- The prophecy -- Do you believe in ghosts? -- A day in the life of ... -- Murdo and Calvin -- After the dance -- Mother and son -- An American sky -- Murdo & the mod -- Sweets to the sweet -- The bridge -- The long happy life of Murdina the maid -- The wedding -- The hermit -- The exiles -- The maze -- In the silence.;As a child Iain Crichton Smith was raised speaking Gaelic on the island of Lewis. At school in Stornoway he spoke English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture was divided: two languages, two histories entailing exile, a central theme of his stories in both tongues. His divided perspective delineated the tyranny of history and religion, of the cramped life of small communities; and gave him a compassionate eye for the struggle of women and men in a world defined by denials. Iain Crichton Smith:Selected Stories proves that big themes - love, history, power, submission, death - can be addressed without the foil of irony and acquire resonance when given a local habitation and a voice that risks pure, humane, impassioned speech.