The story, woven round the character of Chris Guthrie, draws on Gibbons own experiences of living and working in the Mearns. In addition to reading the book many had seen the BBC’s 1971 serialization and some had seen Terence Davies’s film released in 2015.
Many had moved on from the “forced reading” and revisited the novel to enjoy and more fully appreciate the qualities that have made it one of the most important Scottish novels of the twentieth century. Most members of the book group first encountered Sunset Song as a “must” read on the Scottish Higher English Syllabus.
Sunset Song is considered to be Gibbon’s most loved work and, out of the three “Quair” novels, the most easily read as a single book. The “Quair” (meaning book) is a trilogy, which was published over three years as “Sunset Song” (1932), “Cloud Howe” (1933), and “Grey Granite” (1934). The most important of his output is the trilogy of novels, “A Scots Quair“ published under the name Lewis Grassic Gibbon (taken from his mother’s maiden name). He died prematurely in 1935 of peritonitis brought on by a perforated ulcer. From 1930 to 1934, eleven novels, two books of short stories, three anthropological books and an “ intelligent Man’s Guide to Albyn” with Hugh MacDiarmid entitled “Scottish Scene” were published under the names Mitchell and Gibbon. They moved to London where life was initially difficult, however, he eventually established himself as a talented writer.
Mitchell returned to the Mearns in 1925 to marry a local girl whom he had kept in touch with throughout his years of travel. In particular to the Middle East and Egypt, which inspired his first short stories and much of his fiction and non-fiction. Although he hated life in the army, it did allow him to travel. His family took him back in the hope that he would settle to the farming life but he could not and in order to escape the Mearns he joined the army. He was dismissed over expenses irregularities and attempted to take his own life. There followed a troubled period in his life. He worked as a trainee journalist in Aberdeen between 1917-1919 and joined the ‘Scottish Farmer” in Glasgow. He gained a place at Stonehaven’s Mackie Academy but at the age of 16 walked out following an argument with a teacher. Mitchell was intelligent and thoughtful forming his own views of life, challenging traditional values and this set him apart from his family and the community of the Mearns. His father was strict and life was harsh. The family scraped a living from the land with great difficulty and as a child he was expected to help with the endless chores. He was raised in farming communities in the Howe of Mearns.
The proposer provided a detailed background to the author’s life, his relationships with his family and with the countryside in which he grew up. Born James Leslie Mitchell on 13 th February 1901.
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