It is not easy to reconcile the Scotland that reluctantly became England’s “poor partner” in 1707 with the “Enlightened”, intellectually progressive country of 108 years later. By the close of the first century of parliamentary union, the once “backward” northern state had become renowned for innovations in economics, literature, philosophy, and architecture. In tracing this Read More
Daunderlust – meaning the compulsion to meander – is a term as applicable to the scope of Peter Ross’s latest essay collection as its content, collated as it is from four years of Scotland on Sunday columns. With a remit to report from within where most have never dared nor thought to enter, the peripatetic Read More
“It was wonderful or awful, comic or absurd, poetic or grotesque- to lose one family, then find you had another-but no one seemed able to say which, least of all me.” For those looking for a light summer-read to breeze through on their holiday, Will Boast’s Epilogue might not be the best choice. Telling the Read More
All art is political: Writings on performative art is a collection of interviews and essays on artists whose art lies less in the artwork itself and more in the context in which these artworks are placed. The first interview, with Keith Rowe and Mayo Thompson, suffers from the fact that two artists are interviewed. As Read More
A little passage in Albert Camus’ The Plague has always haunted me. It concerns the difficulty of conveying grief in the very personal way that loss is felt and mourned. In these circumstances, words fall short so that “the current coin of language”, the “commonplaces” and “set phrases of ordinary conversation” must suffice, and failing Read More