THAT we have had to wait almost 35 years for James Kelman's first book to appear in print in Britain may seem surprising to some. Notme.Longbeforehewasvilifiedafter winning the Booker in 1994 with How Late It Was, How Late, Kelman was the kind of writerwhomadetheestablishment decidedly uncomfortable. He was - as was HughMacDiarmid-adifficult,unpredictableindividual,giventomaking unpalatable pronouncements which madehim an unwelcome, uninvited guest at the party in this corporate, marketing-driven, emollient age.
Moreover, his fiction was rooted in his ownworking-classexperienceandthe language he used was honestly uncompromising. While others did working-class lite,Kelmanspurnedallattemptsatdilution.Ofcourse,themoreeffete criticsconcentratedonthe proliferation of four-letter words, in the process painting Kelman some kind of idiot savant. One cannot think of any other modern writer who has been so slurred. The overwhelming feeling one got even in Scotland was that it would be much better for everyone if he just went away.
One of the great joys of reading Kelman isthissenseofhimbattlingagainstthe Yahoos. He is, as these stories readily attest, an artist with the word "integrity" tattooed on his forehead. First published in 1973 by the Puckerbrush Press in Maine, it comprises 13storiessetinthefamiliarKelmanmilieus:pubs,bookies, boarding houses. His characters are the kind of people other people ignore. They have trouble making ends meet. Jobs come and go. Nothing tastes as good as a pint of beer or a nip of whisky except perhaps the first drag of the day. Glasgow and London provide the backdrops.
VS Naipaul, writing in a forthcoming book, refers to contemporary Indian writers who he claims are guided by imitation. "Should they be like the late Raymond Carver and pretend they know nothing about anything?" It's hard to think of a more insulting criticism. Kelman - pace Carver - does not "pretend" to know nothing about anything. Rather he allows his characters to know what they do know, nothing more, nothing less. Having said that, he is always in control, telling the reader what he or she needs to know in order to know the person he is writing about and the situation they are in. No other contemporary Scottish writer has this uncanny ability. And he had it from theoutsetinthesefirst,inimitable, graciously angry stories.
In an illuminating afterword, Kelman describes their genesis and the struggle he had to make them work. Initially, he says, he wanted to be a painter, but wasn't good enough to make the grade. Like so many of his characters, he drifted, working in pubs, on building sites, in the printing industry and on the buses. He knows how to put in a shift. And he knows, too, how hard such a life is. This autobiographical essay should be on the reading list of every schoolkid, politician and arts impresario in the country, for it shows what it takes to be a true artist. Above all, says Kelman finally, resist explanations: "If you enter into one it usually means yer story has failed." How true that is, how true.
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