Abbotsford notice board © 2007 Scotiana

Hi everybody,

Today is September 21st, the first day of the autumn season though here, in the south of France, it looks like a summer day, warm and sunny! I wonder what is the weather like in Scotland now…

Is it as beautiful as it was, 179 years ago, in that quiet and beautiful corner of the Scottish Borders where Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott”s house, was about to live one of its saddest days. On that 21 September 1832, if the weather happened to be fine, the hearts were heavy as Sir Walter was saying adieu to his beloved family, friends, servants and faithful dogs, leaving them forever…

Abbotsford view upon the Tweed River © 2007 Scotiana

Here is what John Gibson Lockhart, Sir Walter’s son-in-law, writes about this mourning day :

“About half-past one P.M. on the 21st of September, Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of his children. It was a beautiful day – so warm, that every window was wide open – and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes. No sculptor ever modelled a more majestic image of repose.” (Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart (*)- John Gibson Lockhart)

A few days before Sir Walter had called for his son-in-law:

“As I was dressing on the morning of Monday the 17th of September, Nicolson came into my room, and told me that his master had awoke in a state of composure and consciousness, and wished to see me immediately. I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness. His eye was clear and calm – every trace of the wild fire of delirium extinguished. ‘Lockhart’, he said, ‘I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man – be virtuous – be religious – be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.’ – He paused, and I said – ‘Shall I send for Sophia and Anne?’ – ‘No,’ said he, ‘don’t disturb them. Poor souls! I know they were up all night – God bless you all.’ – With this he sunk into a very tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival of his sons.” (Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart - John Gibson Lockhart)

Scott's View Eildon Hills © 2006 Scotiana

A few days before, Sir Walter had come back exhausted from a long journey in Italy which had been supposed to restore his health, and he had arrived just in time to see once again his dear Abbotsford, on the banks of the Tweed river, not far from the now famous Scott’s view with the Eildon Hills towering up in the horizon. There, five days later, on the 26th September 1832,  Sir Walter’s horses which led the long and grieving funeral procession would naturally stop a last time on their way to their master’s final rest, in the beautiful Dryburgh Abbey.

Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart 2010

‘Almost every newspaper that announced this event in Scotland, and many in England, had the signs of mourning usual on the demise of a king. With hardly an exception, the voice was that of universal, unmixed grief and veneration.’

‘His funeral was conducted in an unostentatious manner, but the attendance was very great. Few of his old friends then in Scotland were absent, – and many, both friends and strangers, came from a great distance. His domestics and foresters made it their petition that no hireling hand might assist in carrying his remains. They themselves bore the coffin to the hearse, and from the hearse to the grave.’

(Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart - John Gibson Lockhart)

I can’t help associating with the beautiful Scott’s view one personal memory which is quite in keeping with the mood of my article. It was at the end of a grey day, on June 17 2006. I had decided to walk alone down the valley to see what the landscape looked like below when I fell upon a very moving testimony on the path.

Scottish Borders Unknown In Memoriam on the Scott's View path © 2006 Scotiana

I stopped still and stayed a few minutes meditative and silent before going on. I will never forget that moment.

Scottish Borders Scott's View In Memoriam poem © 2006 Scotiana

Here is the little poem which was tied to a wooden post…

Dryburgh Abbey Walter Scott's grave © 2006 Scotiana

Sir Walter rests in a most romantic place, under the shade of a beautiful sandstone arched building. With its mediaeval ruins, its majestic trees, Dryburgh Abbey is a remarkable place where Sir Walter used to come very often.

Scottish Borders Dryburgh Abbey © 2001 Scotiana

Below are a few interesting extracts from the description of Dryburgh Abbey I’ve found on the website of Historic Scotland which maintains the site :

The graceful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey nestle in wooded seclusion beside the River Tweed. On entering, the visitor immediately understands why the contemplative life of a medieval monk was attractive. The abbey was established in 1150 by white-clad Premonstratensian canons (…)

At Dryburgh, the visitor gets closer to the cloistered life of the medieval monk than perhaps anywhere else in Scotland.

There is an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity; and the abbey church and cloister – the spiritual and domestic homes of the brethren – remain substantially complete. The church is a fine relic of Gothic architecture, particularly the transepts flanking the presbytery, lovingly hewn from warm-pink sandstone. The cloister retains its feeling of privileged enclosure. Its highlight is the 13th-century chapter house, which still has precious painted wall-plaster surviving, and a wonderful acoustic. Other features of interest include the warming house and dormitory in the east range.

In the 18th century, the ivy-clad ruin attracted the attention of David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan. The chief founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780, Buchan purchased Dryburgh House and set about creating a charming landscape, in which the ancient abbey figured prominently.

When he died in 1829, he was laid to rest in its sacristy. Three years later, on 26 September 1832, Buchan’s close friend, Sir Walter Scott, antiquarian and novelist, was buried in the north transept (which he called ‘St Mary’s Aisle’). A third great Scot, Field-Marshal Earl Haig, was interred beside Scott in 1928.

 

 

In a reverential silence I end this post, feeling like opening one of the last pages of Sir Walter’s Journal.

1832, April 16

Having remained several months at Naples, we resolved to take a tour to Rome during the Holy Week and view the ecclesiastical shows which take place, although diminished in smplendour by the Pope’s poverty. So on the 15th we set out from Naples, my children unwell… We entered Rome by a gate renovated by one of the old Pontiffs, but which, I forget, and so paraded the streets by moonlight to discover, if possible, some appearance of the learned Sir William Gell or the pretty Mrs. Ashley. At length we found our old servant who guided us to the lodgings taken by Sir William Gell, where all was comfortable, a good fire included, which our fatigue and the chilliness of the night required. We dispersed as soon as we had taken some food, wine and water.

We slept reasonably, but on the next morning

That’s where the Journal ends…

Dryburgh Abbey wooded park © 2006 Scotiana

Bonne lecture!

A bientôt. Mairiuna

Note: (*)=Baronet

First, let me tell you that I absolutely fell in love with Arnold Lobel’s illustration “Books to the Ceiling” that we can see inside your post: “First Steps in Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street… Very original rendering of a house full of books!

As we are both great book lovers, no wonder this charming illustration depicting a stylized cat reading a book gave me such an “emotional kick”

Whiskers & Rhymes Arnold Lobel

Second, I thought it would be fun, to follow your steps in the colorful presentation of the 44 Scotland Street series written by the popular Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith, and showcase other book covers that I have on my bookshelf.

The runners-up for the series, ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series’ are:

Book Covers From Alexander McCall Smith 'No1 Ladies' Detective Series'

Cover Artist for the first book in the series, ‘The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ is designer Barrie Tullet. Photograph by Sandy Grant.

Cover Artist for the fourth book in the series, ‘The Kalahari Typing School For Men’ is designer Stuart Midgley. Photograph by L.H. Grant.

Cover Artist for the sixth book in the series, ‘In The Company of Cheerful Ladies’ are designers Barrie Tullett and James Hutchison. Top photography is from Karen Duthie/Alamy, while the clothesline photo is under by Xing Productions and L.H. Grant copyright.

From the French version of this same series, I happen to have these two books:

Published by Editions 10/18 in the collection grands détectives,  ‘Vague à l’âme au Botswana’  (2004)  is the translation of ‘Morality For Beautiful Girls’ and  ‘Mma Ramotswe détective’  (2003)  is the translation of  ‘No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’.

If I’m not mistaking Mairiuna, I think you have different book covers as well?  Was there not a dragon depicted on one of them?

Alexander McCall Smith Mma Ramotswe detective Editions 10-18 collection 'Grands Détectives' 2003

Mairiuna:  Not a dragon, Janice, but a crocodile .  YES it’s an African crocodile and one which does ring a bell, doesn’t it? Or should I say that it rings a clock for it seems to have swallowed up one like the crocodile in Peter Pan, the famous book by JM Barrie

Alexander McCall Smith The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency back cover Abacus 2008

Alexander McCall Smith The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency front cover Abacus 2008

I like this kind of colourful and naive illustration which we can see on the Abacus English and 10-18 French editions. The artist is Hannah Firmin.

In 2004 she won Best Book Cover of the Year at the British Book Awards for her cover of Alexander Mccall Smith book ‘The No.1 Ladies’ Detective’ series. She also illustrated the covers for the rest of this series.

Below is a mosaic of the first eight volumes of ‘The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ series.

'The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency' - Inner front cover - Abacus 2008 Edition

Eleven out of the twelve book covers of the series are designed with the same attractive, naive and colorful style.

Just for the pleasure of the eyes, I will add them below:

Janice:  Thanks so much Mairiuna for sharing these gorgeous book covers! Wow…what a treat!

Now, let’s take a look at the ‘Sunday Philosophy Club‘ series.

Below is the 2005 English version dust jacket of  ‘Friends, Lovers, Chocolate’ novel, alongside the 2006 French version book cover of  ‘Amis, amants, chocolat’.

It is very interesting to notice that book covers differ depending from which country they are published. Would be nice to research all countries publication.

Well Mairiuna, I guess we shall wrap it up here or else we’ll still be uploading book covers when the dawn breaks!

Enjoy all!

Talk soon.

Janice

"Books to the Ceiling" illustration Arnold Lobel Whiskers & Rhymes Greenwillow Books 1985

Books to the ceiling, books to the sky.
My piles of books are a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!

(Arnold Lobel – Whiskers & Rhyme)

Hi everybody!

The little corner of my library devoted to Alexander McCall Smith’s books is beginning to become crowded. As I’ve mentioned in my last post, Alexander McCall Smith is a very prolific author, generally adding one title each year to each of his four series.

Twelve volumes have been published since 1998 in the ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series’, Alexander McCall Smith’s first series which takes place in Bostwana. This series, with Mma Ramotswe as the very colourful central character, is extremely popular. I’ve read the first volume, some time ago, and I liked it very well. Of course, I intend to read it again and I will also read the eleven following volumes. It will be reading ”by the fireside’ this time … la ‘lecture au coin du feu’

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon Books 2011

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party Alexander McCall Smith Little Brown 2011

The last volume of ‘The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ is The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party. It was  published on March 3rd 2011

44 Scotland Street Alexander McCall Smith Edition 10-18 2007

Seven volumes have been published since 2005 in the ’44 Scotland Street series’ (published dailyin The Scotsman in 2004). The last volume of the series, Bertie Plays The Blues , has just been published in August 2011, a few days ago, but I’m still six books away from this title and I wonder how long it will take to me to arrive there…

Alexander McCall Smith Bertie Plays the BluesPolygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited 2011

I do like the cover of Bertie Plays the Blues. It’s the second one which focuses on Bertie, one of the most lovely characters of the novel

Alexander McCall Smith The World According to Bertie 2007

As most readers, I like very much Bertie… the gifted little boy who does love trains

Alexander McCall Smith The Charming Quirks of Others Little, Brown, September 2010

Alexander McCall Smith The Charming Quirks of Others - Abacus 4 août 2011

In ‘The Sunday Philosophy Club Series’ seven volumes have been published to this day with the eighth one to be released very soon, this September 2011 maybe.

Alexander McCall Smith The Dog Who Came in From the Cold - Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited May 2010

Alexander McCall Smith A Conspiracy of Friends - Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited April 2011

The ‘Corduroy Mansions’, Alexander McCall Smith last series, takes place in London. It is still being published in The Telegraph. An audio version is also available. I feel like reading this series for there seems to be a lovely character in it : a dog! From what I’ve read in 44 Scotland Street, I know that the author excells in describing these friendly creatures! Since I don’t know much of London either, I could get some information about the big city there. Alexander McCall Smith also excells in making us feel the sense of place.

Alexander McCall Smith The Forgotten affairs of Youth - Little, Brown September 2011

Just to count them and make a list, I’ve put all my collection of McCall Smith’s books on my desk, the English and the French ones side by side. So doing, I did enjoy the lively and colourful mosaic they were composing though, like in a jigsaw puzzle, many pieces are still lacking. Anyway, and while I’m waiting for the arrival of new ones, I can make my first steps into the world of Alexander McCall Smith.

Alexander McCall Smith books mosaic © 2011 Scotiana

You can notice, at the bottom of this mosaic, the first three volumes of ‘McCall Smith’s Edinburgh Chronicles’ in the French edition, and on the first row the first two volumes in English. I usually try to read the novels in both languages, when I happen to have them. It takes me more time but my reading is more rewarding then. Elisabeth Kern has been translating the ‘No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ and ’44 Scotland Street’ series into French. Good job it is!

Auguste Renoir 'Young Girl in the Garden at Mezy' 1891 Boston Museum

As mentioned in my last post, I’ve just finished reading 44 Scotland Street. Pure reading pleasure! It has been a favourite on my summer reading list;-)

To me, the expression ‘summer reading’ evokes unforgettable hours of reading under the shade of the big lime trees which grew in front of my grand-mother’s house, sheltered from the scorching sun which was hitting, a little further, rows and rows of vines and the lucerne field busy buzzing with all sorts of winged creatures. I have not forgotten the big old wardrobe in the barn, with its shelves groaning under the weight of books. How we, the children, would have liked to fall on the rusty key which opened this ‘caverne d’Ali Baba’ but our grand’ma used to hide it, with many other much coveted treasures, in a place only known to her. The old books which piled up in the old wardrobe were mostly red hardcover school prizes which contained many black and white illustrations and which had been won by my mother and my aunt, a long time ago, during one of those much anticipated days of  ‘Distribution des prix’ .

84 Charing Cross Helen Hanff Editions Autrement 2001

84 Charing Cross Helen Hanff - Virago Press Ltd 2002

The title 44 Scotland Street reminds me of 84, Charing Cross Road,  Helene Hanff’s epistolary novel (a pure jewel!).  But it’s George Perec’s La vie mode d’emploi (in English : Life: A User’s Manual) which came immediately to my mind when I began to read 44 Scotland Street…

George Perec La vie mode d'emploi Paris, Librairie générale française, collection Le Livre de Poche 2009

Georges Perec Life A User's Manual David R. Godine 1987

‘…a tapestry of interwoven stories and ideas and literary and historical allusions, based on the lives of the inhabitants of a fictitious Parisian apartment block, 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier’ as described in Wikipedia.

Armistead Maupin Tales of the City US 1st edition Harper & Row 1978

However, in the first lines of his very interesting Preface, Alexander McCall Smith underlines the direct influence of The San Francisco Chronicle (Tales of the City) by Armistead Maupin. No need to say that I’ve put it on my reading list, all the more since we happen to have visited the very beautiful town of San Francisco .

44 Scotland Street Alexander McCall Smith Abacus illustrated edition 2005 frontcover

44 ScotlandStreet Alexander McCall Smith 1st edition Polygon 2005

She pressed the bell and waited.

After a few moments something buzzed and she pushed open the large black door

with its numerals, 44, its lion’s head knocker, and its tarnished brass plate above the handle.

(44 Scotland Street – Alexander McCall Smith)

I’ve found five good reasons to make our first steps in 44 Scotland Street:

1 – Pure reading pleasure: easy and entertaining reading, with much suspense, humour and the gentle touch here and there.

2 – A very lively characterization: there are a number of colourful characters in Alexander McCall Smith’s novel. Pat is the first one we meet. She opens the door of 44 Scotland Street and we’ll be following her adventures all along the series.

3 – The  sense of place which makes us discover Edinburgh in a new light

4 – Food for thought: the philosophical touch…

5 – And a little something more, ringing a bell, touching the heart but I will tell you more about that in my next post

And let us leave the last word to the writer

Alexander McCall Smith Source Wikipedia

What I have tried to do in 44 Scotland Street is to say something about life in Edinburgh which will strike readers as being recognizable

about this extraordinary city and yet at the same time be a bit of light-hearted fiction.

……………….

I enjoyed creating these characters, all of whom reflect human types I have encountered and known while living in Edinburgh.

It is only one slice of life in this town – but it is a slice which can be entertaining. Some of the people in this book are real, and appear under their own names.

Bonne lecture

A bientôt. Mairiuna.

'Girl stands in a field reading her book' Harold Knight (1874-1961)

Hi everybody!

With autumn already touching our gardens and woods with its warm colours, it may seem a little late to write a page about “summer reading” but isn’t it a good idea to make  summer last a little longer. Indeed, the Indian Summer is still to come, isn’t it Janice?

But before embarking on our ”summer reading’ I would like to deeply thank our dear friends Iain and Margaret for their last Letter for Scotland. Never have I read  such a beautiful text about WWII. Margaret’s page entitled ‘The Leningrad Album, a Token of Scottish-Russian Friendship in War ..’ is an unforgettable one and I can but highly recommend Margaret’s little book Dear Allies !  Had I learned history in such a marvellous way at school, I certainly wouldn’t have forgotten a single page of it!

As mentioned by Iain, we do correspond regularly by email! A very friendly and entertaining Scottish-French-Canadian correspondence, I can tell you .  And to quote Iain:

We write in English, Marie-Agnès and Jean-Claude in French, and Janice often alternates between the two languages. I enjoy being reminded of French words I’d rarely come across since schooldays; my old French teacher would wisely give us little groups of words to be written together in our notebooks, to make clear the differences and to help us remember! For example, «une librairie» is a bookshop (or a publishing house); «une bibliothèque» a library (or collection of books; or even a set of bookshelves!) Yes, Marie-Agnès, we do have upstairs une bibliothèque tournante – a revolving bookcase. It’s a small one, but it holds a surprisingly large number of books.

.
‘Une bibliothèque tournante’! What a dream of a bookcase! I remember pretty well the very nice story Margaret told us, in one of her first messages, about this unique Scottish piece of furniture ‘faite sur mesure’.

My French Notebook - Mon cahier anglais Paul Schwartz and Maylis Treuil

By the way, while I was trying to find an image to illustrate my answer to Iain and Margaret, I fell upon an interesting method to learn each other’s language…  I’ve not tried it still but it could prove useful at the start of a new school year

'In the Garden Doorway' Peter Ilsted 1913

Books, books, books ! YES definitely

So, back to my ‘summer reading’.

'Reading' Igor Zhuk oil canvas 70 x 50 cm

The expression “summer reading” conjures up a lot of pleasant images, the summer being the season supposed to offer us fine weather as well as much time to read our favourite books. The chosen ones are of course a matter of personal choice and I’m not sure many readers will choose to read Proust’s A la recherche du Temps perdu A hard and big job according to Big Lou, one of the vivid characters depicted by Alexander McCall Smith in 44 Scotland Street (same title in English and in French), the first volume of the ’44 Scotland Street ‘ series (‘Les Chroniques d’Edimbourg’ in French).

Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street is a favourite on my summer reading list for it is exactly the kind of book I like when I want to relax.

44 Scotland Street Alexander McCall Smith Edition 10-18 2007 frontcover

44 Scotland Street Alexander McCall Smith Abacus illustrated edition 2005 frontcover

As a matter of fact, I’ve just finished 44 Scotland Street and I’m quite eager to begin Espresso Tales, the second volume of this series (to me, the French title Edimbourg Express is more evocative of “un train express” than of a cup of Italian coffee!). 44 Scotland Street has made me smile, laugh and always eager to know what is going to happen next page. I’ve also learned in this book a lot of things about Edinburgh and its lifestyle, about Scotland and some of its artists, painters more especially. Last but not least, the author seems to have a talent for introducing in the dialogues and without taking them too seriously, a number of fundamental questions.

Each chapter has been given an expressive title and the English edition has black and white illustrations by Iain McIntosh. In the very interesting Preface written by the author we learn that the book was first published as a daily series in The Scotsman.

 

44 Scotland Street Alexander McCall Smith The Scotsman edition frontcover

“Most books start with an idea in the author’s head. This book started with a conversation that I had in California, at a party held by the novelist, Amy Tan, whose generosity to me has been remarkable. At this party I found myself talking to Armistead Maupin, the author of Tales of the City. Maupin had revived the idea of a serialised novel with his extremely popular serial in The San Francisco Chronicle. When I returned to Scotland I was asked by The Herald to write an article about my California trip. In this article I mentioned my conversation with Maupin and remarked what a pity it was that newspapers no longer ran serialised novels. This tradition, of course, had been very important in the nineteenth century, with the works of Dickens being perhaps the best known examples of serialised fiction. But there were others, of course, including Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which nearly landed its author in prison.

My article was read by editorial staff on The Scotsman, who decided to accept the challenge which I had unwittingly put down. I was invited for lunch by Iain Martin, who was then editor of the paper (…) At that stage I had not really thought out the implications of writing a novel in daily instalments; this was a considerable departure from the weekly or monthly approach which had been adopted by previous serial novelists. However, such was the air of optimism at the lunch that I agreed.

The experience proved to be both hugely enjoyable and very instructive. The structure of a daily serial has to be different from that of a normal novel. One has to have at least one development in each instalment and end with a sense that something more may happen. One also has to understand that the readership is a newspaper readership which has its own special characteristics.

The real challenge in writing a novel that is to be serialised in this particular way – that is, in small segments – is to keep the momentum of the narrative going without becoming too staccato in tone. The author must engage a reader whose senses are being assailed from all directions – from other things on the same and neighbouring pages, from things that are happening about him or her while the paper is being read. Above all a serial novel must be entertaining. This does not mean that one cannot deal with serious topics, or make an appeal to the finer emotions of the reader, but one has to keep a light touch.

When the serial started to run, I had a number of sections already completed. As the months went by, however, I had fewer and fewer pages in hand, and towards the end I was only three episodes ahead of publication. This was very different, then, from merely taking an existing manuscript and chopping it up into sections. The book was written while it was being published. An obvious consequence of this was that I could not go back and make changes – it was too late to do that.

(Extract from the Preface of 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith)

To this day, the ’44 Scotland Street series’ (‘Les chroniques d’Edimbourg’) is composed of 7 volumes:

2005     44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, traduit en français par Élisabeth Kern, éditions 10/18, coll. « Domaine étranger » Paris 2007)

Edimbourg Express Alexander McCall Smith 10-18 edition 2009 frontcover

Espresso Tales Alexander McCall Smith 2005 frontcover

2005     Espresso Tales (Édimbourg Express, traduit en français par Élisabeth Kern, éditions 10/18, coll. « Domaine étranger » Paris 2009)

Alexander McCall Smith L'amour en kilt Edition 10-18 2009

Alexander McCall Smith Love Over Scotland 2006

2006     Love Over Scotland (L’Amour en kilt, traduit en français par Élisabeth Kern, éditions 10/18, coll. « Grands détectives »  Paris, 2009)

Alexander McCall Smith Le monde selon Bertie Edition 10-18 2010

Alexander McCall Smith The World According to Bertie 2007

2007     The World According to Bertie (Le monde selon Bertie, traduit en français par Élisabeth Kern, éditions 10/18, Paris, 2010)

Alexander McCall Smith The Unbearable Lightness of Scones 2008

2008     The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (Ouvrage non encore traduit en français)

Alexander McCall Smith The Importance of Being Seven 2010

2010     The Importance of Being Seven (Ouvrage non encore traduit en français)

Alexander McCall Smith Bertie Plays the Blues 2011

2011      Bertie Plays The Blues (Ouvrage non encore traduit en français)

A lot of books to read, don’t you think?

Next time, I will tell you why I do love 44 Scotland Street and more about the other volumes as soon as I have read them.

Bonne lecture ! A bientôt.

Mairiuna

Sir Walter Scott Monument Edinburgh © 2007 Scotiana

Hi Mairiuna!

While checking my agenda this morning, I noticed a scribble indicating that today was Sir Walter Scott’s birthday!

I said to myself that we could not let this day go by without honouring our favorite scottish writer .  To celebrate his priceless legacy which had such a great impact on historical fiction and  upon so many worldwide readers, let’s walk down memory lane together for a moment…

Can you imagine? Already 240 years have passed since Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771 in a flat near the Cowgate Valley in Edinburgh.

At the age of 16, his father employed him as “a writer to the signet”, but he did not like that kind of work.  He opted instead to become a lawyer and in 1792 entered Edinburgh’s Law School. He had fun and success  inside this tight community but did not defend a lot of cases.

St Mary's Loch Scottish Borders © 2007 Scotiana

What he preferred most was to take long rides in the countryside and collect romantic ballads as well as learning how to speak local dialects. He later felt a strong calling towards literature and from 1799 started writing. Thereafter, Walter Scott devoted almost all his time to his novels, until his death on 21 September 1832.

Coming back to his date of birth, I recall reading somewhere that there was a discrepancy about it, and if my memory serves me well, it was question about him being born in 1770 instead of 1771.

Does that ring a bell to you Mairiuna?

===

Yes  Janice, it does!  The date I can remember is 15 August 1771 but I’m going to check it at once in my books about Sir Walter.

Sir Walter Scott and his World by David Daiches 1971 Thames and Hudson edition front cover

David Daiches doesn’t seem to give much credit to the idea of a mistaken birth date:

‘In April 1808, when Walter Scott was in his thirty-seventh year, and already known as editor, antiquary and poet, he sat down at Ashestiel, that ‘decent farm-house overhanging the Tweed’ where he had moved in 1804, to write a fragment of autobiography (..) Though his home was in the Border country throughout most of his adult life, Scott was not born there, but at Edinburgh, on 15 August 1771. (There is some evidence to suggest that Scott was mistaken about the year of his own birth, and that he was really born on 15 August 1770; but it is far from conclusive, and the weight of evidence is on the side of the traditional year of 1771.)’

Scott-Land | Stuart Kelly | Polygon 2010 edition

Stuart Kelly, in his recent biography of Sir Walter, doesn’t even mention the fact.

‘Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771, the fourth child of a farmer’s son who had climbed the social ladder to become a lawyer. His mother was the daughter of Edinburgh University’s Professor of Medicine. Those with a bent towards astrology might note that on 15 August 1769, a child had been born whose fame would rival Scott’s in due course, and of whom Scott would eventually write a biography: Napoleon Bonaparte.’ (Scott-Land – ‘The Man’ -  Stuart Kelly)

However, in his Autobiography, Sir Walter doesn’t seem so sure about his birth date for he writes : I was born, as I believe, on the 15  August 1771, in a house belonging to my father, at the head of the College Wynd. It was pulled down, with others, to make room for the northern front of the new College.

College Wynd, Edinburgh|Source: David Daiches - Sir Walter Scott and his World

Anyway, it all began here,  in the heart of ‘Auld Reekie’, in the midst of summer and one can easily imagine, from that old engraving, what life must have been like there,  in the 18th century.

The Journal of Sir Walter Scott | Canongate Classics |1998

Do you remember Janice the time when we used to read one page a day of Sir Walter’s Journal, trying to make our calendar coincide with that of Sir Walter? Let us open the book at the date of August 15 1826, just to see if he mentions his birthday. Sir Walter was 55 years old then.

Frontispiece of Sir Walter Scott's Journal - David Douglas Edinburgh 1891 edition

“I must home to work while it is called day; for the night cometh when no man can work.

I put that text, many a year ago, on my dial-stone;

but it often preached in vain.”

[SCOTT'S Life, x. 88.]

August 15 th

The weather seems decidedly broken. Yesterday, indeed, cleared up, but this day seems to persevere in raining. Naboclish! *  It’s a rarity nowadays. I write on, though a little afflicted with the oppression on my chest. Sometimes I think it is something dangerous, but as it always goes away on change of posture, it cannot be speedily so. I want to finish my task, and then goodnight. I will never relax my labour in these affairs, either for fear of pain or love of life. I will die a free man if hard working will do it. Accordingly, to-day I cleared the ninth leaf, which is the tenth part of the volume, in two days – four and a half leaves a day. Walter and Jane, with Mrs Jobson, are arrived to interrupt me.

At that time,  Sir Walter was writing himself to death to honour his and his friends’s debts and he didn’t seem to care  much about his birthday, not even mentioning it in his Journal!  He was to die 6 years later, on his return from a long journey in Italy which had been supposed to restore his health. Sir Walter’s death is already looming in these lines…

A Scots Yearbook | Lomond Books | 1999

I’ve just fallen upon this nice  perpetual calendar which I got in Scotland a few years ago. Why not write in it the birth and death anniversaries of our favourite authors. We could even open a new category on Scotiana called “A Scots Yearbook”

What do you think of this idea, Janice ?

===

Great idea my friend! Done

Until next, take care and all the very best!

Janice & Mairiuna

Notes:

* Naboclish : ‘Don’t mind it”, an Irishism picked up the previous summer (The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Canongate 1972 edition Note 3 )

St Mary's Loch Scottish Borders © 2007 Scotiana

Paddington Here and Now Michael Bond Folio edition 2010

Hi everybody,

Holiday time and time reading too

We’d like to wish you a very good summer, whether you go on holiday or not. Why not take advantage of this leisure time to read this or that old volume by one of your favourite authors that has been waiting for you since ages in a dark corner of your library…

On Scotiana, we have plenty of good ideas to suggest to you and we’re preparing a new page with our own reading lists… lots of Scottish books to read, in many genres, by late as well as contemporary authors : novels, poetry, short stories books, biographies, travel books…

We’re also preparing itineraries to visit Scotland…

The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott Edited by Alfred Noyes 1979

In my last post, I briefly  introduced The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott and told you about one edition I have in my library : it is ‘edited and arranged with introduction and notes by Alfred Noyes’ and  published by James Thin in 1979 at the Mercat Press. This edition is not easy to find today but I would not recommend it. I find it too limited in its contents and much too critical about the author. It must have been a hard task to collect, edit and annotate all these ballads. I do like the first lines of the introduction by Alfred Noyes (I’ve quoted them in my last post), but I don’t agree at all with what comes after, and especially the tone of the article : ‘The present edition seeks to remove two serious obstacles which have hitherto interfered with the complete enjoyment of the book – first, the absurdly large mass of prefaces, appendices, “advertisements,” footnotes and what-not, wherein Sir Walter Scott saw fit to bury the gems he had just discovered and collected (..)’ Personally,  I could not do without these notes and, anyway,  if the reader can’t find any interest in these notes he is free not to read them. I usually make my first reading of a ballad, a poem or of any text, without reading the notes but then I try to know more… One of the main interests of this edition is its six beautiful  illustrations by John Macfarlane.

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Walter Scott The Douglas Tragedy illustration Alfred Noyes 1979 edition

Today, while Janice is busy preparing the first of  her series of posts about Sir Walter Scott’s friends, and it can be but a long list ,  I’d like to tell you about the ancient edition of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border I’ve  received this morning. The title page reads : ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads Collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland with a few of Modern Date founded upon Local Tradition Edited with a New Glossary, by Thomas Anderson’.

Minstrelsy of the Border Walter Scott Thomas Henderson 1931 edition

The songs to savage virtue dear,

That won of yore the public ear,

Ere Polity, sedate and sage,

Had quench’d the fires of feudal rage.

Warton

(Frontispiece of Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott – 1831 Thomas Henderson Edition)

Here it is! It dates from 1931, a rather modern edition of the book since its first publication dates from 1802 ! It is a beautiful ancient edition with more than 731 pages, a gilded leather binding with golden thistles on the spine, a new introduction and glossary by Thomas Henderson, many notes and last but not least twelve nice illustrations ( Sir Walter Scott on the frontispiece, Edinburgh, Kelso, Berwick, Carlisle, Bothwell Castle, Jedburgh Abbey, Caerlaverock Castle, Lincluden, Hawthornden, Melrose) which I intend to scan and insert in our special page devoted to The Minstrelsy.

Below is the contents of this edition and as you can see, if you compare it with the contents of James Thin’s edition it is much longer.

Raeburn's portrait of Sir Walter Scott and his dog Camp at Hermitage Castle 1808

Just have a look at the above portrait of Sir Walter Scott with the light on his face and hands and the lively (and lovely) representation of his dog Camp. This engraving ornates the frontispiece of this edition. Raeburn was a great portraitist of men and animals.  I like very much this artist and this portrait of  Sir Walter Scott with his beloved Camp… There is strong contrast with the air of serenity of the characters and the gloomy atmosphere of the ruined castle. There is indeed a lot to say about Hermitage Castle, which we didn’t visit yet (I’m very happy to realize how many fascinating things we still have to discover in Scotland!)

In the Walter Scott Digital Archive
In 1808, Scott’s publisher Archibald Constable, delighted by the unprecedented success of Scott’s second narrative poem Marmion, commissioned a portrait from Sir Henry Raeburn. Unlike the earlier portraits of Scott which were designed for a private, domestic setting, Raeburn’s portrait was very much conceived with reproduction in mind. For over a decade, it would be the most frequently engraved and widely diffused image of Scott. It proved immensely influential not only in framing Scott in the public’s mind-eye but in creating a prototype for Romantic portraiture. Here for the first time Scott is explicitly personified as a poet in a setting imbued with allusions to his own work. He is portrayed deep in thought, with a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. He sits on a fallen stone before a ruined medieval tower with his favourite dog Camp at his feet. In the background may be seen the hills of Liddesdale and Hermitage Castle, which are featured both in Marmion and Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see an engraving of Raeburn’s 1808 portrait made by John Horsburgh.
When exhibited in Edinburgh in 1809, the Scots Magazine judged it ‘an admirable painting, with most appropriate scenery’. The Repository of Arts, however, wrote that: ‘This last of the minstrels shows how lamentably the race is degenerated, for never was a more unpoetical physiognomy delineated on canvas; we might take him for an auctioneer or a land-surveyor, a travelling dealer or chapman: in short for any character but a bard’ (III, 18:VI:1810, p. 36). Scott’s friend J.S. Morritt considered it ‘a most faithful likeness’. Scott’s expression was ‘serious and contemplative, very unlike the hilarity and vivacity then habitual to his speaking face, but quite true to what it was in the absence of such excitement’. However, Morritt felt that Raeburn had failed to convey the ‘flashes of the mind within’ which ‘almost always lighted up’ features that might otherwise appear ‘commonplace and heavy’ (quoted in Lockhart, Life, 2nd ed., III, 99-100).

http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/portraits/paintings/raeburn1808.htm

But let us go back to The Minstrelsy (I must not forget to put this volume into my travelling library…)

First, the contents :

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Walter Scott Berwick-upon-Tweed Thomas Henderson 1831 edition

PART I

ROMANTIC BALLADS.

Sir Patrick Spens

Auld Maitland

Battle of Otterbourne

The Sang of the Outlaw Murray

Johnie Armstrang

Lord Ewrie

The Lochmaben Harper

Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead

The Raid of the Reidswire

Kinmont Willie

Dick O’ The Cow

Jock O’ The Side

The Death of Featherstonhaugh

Hobbie Noble

Rookhope Ryde

Barthram’s Dirge

Archie of Ca’field

Armstrong’s Goodnight

The Fray of Suport

Lord Maxwell’s Goodnight

The Lads of Wamphray

Lesly’s March

The Battle of Philiphaugh

The Gallant Grahams

The Battle of Pentland Hills

The Battle of Loudon-Hill

The Battle of Bothwell Bridge

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Walter Scott Bothwell Castle Thomas Henderson 1831 edition

PART SECOND.

ROMANTIC BALLADS.

Scottish Music, an Ode

Introduction to the Tale of Tamlane

The Young Tamlane

Erlinton

The Twa Corbies

The Douglas Tragedy

Young Benjie

Lady Anne

Lord William

The Broomfield-Hill

Proud Lady Margaret

The Original Ballad of the Broom of Cowdenknows

Lord Randal

Sir Hugh Le Blond

Graeme and Bewick

The Duel of Wharton and Stuart

The Lament of the Border Widow

Fair Helen of Kirkconnel

Hughie the Graeme

Johnie of Breadislee

Katherine Janfarie

The Laird o’ Logie

A Lyke-wake Dirge

The Dowie Dens of Yarrow

The Gay Goss Hawk

Brown Adam

Jellon Grame

Willie’s Ladye

Clerk Saunders

Earl Richard

The Lass of Lochroyan

Rose the Red and White Lily

Fause Foodrage

Kempion

Lord Thomas and Fair Annie

The Wife of Sir Usher’s Well

Cospatrick

Prince Robert

King Henrie

Annan Water

The Cruel Sister

The Queen’s Marie

The Bonnie Hynd

O Gin My Love Were Yon Red Rose

O Tell Me How to Woo Thee

The Souters of Selkirk

The Flowers of the Forest, Part I

The Flowers of the Forest, Part II

The Laird of Muirhead

Ode on Visiting Flodden

Introductory Remarks on Popular Poetry

Appendix to Remarks

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border Walter Scott Caerlaverock CastleThomas Henderson 1831 edition

PART THREE

IMITATIONS OF THE ANCIENT BALLAD
Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad

Appendix to Essay

Christie’s Will

Thomas the Rhymer, Part I

Thomas the Rhymer, Part II

Thomas the Rhymer, Part III

The Eve of St John

Lord Soulis

The Cout of Keeldar

Glenfilas, or Lord Ronald’s Coronach

The Mermaid

The Lord Herries his Complaint

The Murder of Caerlaveroc

Sir Agirthorn

Rich Auld Willie’s Farewell

Water Kelpie

Ellandonan Castle

Cadyow Castle

The Gray Brother

The Curse of Moy

War-Song of The Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons

The Feast of  Spurs

On a Visit Paid to the Ruins of Melrose Abbey by the Countess of Dalkeith and her Son, Lord Scott

Archie Armstrong’s Aith

GLOSSARY

Border Voices on Border Ruins edited by Iona Carroll and Dorothy Bruce 2010 front cover

Border Voices on Border Ruins edited by Iona Carroll and Dorothy Bruce 2010 back cover

I’m not going on holiday but where I’m going (for a fortnight) I will have plenty of time to read No access to Internet there, so I will  need my books absolutely.There are still many of them on my desk, ready to join the first chosen ones into the limited place of my luggage. How to choose between my favourite authors :  George Mackay Brown, Iain Crichton Smith, Kenneth White, Sir Walter Scott, H.V. Morton, Stevenson, Neil Gunn, Rankin, Alexander McCall… and so many others.  I will need my books about Charles Rennie Mackintosh too and I can’t leave without my dear  ‘Moobli’… What a dilemma!

I hope you’ll find it easier to prepare your ‘portable library’… just two or three books maybe wiser 

Anyway and whatever you happen to be doing during the summer time I wish you plenty of good time and reading.

Bonne lecture! A bientôt.

MairiUna

Paddington Takes the Test Michael Bond Folio edition 2010

Kenneth White - Lettres de Gourgounel - Les Presses d'Aujourd'hui - 1979

I would like to begin this post with a few words about Lettres de Gourgounel (1979), one of the first books written by Kenneth White (his first book of prose) and also the first book I‘ve read by this author. The title of the original English edition is Letters from Gourgounel (1966) but it has been out of print for a long time now. Lettres de Gourgounel remains one of my favourites books by Kenneth White. It is a ‘bouffée d’air pur’.

The author’s lively style and great sense of humour to tell us about the old farm he bought in Ardèche, a mountainous and wild region in south-central France, about his relationships with his colourful neighbours, make us feel as if we were up there at Gourgounel. We learn much about the place and the people who live there, about the author’s love for a simple life, close to nature, about his love for books and solitude, about his work.  In Lettres de Gourgounel, Kenneth White shares with us, the best of his literary and philosophical knowledge and, at that early time of his life, it was already immense. He was only 26 when he wrote Letters from Gourgounel!

Kenneth White - Lettres de Gourgounel Notebook - Candle holder © 2011 Scotiana

Having read this book a long time ago I feel like re-reading it now. I remember how I used to copy my favourite passages on the rough surface of the pages of a very nice leather-bound notebook I had been offered some time before. The kind of notebook so beautifully made you dare not write in it.

Kenneth White - Lettres de Gourgounel Notebook © 2011 Scotiana

But the content is well-worth my nice hand-crafted notebook. I still keep it preciously

But let us try to know more about Kenneth White’s peregrinations  ‘across the territories’! It is in Scotland that Kenneth White ‘s mental map begins to take shape.

Kenneth White - Un monde ouvert - Poésie Gallimard 2006

I was born on that Atlantic shore of Europe and I have its topography imprinted on my mind.

(Kenneth White – On Scottish Ground)

Kenneth White - Le grand rivage - Bilingual edition Le Nouveau Commerce 1980

Living as a boy on the shore

seeing and hearing the clouding

and clamouring of gulls

like overwhelming metaphors

or maybe a heron

‘na h’aonar ri atobh na tuinne

mar thigse leatha fhèin’s a’ chruinne

alone beside the sea

like a mind alone in the universe.

(From Kenneth White Le grand rivage - Editions  Le Nouveau Commerce 1980 -

Original title : A Walk along the Shore)

Our best source of information about Kenneth White will be his own writings (poems and prose)  and a few biographical books and studies written about him. There are many of them.

 

 

Gorbals Main Street 1911 Source Wikipedia

The Gorbals is an area on the south bank of the River Clyde in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. By the late 19th century, it had become over-populated and adversely affected by local industrialisation. It became widely known as a dangerous slum and was subject to efforts at redevelopment, which contributed to more problems. In recent decades, some buildings have been demolished for a mixture of market and social housing; others are being refurbished and restored to a higher standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbals

Kenneth White was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow on 28 April 1936 which was not reputed then for being the ideal place to rear a family. Kenneth White’s father who worked as a railway signalman and was also an avid reader and a lover of nature, decided to move to a more genial place and Kenneth White was only three years old when the family settled in Fairlie, a little village on the west coast, south of Largs in Ayrshire. There he spent his childhood and adolescence.

Kenneth White En toute candeur Mercure de France 1964

In that house of three storeys

only yards from the sea

a house with

anwar don lavar

levawr wrthi

a wild wave talking

and clashing beside it.

(From Le grand rivage -1980 – A Walk along the Shore)

A few strange words in this extract has for a long time puzzled me. I’ve found an answer to my questions in The Radical Field. Here is what Tony McManus writes about this passage: ‘It is in his removal of the family to the coast that White senior most influenced the future of his son, for so much of what Kenneth White has come to do has its origins in that landscape and seascape. In his long poem, ‘Walking the Coast’, he writes of the sound of the sea (quoting in the by-going, both for sound and sense, an old Welsh poem) which was a constant feature of his surrounding’

In  Kenneth White’s books, we find many happy memories of this early time in Ayrshire : family life, relationships with friends and neighbours, school life, open-air activities including playing as well as working ones (Kenneth White contributed to the family economy by gathering wrack and picking shellfish on the shore), reading, much reading – and even churchgoing which he recalls with humour in the following poem:

I’d be getting at the window

and forgetting the sermon

(all about good and evil

with a lot of mangled metaphor

and heavy comparison)

eager to get back out

onto the naked shore

there to walk for hours on end

with a book sometimes in my hand

but never a thought of preaching in my mind

trying to grasp at something

that wanted no godly name

something that took the form

of blue waves and grey rock

and that tasted of salt.

(From ‘Scotia Deserta’ quoted by Tony McManus in The Radical Field)

Largs, North Ayrshire, Scotland - Source:Wikipedia

Of course, we can only try to imagine what it was like to live on the Ayrshire coast in the 1930s, decades ago and in such a different kind of society as our own, but even today it also remains ‘terra incognita’ for us for, when we go there, we are only passing travellers. However, even if Ayrshire is not the Scottish region we know the best, we quite remember the beautiful and wintry place, close to the ocean, with its many islands, hills, woods and moors. Good ground for a young poet to grow up!

We didn’t have time to stop at Fairlie and Largs when we passed there on our way  to Ardrossan for we had booked on the next Caledonian ferry which was about to depart for Arran, the rugged and mountainous island often mentioned by Kenneth White in his writings. No wonder the poet found inspiration in these unforgettable Scottish landscapes, still wild enough to offer many opportunities to admire the landscape in silence and solitude.

The Cumbraes, North Ayrshire, Scotland - Source: Wikipedia

When driving southward on the picturesque A78 coastal road we only had time to catch a glimpse of the Little and Great Cumbraes, the two small islands situated just in front of Largs and Fairlie but we have been lucky to visit the nearby island of Bute, in May 2004, at the time when its gigantic rhododendrons are in full bloom. It’s quite magical! We’ll soon devote a page on Scotiana to this little island for it is really worth the visit. At Rothesay, there is an old mediaeval fortress with moats full of water reflecting canons which seem ready to fire, a mysterious and quite fascinating gothic palace at Mountstuart and the ruins of a very ancient abbey at St Blane’s in the South from where you can also get magnificent views across the water of the the island of Arran.  While taking the ferry which crosses from Rothesay to Wemyss Bay and if the weather is fine you can also get unforgettable views of the Cowal Hills.  The Kintyre peninsula is not far either but we’ll come back to it later, for it would be too long today to describe whatwe’ve seen there.

The Radical Field - Tony McManus - Sandstone Press Ltd - 2007

One of the most recent books published about Kenneth White, The Radical Field by Tony McManus, which is subtitled ‘Kenneth White and Geopoetics’, is open on my desk. There is often no better source of information about an author than his own writings and Kenneth White’s books are particularly rich in autobiographical elements but Tony McManus who is a great admirer of Kenneth White has devoted much time to the study of his works and of geopoetics and his book is full of quotations drawn from Kenneth White’s books .

The Radical Field is divided into  into three parts: ‘The Initial Ground’, ‘The Emergent Field’ and ‘Open World Writing’). To make you an idea, I give you the contents of the book, the titles and subtitles of which are particularly revealing.

PART ONE: THE INITIAL GROUND

1    Family Alchemy
2    Shore and Moor
3    The Glasgow Student
4    Munich: Isolation and Meditation
5    Paris: The Incandescent Zone
6    Gourgounel : Resourcing
7    First Publications
8    On the British Literary Scene
9    The Departure

PART TWO: THE EMERGENT FIELD

1    A Scottish Constellation
2    Universal Ancestor: The Shaman
3    Cultural Analysis Now
4    The Drifting Dawn
5    Radical Europen Thought
6    On American Trails
7    Investigations into Asia
8    Pathways in Science
9    From Scotland to Alba end Beyond
Notes

PART THREE/ OPEN WORLD WRITING

1    The Essay
2    The Waybook
3    The Poem of the Earth
Notes

Bibliographies

The Radical Field Tony McManus Sandstone Press Ltd 2007 back cover

‘If I set out to write this book on the work of Kenneth White and geopoetics, it’s because it has been obvious to me for some time now, not only that White stands among the most significant writers and thinkers working today, but that his work belongs to a very rare category, one that stands outside those currently in vogue.
This has already been recognised in contexts other than the English language one.

Looking through the already bulky archives gathering around White’s work in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Fonds Kenneth White in the city of Bordeaux, one comes across statements such as these: (…) ‘At a time when a certain mediocrity is reaching planetary proportions, one of us has stood up, turned his back and, possessed of real knowledge,moved off’ (Revue des Belles-Lettres, Geneva); ‘White belongs to a silent vanguard, in solitary rebellion against not only the entrenched establishments, but the modernist cliques’ (Review of the University of Mexico); ‘Travelling out on his own ways, kenneth White is bound to appear more and more as the foremost English poet of these times’ (Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris).’  (The Radical Field - Foreword –Tony McManus – Edinburgh, September 2001)

To enter Kenneth White’s world is a fascinating quest but not an easy one. We hope this post and the other ones which we intend to devote to the great Scottish-French poet will be helpful for the readers who are trying, as we do, to enter this vast universe. You follow a blue road and you discover a white world, ‘un monde blanc’…

Bonne lecture !

A bientôt.

Mairiuna

Kenneth White The Blue Road 1990 Mainstream Publishing

Scotiana readers who have followed us on our ‘blue road’, in Quebec, already know we are great admirers of Kenneth White. Now, we would like to share with you what we know about the well-known Scottish-French poet, academic and writer.

Open on my desk are the last two books published by Kenneth White : La carte de Guido and Les Archives du Littoral . Some of the author’s key words appear in the titles : ‘archives’, ‘carte’ and ‘littoral’, evoking a poetry of earth and ocean, geography and travel. Kenneth White is a born traveller, a poet and a scholar too, and in La carte de Guido, subtitled ‘Un pélerinage européen’, we follow him in the European countries, discovering landscapes, people, art and literature with as much pleasure as when we followed the author on The Blue Road…

 La carte de Guido is a French-written book but I’ve noticed that it had been translated, as most of Kenneth White’s books, by his wife Marie-Claude and though I’ve still not found its English version there must be one, or there will be one, sooner or later…

Les Archives du Littoral is a book of poetry and it is bilingual. The three parts of the book reflect Kenneth White’s periples all over the world.

I – A travers l’Europe (Up and down in Europe)

II – Pacifique Nord (North Pacific)

III – Memoires d’Armor (Armorican Memoirs)

When I first opened Les Archives du Littoral,  still remembering our unforgettable journey in Quebec on the steps of Kenneth White, I immediately looked for a poem which would ring a bell  and I found one, in part II,  entitled ‘Mackenzie’s report’.  Here’s an extract:

(..) day after day we spent

paddling, poling, towing

lugging packages over portages:

tedious and toilsome labour -

but what splendid beauty everywhere!

tall clifs, red and grey

a multitude of rapids and cascades

birch, cedar, hemlock, willow

lofty blue mountains crowned with snow (..)

to the armchair geographers

this definitive message :

having travelled the road

I can say with no fear of reproach

there is no fabulous North-West passage

leading to some Asia indolent and rich

only a wan and silent water

a seaweed-covered beach

involved in fog

inhabited by seal and otter.

I entrust this letter

to a battered old rum-cask

which I hereby deliver

this June 27th, 1793

to the waters of the Unnamed River

thinking that, who knows

one day someone in the future

will discover it with eyes full of wonder.

I invite our readers to find Les Archives du littoral and to read the whole poem. After reading it, I’ve made a research on Wikipedia to try and find who was this explorer, named Mackenzie

Kenneth White La carte de Guido Albin Michel 2011

Kenneth White Les archives du littoral Traduit de l'anglais par Marie-Claude White - Edition Bilingue -Mercure de France 2011

Kenneth White Comédie du Livre Montpellier Edition 2009 - Source Wikipedia

Kenneth White has written many books in English as well as in French, he has given and still gives lectures and interviews all over the world and, after creating the revolutionary concept of Geopoetics, he has founded, in April 1989,  the International Institute of Geopoetics. His talent is internationally recognized and he has received a number of literary awards, especially in France where he has been living for a long time. After spending several years in Pau, Aquitaine, teaching at the University of Bordeaux and Paris, he now holds the Chair of XXth Century Poetics at Paris-Sorbonne. He lives and works with his wife Marie-Claude, in the ‘House of Tides’, at Trebeurden, on the Pink Granite Coast, in Brittany.

Indeed, it’s with infinite pleasure that I’ve read La maison des marées (in English: House of Tides) in which the poet invites us to visit his ‘House of Tides’ and his ‘Atlantic Studio’. The chapters entitled ‘A Bibliophile Fantasia’, ‘The Paths of Stone and Wind’, ‘A Garden’, ‘The Great World of Little Catou’ , to mention only a few of them, are windows opened on Kenneth White’s world and there are more than one lovely passages about the daily life of the great poet.

Kenneth White La Maison des marées Traduit de l'anglais par Marie-Claude White Albin Michel 2005

Kenneth White La Maison des marées Albin Michel 2005

‘My workroom is laid out on a west-east axis, so that I go to work with the rising sun in one window, and finish it with the setting sun in the other.’

I work in here about twelve hours a day. Around eight in the morning, I’ll be crossing the yard with a pot of tea (a heavy cast-iron Japanese teapot) and one of the bowls made by my friend the potter. Let’s say it’s a winter morning, overcast, no stars to be seen, only a light in the neighbouring farm, a misty light from behind trees, and, down to the south-west there, the noise of the waves on the beaches of Lannion Bay. I switch on the lamp and the heater, sit at my table, pour myself a bowl of tea, and the day’s work begins.’

(Kenneth White House of Tides ‘An Atlantic Studio’)

The title of this post has been called after Kenneth White’s book, Across the Territories, a book which we’ve read in French under the title of “Le rôdeur des confins”.

Kenneth White Le rôdeur des confins Editions Albin Michel 2006

 The first chapter of Across the Territories, is devoted to Orkney, a place we went to in 2003. We had been attracted there by the magnificent weather-beaten landscapes of these northern islands and their rich archeological heritage (Skara Brae – Maes Howe – the Ring of Brodgar). I also  wanted to pay homage to George Mackay Brown, ‘the Orkney Bard’, a marvellous Scottish poet born in Stromness and buried there, close to his beloved seashore.  ‘Carve the runes and then be silent’ can we read on his grave.  I will never forget our pilgrimage to the Warbeth Kirkyard, overlooking Hoy Sound.

Added to the fact that Kenneth White is second to none to catch the sense of a place and to show empathy with the people he happens to meet on the road, his writing is quite entertaining. Humour is omnipresent in his books.  (‘Maybe more than one passenger thought fleetingly of the life jacket under the seat, equipped, as we’d been told, ‘with a light and a whistle to attract attention’. Though looking out into the murky turmoil, who wouldn’t be thinking too that, in a storm like that, a wee light and a pink plastic whistle would have about half the chance of a snowball in hell.’).

Here’s a short passage I’m particularly fond of, from the chapter ‘The Isles of the Orks’.

‘I laid out my things, set out books (among them Orkneyinga Saga) on the table by the window,

pinned a map of the archipelago on the wall,

and felt immediately at home -

as in a captain’s cabin, or maybe rather a monk’s cell.’

These lines make me think of another passage written by H.V. Morton, one of our favourite travel-writers, in his famous book In Search of Scotland :

‘There is one way only to bring a reluctant smile to the face of a bedroom which looks as though it doubted your ability to pay the bill

- smother it in books! Pile them on chairs, tables, washstands, on mantelpiece and, if possible, on the floor.

The most bitter and resentful room is flattered if you try to turn it into a library.

Books and a fire can humanize any room, so that if you travel, as I do, with more books than clothes you have nothing to fear from any hotel’.

The relationships between a traveller and his or her books are revealing. As far as we’re concerned, we can’t help to take a number of them with us each time we travel and, as we always add new ones during the journey, we recurrently find ourselves confronted with luggage problems at the airport or in the car. And we still haven’t learned the lesson.

For you to make a first idea of Across the Territories I’ve transcribed the comment figuring out on the back cover of the book and also its contents. Having a look at the contents is always the first thing I do before buying and reading a book. The choice of titles are important too and those of Kenneth White are particularly well-chosen, in English and in French : The Blue Road’, ‘The Wanderer and his Charts’, ‘House of Tides’, ‘Le grand rivage’, ‘Scènes d’un monde flottant’, ‘Terre de diamant’, ‘Les rives du silence’, ‘L’anorak du goéland’ , ‘Les cygnes sauvages’. As a haïku writer, Kenneth White excells in telling things in a minimum words.  I also like very much the cover illustration of Across the Territories.  It’s  a reproduction of a watercolour entitled “Junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri’  painted c. 1835 by Kark Bodmer.

Kenneth White Across the Territories Polygon 2004

An initial mapping of this book might say that it goes from Orkney to Polynesia via Scandinavia and the Baltic regions, the Iberian peninsula, and North America. But it’s impossible to sum up the diverse pathways and the multiple dimensions of Kenneth White’s method in that highly original type of travel-writing he calls the waybook. The thing is to get out on the road with him. Along with, for example, three Quebeckers from the St Lawrence river-country through the forest and along the coast of Maine, or with an eleven-century Jewish poet across Spain. Other chapters will take the reader to the haunts of migrating cranes in Sweden, the misty margins of Portugal, across the plains of Poland, into the Atlas mountains, or along the coast of Norway into the Lofotens. The book ends on the atoll of Rangiroa in the Tuamotu archipelago, on a shore of dark jagged coral, wild bird cries and empty sea. The result of the whole complex process is an acutely increased sensation of life, a vastly enlarged experience of the world.
Real poets are explorers, and Kenneth White is one in the fullest sense of the term. He brings together the near and the far, poetry and everyday living. Kenneth White, with the wind on his heels and his brain ablaze!
André Laude, Le Monde

Who could imagine a more pleasant companion than this Scotsman ? He has a way of listening to how people talk, or of watching a hawk in the sky, that makes you want to get out there and travel with him.
Claude Roy, Le Nouvel Observateur.

White’s work is very much about life on the periphery, a rim of civilization which somehow he imbues with a sense of centrality : new beginnings, outside the outmoded, over-used and over-worked centres.
Artwork

Contents

The Isles of the Orks

The Dancing Cranes

Aurora Borealis

Winds of the Skagerrak

Travels in a Sea of Vodka

The Cry of the Loon on the Kennebec

Around Corsica

The Big Andalusian Trip

Rainy Margins and Misty Horizons

The Lights of the Atlas

The Road to Rangiroa

I will begin my next post with  Lettres de Gourgounel which is the first book by Kenneth White I’ve read but in the meantime, here’s a bibliography of Kenneth White’s books.

Kenneth White Letters from Gourgounel London Jonathan Cape. (1966)

Bibliography

Poetry
· Wild Coal. Paris: Club des Étudiants d’Anglais (Sorbonne). (1963)
· En toute candeur. Paris: Mercure de France. (1964)
· The Cold Wind of Dawn. London: Jonathan Cape. (1966)
· The Most Difficult Area. London: Cape Goliard. (1968)
· Scènes d’un monde flottant. Lausanne: Alfred Eibel Editeur. (1976)
· Terre de diamant. Lausanne: Alfred Eibel Editeur. (1977)
· Mahamudra. Paris: Mercure de France. (1979)
· Le Grand Rivage. Paris: Nouveau Commerce. (1980)
· Eloge du corbeau (1983)
· Scènes d’un monde flottant (Grasset 1983)
· Terre de diamant (Grasset 1983)
· Atlantica. Paris: Grasset. (1986)
· L’anorak du goéland. Rouen: L’Instant Perpétuel. (1986)
. The Bird Path: Collected Longer Poems. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream. (1989)
· Handbook for the Diamond Country, Collected Shorter Poems 1960-1990. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream. (1990)
· Les Rives du silence. Paris: Mercure de France. (1998)
· Limites et marges. Paris: Mercure de France. (2000)
· Open World: Collected Poems 1960-2000. Edinburgh: Polygon. (2003
· Le passage extérieur (Mercure de France 2005)
· L’anorak du goéland in L’Ermitage des brumes (Dervy 2005)
· Un monde ouvert (Gallimard, collection Poésie 2007)
Prose
· Letters from Gourgounel. London: Jonathan Cape. (1966)
· Dérives (Maurice Nadeau 1978)
· Lettres de Gourgounel (Les Presses d’aujourd’hui 1979, Grasset-Cahiers rouges 1986)
· Les Limbes incandescents (Denoël-Lettres nouvelles 1976, Denoël 1990)
· Le Visage du vent d’est. Paris: Les Presses d’aujourd’hui. (1980)
· La Route bleue. Paris: Grasset. (Grasset 1983 – prix Médicis étranger)
· Une apocalypse tranquille. Paris: Grasset (1985)
· Travels in the Drifting Dawn. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream. (1989)
· Les Cygnes sauvages. Paris: Grasset. (1990)
· The Blue Road. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream Publishing. (1990)
· Pilgrim of the Void. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream. (1992)
· Corsica. L’itinéraire des rives et des monts (traduit de l’anglais par Marie-Claude White et illustré par Jacqueline Ricard de gravures au carborundum; Les Bibliophiles de France, 1998)
· House of Tides: Letters from Brittany and Other Lands of the West. Edinburgh: Polygon. (2000)
· Across the Territories. Edinburgh: Polygon. (2004)
· La Maison des marées (traduit de l’anglais par Marie-Claude White; Paris, Albin Michel, 2005;
· Le Rôdeur des confins. Paris: Albin Michel. (2006)
· Le Visage du vent d’est, Albin Michel, 2007
· Les Affinités extrêmes, Albin Michel, 2009
Essays
· La Figure du dehors. Paris: Grasset. (1982)
· Une apocalypse tranquille (Grasset 1985)
· L’Esprit nomade (Grasset 1987)
· Le monde d’Antonin Artaud (Éditions Complexe 1989)
· Hokusaï ou l’horizon sensible – Prélude à une esthétique du monde (Terrain Vague 1990)
· Le Plateau de l’albatros: Introduction à la géopoétique. Paris: Grasset. (1994)
· Les finisterres de l’esprit (Éditions du Scorff 1998)
· Une stratégie paradoxale : essais de résistance culturelle (Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux 1998)
· On Scottish Ground. Edinburgh: Polygon. (1998)
· The Wanderer and His Charts. Edinburgh: Polygon. (2004)
· Le chemin des crêtes, avec Stevenson dans les Cévennes” (Études et Communication Éditions 1999, 2005)
· On the Atlantic Edge. Sandstone. (2006)
· Écosse, le pays derrière les noms (Terre De Brume, 2010)

Bonne lecture ! A bientôt. Mairiuna

Kenneth White The Blue Road 1990 Mainstream Publishing

During his journey to Quebec, about thirty years ago, which he relates so unforgettably in The Blue Road, Kenneth White stops at Sept-Îles, a turning point on his road to the most remote and wildest places of Labrador. He lingers some time there, making friends and sharing life with a few Amerindians he has met there. Several chapters of The Blue Road are devoted to the wintry town and its colourful people. Their titles read like a poem, which reminds me how Kenneth White love haïkus and their strong suggestive power…
Eskimo Joe
White Night
The wind at Seven-Islands
On the coast
The big dance at Mingan
The end of the road…

Québec-trajet-Les-Escoumins_Pointe-Parent Scotiana Modified Google map

For some time, during our one-month periple in Quebec, we’ve tried to follow Kenneth White’s itinerary on road 138,  along the St Lawrence River. We’re soon arriving at the point where our roads separate. That of Kenneth White is going due west towards Labrador, a railroad from Sept-Îles to Schefferville to begin with.  Ours will soon turn back southwards from Natashquan to Baie Comeau where we intend to take a ferry  to Matane, across the St Lawrence, before driving around Gaspésie up to La Baie des Chaleurs where Jacques Cartier did land in 1534.
But it would have been most surprising if, before turning westwards Kenneth White would not have tried to reach the end of road 138 which, up to October 1996, ended at Havre-Saint-Pierre. Today it ends at Pointe-Parent, near Natashquan but if you don’t fear to damage your car on a gravel road you can drive up to Kégashka.

Kenneth White La route bleue The Blue Road Motel L'Archipel © 2010 Scotiana

So, it’s in the wintry town of Havre-Saint-Pierre that we are going to leave Kenneth White,  on road 138 at least, for Kenneth White’s ‘blue road’ goes much further…

Road 138 Havre-Saint-Pierre sign © 2010 Scotiana

I like very much the passage of The Blue Road where Kenneth White tells us about his trip from Sept-Îles to Havre-Saint-Pierre…no less than 219 km which he begins on foot and alone, just meeting an old dog who follows him until his new friend hops into a truck… woof ! woof ! so long !
Havre-Saint-Pierre was founded in 1857 by a group of Acadian families from ‘Les Îles de la Madeleine’ who had been deported at Savannah, Georgia,  and came to settle at Pointe-aux-Esquimaux on a place which had once been inhabited by a group of Inuit people. The town was originally called ‘Saint-Pierre-de-la-Pointe-aux-Esquimaux’ until it was changed  into Havre-Saint-Pierre, in 1927,  to focus on its privileged position. Situated as it is on its large bay,  in front of ‘L’Île d’Anticosti’  and protected by a number of small islands, ‘île du fantôme’, ‘île du Havre’, ‘île du Marteau’, this little harbour is indeed  a true haven…

Road 138 East Saint-Lawrence shore © 2010 Scotiana

I’d thought I might hitch up to Havre-Saint-Pierre, but there wasn’t a soul on the road, not a soul. No matter, it was the beginning of another day, fresh and blue, and I was glad to be out there walking, in the middle of nowhere, on my own, watching those big gulls gliding on the wind:
‘It is a great thing to realise that the original world is still there, perfectly clean and pure, many white advancing foams, and only the gulls swinging between the sky and the shore.’
Brother Lawrence again.
I travel with my ghosts…
A dog left the porch of the sleeping house where it had been sunning itself and started trotting along the road beside me.
‘Hello, dog’
‘Woof, woof.’
I’d have preferred to have been all alone, but that old dog felt like some company and a little walk. So I let him pad along beside me.

I’d been walking for about an hour when a truck passed, and I gave it the sign. It went, then changed its mind and stopped. I said ‘so long’ to the dog, ran to catch up the truck, and hopped in.

(Kenneth White – The Blue Road)

Motel L'Archipel- Havre-Saint-Pierre © 2010 Scotiana

Now, back to the motel L’Archipel where we had arrived the night before, at the end of a cold and wintry day. In my last post, I have told you how, after a quick meal, the three of us had fallen asleep in spite of a regular noise which sounded like the sound of a train passing and passing on a railway track not far from the motel…

October 9th …

The weather is fine and not so wintry than the day before.  Having been awaken early in the morning by the sound of our mysterious train, we are eager to go out and see what it is and where it comes from. So, after a hot and comforting breakfast we drive off.

Iron ore caterpillar Havre-Saint-Pierre harbour © 2010 Scotiana

Things get clearer in daylight and we soon discover that our motel L’Archipel is situated quite close to the harbour. Here,  a boat is being loaded with what looks like coal and a big  caterpillar is  going to and fro amidst a huge heap of black coal with the sound of a train…

The Oakglen anchored and being loaded at Havre-Saint-Pierre Harbour © 2010 Scotiana

We walk amidst barbed wire and rusty engines  to try and  have a closer look at the boat, the Oakglen ship, a big red and white bulk carrier built in 1980 and registered in Montreal. We’ve made our investigations since and also learned more about the kind of  ‘coal’ which is loaded here. It is not coal but titanium…

In fact, Havre-Saint-Pierre is located near Canada’s only titanium mine which is situated about 45 km northward. Since 1948,  the Quebec Iron and Titanium Company mines deposits of ‘ilmenite’, a mineral composed of iron and titanium which is carried by rail cars to Havre-Saint-Pierre. The mine is the main industrial activity of the town but, thanks to the proximity of The Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve which is internationally reputed for its flora (the Mingan Thistle) and fauna (puffins), tourism is also a key activity at Havre-Saint-Pierre. Fishing, of course, is also quite flourishing here. There are numerous rivers and lakes in the neighbourhood and if I had to retain a single name of the many local species you can find here,  it would certainly  be the ‘snow crab’, for its beautiful name

Havre-Saint-Pierre harbour © 2010 Scotiana

While the Oaklen is sailing off we stroll around the harbour, looking at the names of the boats,  parked side by side on the ground, like cars,  for the winter season : le ‘Perroquet de Mer’, le ‘Calculot’, le ‘Bout du Banc’, la ‘Relève II’…

Havre-Saint-Pierre church © 2010 Scotiana

Not far from the harbour we fall upon the church…

Maison de la culture Roland-Jomphe Havre-Saint Pierre © 2010 Scotiana

A green and white wooden house, two benches and three inscriptions on the façade :

Labrador Store 1943-1963

Hudson Bay Company 1963-1970

Maison de la Culture Roland Jomphe

Magasin Général Marie Loisel & Tripp Casterman

This house is an old lady, though not so old for a house, but it has a long story to tell. It was built in 1943, by the Clarke family, as a ‘magasin général’, under the name of ‘Labrador Stores’. In the olden times, in Quebec, a ‘magasin général’ was a very busy place where villagers could buy all sorts of merchandise, from food to clothes and tools. In 1963, the building was bought by the Hudson Bay Company which used it for business until 1969. Then it was abandoned and it is only in 1981, that the municipality of Havre-Saint-Pierre decided to buy it for cultural purpose. Now the ‘Maison de la Culture Roland-Jomphe’, named after a poet who was born and lived until his death in Havre-Saint-Pierre, is a very dynamic cultural centre which also serves as a Tourist Information Board.

Comme la goutte de rosée

La vie se glisse sur la feuille

Chaque saison chaque journée

C’est une branche qui s’effeuille.

(Roland Jomphe -1917-2003)

* De l’eau salée dans les veines (1978), Léméac, Montréal.
* Sous le vent de la mémoire (1982), Dominique Cormier, Havre Saint-Pierre.
* Aux îles de Mingan (1984), Environnement Parcs Canada.
* A l’écoute du temps (1983).  (self-published)
* Amour et souvenance (1985). (self-published)
* Sur le rivage de la vie (1986). (self-published)
* Iles de Mingan ou de chez nous (1986). (self-published)
* Confidences des îles (1987). (self-published)
* A l’ombre d’un village (1988). (self-published)

Havre-Saint-Pierre road sign © 2010 Scotiana

‘Rue de la Berge’, ‘Rue Boréale’, here are names which must not have escaped Kenneth White’s eyes…  the place-names are indeed a central theme in The Blue Road… just have a look at what Kenneth White writes in the chapter entitled ‘The walk to Pointe Bleue’ in the English version and just ‘Pointe Bleue’ in the French edition. Don’t forget to take your map of Quebec… a beautiful map which makes you dream

We pull out of Chicoutimi on 170 West, from which we soon switch to 169 North, rolling through the Kenogami forest then skirting the Lac Sain-Jean.

I wonder if we’ll ever get rid of this evangelical toponymy. I can’t say what this lake’s Indian name was, but I’m willing to bet it was beautiful, and precise too. Something like Blue Water Lake, or Summer Storm Lake or Many Tree Lake. Named by people who knew it, who were in touch with its physical reality. But Lac Saint-Jean, I ask you. Was St John ever here? Not at all. He hung around Galilee. And the folk who named the lake ‘Saint-Jean’, they were never really here either. (Kenneth White – The Blue Road)

It reminds me of one of my favourite books about Scotland, a book published in 2001, written by Kenneth White and illustrated with superb black and white photographies by Jean Hervoche.

Kenneth White Le pays derrière les noms Terre de Brume 2001

The title of this book is  Le Pays derrière les noms, the country behind the names…

And here is another of our daily ‘golden nugget’, as would say Janice, another very inspirational name written in beautiful letters,  but we don’t know what kind of reality is hiding behind this name for we didn’t pay a visit at l’Auberge Boréale…

We are not in a hurry to leave Havre-Saint-Pierre for it’s quite pleasant to walk along the streets of the town, even if it’s fresh at this time of the year…

Gîte 'Chez Françoise' Havre-Saint-Pierre Côte-Nord Quebec PQ © 2010 Scotiana

1122 Boréale Street (how long this street must be !) a cat is inviting us to enter the welcoming gîte ‘Chez Françoise’ which can be a good and more personalized alternative to the motel accommodation…

Gîte 'Chez Françoise' Havre-Saint-Pierre © 2010 Scotiana

There are funny details to discover at each street corner

Halloween decorations at Havre-Saint-Pierre © 2010 Scotiana

Halloween is welcoming us at nearly each house entrance.  In front of this nice typical wooden house a friendly ghost welcomes the visitor while a beautiful red rowan tree loses its last leaves indifferently…

Quite a cheerful atmosphere, better than on our arrival yesterday night!

A blue house at Havre-Saint-Pïerre © 2010 Scotiana

11 h 50… time to go now if we want to reach the end of road 138 before it’s dark!

Let us end our tour of Havre-Saint-Pierre on a  blue note…

…a blue house on our blue road

A road sign with Havre-Saint-Pierre arms © 2010 Scotiana

A last sign with the arms of Havre-Saint-Pierre offers us some piece of advice before leaving the town!

‘Drive carefully’ it says…  a good piece of advice if you want to follow road 138 between Havre-Saint-Pierre and Natashquan, as you will see in my next post!

Bonne lecture. A bientôt. Mairiuna

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 1

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 2

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 3

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 4

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 5

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 6

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 7

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 8

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 10

Kenneth White - The Blue Road - 1990 - Mainstream Publishing

A colder spell had set in. It had been a summery Autumn, but now suddenly there was a sharp Winter’s bite in the air.

‘November chill blaws lood wi’ angry sugh…’

Funny how a line of Robert Burns should come into my head. Maybe the ghost of some Scotsman who trekked up here before me? I was to come across Scotch traces all over the place, and I met up with more than one Indian with a name like Jean-Baptiste Mackenzie.

(Kenneth White – The Blue Road – Route 175 North)

Trajet Les Escoumins - Pointe-Parent, Province of Quebec - Scotiana Modified Google Map

8 October …

14 h … back on road 138 after a quick meal at the Subway of Sept-Îles. We’re getting used to this kind of fast food restaurant and even begin to  like it. Our meal is generally composed of a  hot soup, a big ‘submarine’   (what’s that, I wondered when I first heard about it) and a nice pecan or chocolate pastry served with a big papercup filled with a desperately light coffee mixture… quickly served, quickly eaten … and it’s warm inside the restaurant, just what we need!

Our day had begun at Motel Le Château in Port Cartier and our aim was to reach Havre-Saint-Pierre before the end of the day.  After lingering a long time  in the library ‘Côte-Nord’, then in the harbour of Sept-Îles and finally along the streets lined with red rowans and colourful houses preparing for the approaching feast of Halloween, we suddenly realize that we still have a lot of kilometers to do before reaching Havre-Saint-Pierre. Night falls early in October and we don’t even know where we are going to sleep tonight but, as the road goes on and on, we stop a number of times to enjoy the wild and wintry open spaces of the northern landscapes, the cascading rivers, the roaring waters of the Saint Lawrence, quite indifferent to the passing of time…

Chemin des Ecossais on Route 138 - Province of Quebec © 2010 Scotiana

At one moment, Janice stops the car in front of a sign which reads ‘Le chemin des Ecossais’ I’ve briefly mentioned it in a previous post.  Here it is,  on road 138, not far from Sept-Îles, between ‘Le Chemin du Caribou’ et ‘le Cap du Cormoran’, at the entrance of a path which disappears into a wood in the direction of the Saint Lawrence wintry shore.  There must be a house over there and if we don’t want to venture any further today to try and know more about the place, we begin to ask ourselves questions about the Scottish presence in Quebec. Don’t forget Janice has Scottish ancestors and she is the first to be interested by the subject!  Let us begin our investigations with  basic figures:

If we consider the country as a whole,  there are no less than 4,719,850 Scottish-Canadians in Canada (versus 5,168,500 in Scotland), which represents about 15.10% of the total population. Below is their repartition in the provinces where the number of Scottish-Canadians is superior to 200,000 which doesn’t mean that they are not representated in the other Canadian provinces but that would require more precise investigations.

Ontario                           2,101,100

British Columbia             828,145

Alberta                               661,265

Nova Scotia                      288,180

Manitoba                           209,170

Quebec                            202,515

that is about 2.7 % of the Quebec population. The Scottish-Canadians living in Quebec are known as ‘Scots-Quebecers’… not an easy name to pronounce!

Be sure we’ll soon put on our Sherlockian cloaks to try and learn more about the Scottish-Canadians and the Scots-Quebecers but in the meantime there is a lot of information on Wikipedia.

Waterfalls on road 138 near Sheldrake, Province of Quebec © 2010 Scotiana

Just before arriving at Sheldrake, not far from Rivière-au-Tonnerre, we stop in front of a river flowing amidst a deep pine forest. How we would like to take a walk down the path which leads to the  magnificent waterfall we can see  in the background…

Pine trees on Road 138, Côte-Nord, PQ © 2010 Scotiana

Here’s a closer look at the kind of pine-trees which compose the wooded environment we find as we drive eastward in the North, along the St Lawrence Gulf…

Arriving at Sheldrake on Road 138 - St Lawrence Gulf - Côte-Nord,PQ © 2010 Scotiana

But what’s a blue road ? I hear somebody asking.

I’m not too sure about that myself. There’s the blue of the big sky, of course, there’s the blue of the river, the mighty St Lawrence, and, later on, there’s the blue of the ice.  But all those notions, along with a few others I can think of, while they talk to my senses and my imagination, still don’t exhaust the depth of that ‘blue’.

(Kenneth White – The Blue Road)

‘Une image vaut mille mots’ as we say in France. On these photos you can see that we’re travelling along a blue road, and if it’s not exactly Kenneth White’s Blue Road, how could it be, let me say that we like to be inspired by his writing…

Rivière-au-Tonnerre - Road 138 - Côte-Nord - Province of Quebec © 2010 Scotiana

The beautiful village of Rivière-au-Tonnerre, or Thunder River, is called after the eponymous river which flows there noisily, especially in spring when its numerous and impressive waterfalls rush down with a thundering noise. The river has once been nicknamed ‘Boum-Boum-River’

Rivière-au-Tonnerre Church Quebec flag Road 138 Côte-Nord,PQ Scotiana 2010

The village is  dominated  by a very picturesque white and red wooden church which is unique in Quebec. Of course, you’ve not failed to notice the Quebec flag which is flying in the wind. Believe me, with such a wind it’s quite a feat to manage to take a picture of it unfurled But I did it! The church is quite remarkable but it is too late to visit it. It was built between 1908 and 1912, in the Norman style, by a team of 300 volunteers and one of its main characteristics is that it has been decorated inside with about sixty designs carved with pocket knives by the townspeople of Rivière-au-Tonnerre. I’m always impressed when I fall upon such a big building for so small a community (today the population of Rivière-au-Tonnerre doesn’t exceed 400 people but there were probably less inhabitants at the time when the church was built). It would be interesting to know more about the history of the place.

Rivière-au-Tonnerre Maison de la Chicoutai Road 138 Côte-Nord, PQ © 2010 Scotiana

It was 17 h 20 when we arrived at Rivière-au-Tonnerre. Night is falling quickly now and we decide not to linger too long on the place. A few minutes later, however, we stop in front a blue little shop, not far from the church. It is closed but a cheerful Halloween fellow welcomes the visitor. Mind you! Some Halloween creatures aren’t so welcoming and you can also meet on the road grinning witches and ghosts… more likely however to make children laugh than to frighten them … in any case  the Halloween traditional feast is much more celebrated on this side of the ocean than in Europe. Look how this  funny chap proudly wears the orange colour of the chicoutai

Halloween chap Maison de la Chicoutai Rivière-au-Tonnerre © 2010 Scotiana

We try to have a look of the inside of the shop through the window and we read some of the many newspaper articles pinned on the wooden walls… a good introduction to what we are to discover in the shop two days later. Just as we are about to leave the place, a very friendly man gets out of a blue sports car and proposes us to re-open the shop. We will soon learn that he is Bruno Duguay, the very charismatic owner of the ‘Maison de la Chicoutai’ and a friend of Gilles Vigneault, the great Québecois poet born in Natashquan. We thank M. Duguay and promise him that we would stop at his shop on our return.

Maison de la Chicoutai Route 138 Côte-Nord, PQ © 2010 Scotiana

Thanks to M. Bruno Duguay, who is an internationally known expert in chicoutai (known in english as cloudberry and bakeapple), we have learned a lot of very interesting things about this plant, a little orange fruit which grows mainly on peat bogs which abound in the area as we’ve noticed on driving northward. Berry picking, as it is practiced here, is more than a job it is an art. Each plant produces only one fruit and if not picked carefully (early autumn) the plant will not give any fruit for several years. The work conditions are very hard because of the boggy soil and of the swamp mosquitoes and black flies haunting the place. This explains why the chicoutai is rather expensive. The fruit also grows in the European Nordic countries where it has been used for a long time to fight scorbut, thanks to the vitamin C contained in this antioxidan-rich fruit.  In French, this fruit is also called : Chicouté, mûre des marais, ronce mûrier, ronce petit-mûrier, mûre blanche, plat-de-bièvre (which means food for beavers) plaquebière et blackbière.

Ripe Chicoutai berry or Cloudberry - Rubus chamaemorus - Wikipedia

I’ve found a beautiful picture of chicoutai on Wikipedia and an interesting article on Blanc-Sablon website about all the berries which grow in Côte-Nord.

Berries picking

People come from far to pick up berries in Blanc-Sablon, but also the local residents. Over the years, they have learned all about the tasty berries that can be found in the area: blueberries, redberries, bakeapple (in French, chicoutai), blackberries, little wild strawberries, raspberries, etc.
You might know about all of these berries, except for one, which is more typical of Blanc-Sablon. It is a low plant that grows in boggy terrain and produces a nice orange berry. Ready to be picked late in the summer, locals eat them raw, or in form of jams, pies, etc. People who first try bakeapples usually think it doesn’t taste that good because it’s not that sweet and has a strange texture, but when well prepared, the little berries are a treat to eat! The SAQ (controls and distributes alcohol in Quebec) also made liquors with the berries, in limited quantities.

http://www.christellefv.com/blancsablon/en-activities.html

Rivière-au-Tonnerre Maison de la Chicoutai Route 138 Côte-Nord Quebec PC © 2010 Scotiana

After being introduced to all the Maison’s specialties:  jam, coulis, butter, vinegar, herbal tea and many other delights we’re kindly offered to taste some of them… which we enjoy very much. We are very thankful to M. Duguay for his cheerful welcome and his very interesting explanations about the chicoutai! And what a nice Québécois accent though Janice keeps saying that WE,  the French people of France, do have an accent From our unforgettable visit at the ‘Maison de la Chicoutai’ we would bring back a few bottles of the nice and delicious orange coulis, jam, herbal tea and some souvenirs of Quebec. We already begin to fear a problem with our luggage at the airport and it would prove to be true at the depressing time of departure at Montreal airport…
As you probably have guessed this visit at the Maison de la Chicoutai only took place on our return journey, two days later.

So now, back on the road to Havre-Saint-Pierre where we arrive rather late. It is dark night and icy cold. Brrrrrrrrr!! freezing cold! The town, in this dark and cold atmosphere  seems to us quite inhospitable. We stop at a ‘depanneur’ to ask if there is a motel in the neighbourhood. The young lady at the desk gives us explanations to go to motel l’Archipel which is situated 805 boulevard de l’Escale… inviting names for travellers… but we soon get lost in the town and have to come back to the depanneur to get more information. We finally reach our motel. It’s closed and nobody’s there. A sign on the door gives us a fone number where to call to join the receptionist who is at home at this late hour. We are completely frozen and very eager to get the keys of our room…

No need to say what a good night we’ve spent there after an improvised meal and in spite of the noise of a train passing and passing again very close to the motel… or so it seemed to us…

But I will tell you more in my next post. It will be the 9th episode of our blue road but we’ll only reach the end of road 138 in the 10th episode. I didn’t thought it would take so long to write a resume of this long journey from the beginning to the end of our blue road…

A bientôt! Rendez-vous à Havre-Saint-Pierre.

Mairiuna

Sunset on the St Lauwrence -Route 138- Hâvre-Saint Pierre, Côte-Nord,PQ © 2010 Scotiana

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 1

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 2

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 3

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 4

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 5

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 6

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 7

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 9

Following the Blue Road on the Steps of Kenneth White in Quebec – Episode 10