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FROM GOOSECREEK TO
GANDERCLEUGH:
STUDIES IN SCOTTISH-AMERICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL HISTORY by Andrew Hook REVIEWED BY PATRICK KILLOUGH [FROM THE FRONTISPIECE: England and America are both at this
moment supplied, in a great measure, with a literature of Scottish
manufacture. We should not be much surprised were we to live to see the
day when we, in our turn, shall be gaping for new novels and poems from
the other side of the Atlantic, and when, in the silence of our own
bards and romancers, we shall have Ladies of the Lake from Ontario, and Tales of My Landlord from
Goose-creek, as a counterpart to those
from Gandercleugh. Constable's Edinburgh
Magazine, September, 1819]
(A) Review for http://www.barnesandnoble.com TITLE OF THIS REVIEW: How Scotland Impacted US education, writing styles and more RATING BY REVIEWER: * * * * * (Five Stars) The arcane title FROM GOOSECREEK TO GANDERCLEUGH might frighten most potential readers away. The less evocative and precious sub-title, STUDIES IN SCOTTISH- AMERICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL HISTORY has a chance of drawing them in. If they want to understand North American history and the interactions of Scots and Americans, readers will be glad they went on to open the pages. Things only get better after the titles. This is a demanding but extraordinarily rewarding book. In broad strokes we see that a poet and novelist like Walter Scott did not burst like a meteor from nowhere on the American scene. The way had been prepared by Scottish writers on the highlands, e.g.Jane Porter (THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS) and James Macpherson (OSSIAN) and the lowlands, e.g. Robert Burns. Not only that but the Scottish Age of Enlightenment (1745 - 1790) threw up writers like David Hume and Adam Smith whose impact on North America was colossal. Nor are we allowed to forget the textbooks on rhetoric which generated the style behind the U.S. Declaration of Independence, or the books of history and law and in some cases their writers who migrated in person to dominate New England education for decades. Americans who studied in or played tourists in Scotland (aka 'Walter Scottland') abounded and were very important, including Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others. There is also attention to possible negative influences from Scotland on the United States. The author Andrew Hook explains the element of truth in Mark Twain's famous declaration that Walter Scott's IVANHOE fantasies had inspired the South to start the civil war and that his ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN gave the Scottish-American founders of the Ku Klux Klan some of their ritual and ethos. Chapter Eleven, "The South, Scotland, and William Faulkner," provides much insight into the Scotland-derived language and characters in some of Faulkner's writing. Faulkner was almost certainly aware that behind "BIRTH OF A NATION," D.W. Griffith's classic film, lay the passionately pro-Scottish novel, THE CLANSMAN, published in 1905 by Thomas Dixon. The burning cross of Scottish highlanders may not have been part of 19th century Klansmen's doings, but it was very much 'in' when the Klan was revived after 1915. All in all, a book with something new and rewarding for every serious reader. -OOO- Also recommended: James Webb, BORN FIGHTING:HOW THE SCOTS-IRISH SHAPED AMERICA. Sir Walter Scott, IVANHOE, ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN, THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. Moray McLaren, SIR WALTER SCOTT: THE MAN & PATRIOT. Black Mountain, North Carolina 12/04/2006 |