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"If the textbooks were right, this volume would contain nothing but empty pages; because the medium in which its authors' wrote - i.e., discursive Scots prose - became extinct more than two hundred years before any of them were born." So writes Dr. William Donaldson in his introduction. Historians of Scots language and literature, he says, have claimed "that the vernacular prose tradition died out during the early seventeenth century, to be used thereafter for the demotic chatter of lower-class characters in the novels of Scott and Stevenson; that the language was irretrievably damaged by its long and losing battle with the forces of Anglicization; that it became, except perhaps for various experiments with synthetic forms during the present century, intrinsically unfit for serious purposes". The Language of the People presents evident to the contrary. The Scots language had not declined; not, at least, in its spoken forms which continued to be the language of the people, of the great majority of the Lowland nation, requiring simply the appropriate technical means before it blossomed in a rich variety of speech-based prose forms. The Language of the People surveys the period from 1855 to 1914 and the Great War. "The mental world of 'the Scottish Democracy' as revealed in these writings," Dr. Donaldson writes, "is very different from anything we have been led to expect. Its leading quality is a sinewy and sardonic intellectualism. It is intensely anti-Imperialists, routinely anti-clerical, thoroughly secular in spirit, fundamentally egalitarian in its hatred of hypocrisy, sham and artificially maintained class privilege".
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Ashley Blander
reviewed Language of the People: Scots Prose from the Victorian Revival on August 14, 2018
Language of the People: Scots Prose from the Victorian Revival
6.0 stars. Confession...this book gave me an earth-shattering Janeaustegasm and I am feeling a bit spent and vulnerable at the moment, so please bear with me. You see, I decided I wanted to get more literated by reading the "classicals" in between my steady flow of science fiction, mystery and horror. The question was where to begin.
After sherlocking through my Easton Press collection, I started by pulling out my Dickens and reading A Tale of Two Cities which I thought was jaw-dropping AMAZO and left me feeling warm, satisfied and content. It also made me made retrospectively pleased that I named my youngest daughter Sydney.
After Two City "Tale"ing, I decided to give this book a whirl as I kept seeing it on GR lists of "goodest books ever." However, I must admit I was hesitant going in to this for two big reasons. One, I thought it might be a bit too romantical for me. The second, and much more distressing, reason was that Twilight was on many of the same lists as this book. Austen fans should pull a nutty over that one.
So needless to say I went into this thinking I might hate it. Well, for the 999,987th time in my life (at least according to my wife's records)...I was wrong!!! I absolutely loved this book and had a mammoth, raging heart-on for it from the opening scene at the breakfast table when Father Witty (Mr. Bennet) is giving sly sarcasm to Mrs. Mommie Put Upon. I literaphorically could not get enough of this story. I was instantly captivated by the characters and Elizabeth Bennet, the main protagonist, immediately became one of my all time favorite characters. Mr. Darcy joined that party as soon as he showed up in the narrative as I thought he was terrific as well.
Overall, the writing could not have been better. It was descriptive, lush and brilliant. The story could not have been more engaging or intelligent and the characters could not have been more magnificentastic. Elizabeth and Fitz are both smart, witty, self-confident and good. Austen could not have written them better. Oh, and I am sorry if this is a bit of a minor spoiler but I need to add that George Wickham is a cock-blocking braggadouche of startling proportions. I needed to say that and now I feel better.
This one has made it onto my list of All Time Favorite novels and is truly one of the classics that lives up to its billing. A FINAL WORD TO THE GUYS: ...Guys, do not fear the Austen...embrace the Austen...HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!
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