A Son of the Rock

Polygon, 2006, 276 p, plus 5p Foreword by Diarmid Gunn. First published 1944.

In this book we return to the pairing of Young Art and Old Hector from a novel which I read in 2016.

After a night where the adults of Clachdrum talk about ongoing events in Hitler’s Germany and the terrifying thought that your mind could be broken, the pair go on a fishing expedition.

While attempting to catch a salmon they fall into the pool and apparently drown, waking up in another world, the Green Isle of the Great Deep of the title. This is a place which is recognisably Scottish rural, but with variations. A watcher tells them to travel to the Seat of the Rock and warned only to stay at the Inns along the way.

The land is fertile and fruit abundant but they are warned not to eat it, only to eat at the inns. However, Art is fractious, does not want to stay at the inns and eats the fruit, with no ill effects.

There are, of course, biblical connotations to this, but also questions of free will. On the Green Isle, life is regimented – an allegory of Nazi Germany, true, (there is talk of expansion into other lands,) but equally applicable to the feudally circumscribed life of the Highlands.

While Art makes the most of his ability to roam, escaping the clutches of the authorities Hector falls into their sway. He finds that fruit was forbidden “so that man would be restored to his original innocence,” be without blemish, the perfect worker, do all things he was told to do, all to ensure perpetual order. Hector is told “obedience is the highest of virtues.”

Art is sought out by the Hunt but continues to evade his pursuers, which leads to doubts spreading at the Seat.

There are echoes in the novel of George MacDonald’s Phantastes (though Gunn is much the better writer) and similarities to Gunn’s later novel The Well at the World’s End.

Many of Scottish fiction’s dealings with the fantastic feature meetings with the Devil. The Green Isle of the Great Deep is different in that here Hector demands from the Seat a meeting with God – and gets it. This gives Gunn the opportunity to philosophise about totalitarianism and freedom, knowledge and wisdom, thinking and feeling and the necessity for governance to be tempered by wise counsel, armed with which Hector and Art can return to life in Clachdrum.

Pedant’s corner:- a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, focused (focused,) “spoke to her husband an pointed to” (and pointed to,) “their bodies quivered and shrunk” (and shrank,) ogam (now spelled ogham.)