A Son of the Rock

Secker & Warburg, 1998, 252 p, including ii p Contents.

This is a collection of Kelman’s short stories. Most contain West of Scotland phrases and dialogue. Two are written in absolutely standard English (apart from the contractions for was not, did not, could not etc – which appear without apostrophes throughout the book.) I Was Asking a Question Too concerns a man who notes down snippets he thinks are important from the books he reads, and Some thoughts that morning, the random musings of a commuter on the Glasgow Underground heading east from Hillhead to Kelvingrove.

The other stories feature; a man good at climbing buildings, rones and roofs; another, fond of books, who is happy at the changes garden work has made in his physique; workplace gripes and arguments; a married man scaring his family by contemplating swimming over a nuclear submarine; a conversation in a Job Centre queue; a young father imagining what it would have been like to have worked as a fur trapper; a man going through stages of despair and disorganisation after his woman has left him; another at odds with his wife as they browse a charity shop; one more finding himself reminiscing about his schooldays as he nurses his drinks in a pub while waiting for his wife to turn up; another tries to dodge being seen as he appears to be drowning a cat; another muses on how relationships turn sour, someone thinks about how viscous his blood is when he cuts himself preparing vegetables; a divorcee of five years is annoyed when his mate uses him as cover for cheating on his wife; a man of no fixed abode rambles the south coast and remembers his past life; a couple banter about her woman’s intuition; a young man tries to fathom out his girlfriend; a middle-aged insomniac thinks things could be worse.

In the longest story, Comic Cuts, a group of Scottish men gathered in someone’s house in London after a night in the pub shoot the breeze while waiting for soup that never arrives. Their conversation is full of digressions, interruptions and non-sequiturs, and not without intellectual hi-jinks.

Reminiscing about the times when Scotland regularly beat the English at football gives us the thought, “Funny thing but we were a crabbit bunch of bastards at the same time. Nowadays every cunt gubs us and we’re fucking cheery about it. Maybe if we stopped being so fucking cheery we’d start winning again. The tartan army and aw that crap, we used to be the worst hooligans of the fucking lot. See this stuff about good-natured fans? it’s a load of shite.”

One of the protagonists is of the opinion, “Men are more romantic than women of course that goes without saying,” but goes on to say, “It’s just how I am, a demonstrative person, a most untypical Scottish male.”

Pedant’s corner:- “See this stuff about good-natured fans? it’s a load of shite.” (See this stuff about good-natured fans? It’s a load of shite.”) “in the off chance” (on the off chance,) bolls, (as in ‘testicles’; I don’t see the need to change the spelling from balls,) a tendency to render proper nouns in the lower case, jiggerey-pokery (usually spelled jiggery-pokery,) “a piece on jam” (I’ve always understood the phrase to be ‘a piece and jam’,) “highjack a dialogue” (why not hijack?) “If you think ought of severity” (aught of severity,) a missing full stop.