(no subject)

[skygiants]

Our next stop after Wales was Edinburgh, which is such an absurdly beautiful city that I really desperately wanted to be reading a book Set In Edinburgh while I was there. I googled 'Edinburgh novels' and popped up a listicle of some sort that put Stevenson's Kidnapped at number three or thereabouts.

"Oh!" I said to myself, "I had always said I would reread Kidnapped while I was in Scotland anyway, the time is clearly now!"

As some of you are now doubt already shouting in your heads, THIS LISTICLE OUTRIGHT LIED TO ME. Not one single chapter of Kidnapped takes place in Edinburgh. The book ends right when Our Lad David Balfour is on the verge of setting foot in Edinburgh for the first time ... I spent five solid minutes convinced that my copy had somehow been truncated ......

Oh, well; False Novel of Edinburgh or not, I did have a grand time rereading Kidnapped for the first time since [checks notes] 2008. Past Becca's impressions often can't be trusted, but my notes from 2008 read "I am really impressed by how David got to be wrong a lot" and indeed this is perhaps the most charming thing about Our Lad, who sets out boldly in search of his fortune, meets his evil uncle, immediately recognizes that his uncle wants to murder him, smugly thinks to himself "I'm far too smart to get murdered!" and promptly instead gets boat-napped. God bless! Perhaps my favorite chapter is the one in which David is trapped and starting on a desert island only to discover several days later, with the help of some helpful fisherman who are just so embarrassed for him, that the island connects right back to the mainland whenever the tide is low and he could have walked off it at any time. INCREDIBLY FUNNY.

I'd completely forgotten how long it actually takes for David to get round to meeting up with Alan Breck Stewart, but he does steal the show whenever he's around. I kept thinking about The Black Arrow while reading this, and how Stevenson likes to drop his protagonists into the middle of messy political situations and then bat them from faction to faction like a ping-pong ball. A Stevenson lad is always valiantly trying his best to remain loyal to the people he personally likes regardless of his philosophical or political disagreements with them, but as far as politics go he'll swap sides like old hats as soon as he gets distracted. I do find this a really charming and pretty nuanced worldview; Stevenson so clearly thinks the Big Romantic Causes are sort of silly, but never falls into the trap of 'all x are evil.' All x are equally likely to contain potential friends and enemies, and if x and y hate each other, the Stevenson Lad will just have to sort out the social complications of that on his own.

Meanwhile, as far as Edinburgh books go, I probably ought to have read some Sir Walter Scott instead, and I do plan to reasonably soon -- certainly we saw enough homages to him in Edinburgh, including of course the famous Scott Monument, Second Largest Monument To a Writer In the Whole World, which always looked to me a bit like it was going to pick up its columns and start crab-scuttling around the city. (The funniest thing about going from Edinburgh to Orkney was the abrupt transition from the City of Sir Walter to our tour guide in the Orkneys going "ah yes, I think some writer fellow got himself involved in [that bit of Orkney history] .... William? William Scott?" -- but more on Orkney anon.) If anyone's got a favorite Waverly novel, I'm taking recs!

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

It's been ages since I read Kidnapped but I recall liking both bits that you mentioned, both the island that is only sometimes an island, and also the protagonist being genre savvy enough to realize that his uncle wants to do a murder, but not savvy enough to avoid getting into trouble anyway.

[sanguinity]

I know you just read The Flight of the Heron not too long ago, but Part Two is legit set in Edinburgh proper.

Did you at least get yourself to see the Kidnapped statue in Edinburgh? WHICH HAS THEIR RESPECTIVE HEIGHTS ALL WRONG.

As someone who grew up on tidal water and has been taught since I was old enough to wander off unsupervised NOT TO LET MYSELF GET TRAPPED BY THE TIDE I find Davy's encounter with tidal water HILARIOUS. As do, in fact, nearly all the locals he appeals to for help.

Looking forward to hearing about Orkney!

[ethelmay]

A Flute in Mayferry Street, by Eileen Dunlop, is the first thing I thought of set in Edinburgh.

[nineveh_uk]

It's a long time since I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie , but I think its Edinburghness is fundamental.

[luzula]

Here is my review of Waverley, if it helps.

ETA: Also, very envious of your trip to Britain!!

[twistedchick]

Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings, the first book in her six-volume Chronicles of Lymond, starts in Edinburgh, in fact, with someone climbing up into the castle. (It's a very addicting book; if you like htat one you will want the others.)

[raven]

omg, I would have made you read Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie books and hate them hilariously.

[graycardinal]

There is a current series of cozy mysteries (for relatively sane values of "cozy"; the author got her start in the genre before the Excessively Quirky tropes took over) set in Edinburgh beginning with The Cracked Spine.

The author is Paige Shelton, and the premise involves an expatriate American woman who's moved there and is working for the owner of an antiquarian bookshop who has a sideline in reuniting unique books with the people or institutions who should have them. There is a mildly supernatural element, but it's tonally appropriate and used sparingly.

[skygiants]

Of the Stevenson books I've read, I think David comes off the most as a broadly smart youth who gets into trouble via teen over-confidence -- as opposed to Jim in Treasure Island, whose motives are frequently incomprehensible to me, or Dick in The Black Arrow, who does not have two brain cells to rub together, bless him. But David's mistakes ... I would make David's mistakes. I would get trapped on that island.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I was thinking so much about the fight through the closes while we wandered around the Royal Mile that I did very much consider just rereading Flight of the Heron instead! That, and trying to wrap my head around the experience of being In Town and knowing that your enemy is The Castle and it's right there. We went to the farmer's market, which is held right at the foot of the castle cliff, and I ate my [vegetarian] haggis roll and squinted up at the castle above and was like "actually, it is shockingly easy to put myself in the mindset of someone three hundred years ago standing and eating a haggis roll squinting up and thinking 'I bet some nonsense is going on up there.'"

I did NOT see the Kidnapped statue, to my regret. One for a future trip!

[skygiants]

Thank you, I'd not heard of this!

[skygiants]

One of the places we ate at right before we left was a mashed potato cafe that had literary quotes regarding Edinburgh all over the walls, including one from Prime of Miss Jean Brodie -- I was like, we should have eaten there first! I would have had my book recs no problem!

[skygiants]

Thank you, it does! I also remember the titular Ivanhoe being by far the most passive/least interesting character in Ivanhoe, this does just seem to be a Thing that Scott Does ....

(we feel very lucky to have gotten to make it!)

[skygiants]

oh no fear I have read all the Dunnett

[skygiants]

THERE WERE QUOTES FROM THEM UP ALL OVER THE CITY

[skygiants]

oh, interesting, thank you for the rec!

[kate_nepveu]

Edinburgh is super neat, that's my sole contribution to this discussion!

[skygiants]

I was somehow under the impression that Edinburgh Castle had never been taken because it looks so imposingly defensible and it was fascinating but also funny to go on the tour and have them be like "ah yes, here's all the times and ways that this extremely defensible fortification has been conquered/re-conquered/tunneled out of/burned to the ground."

[sanguinity]

Oh, very cool! As, I would imagine, it would be very easy to stand on the Castle battlements and look down and know your handsome enemy is right down there, handsomely going about handsomeing! :-D

[sanguinity]

Oh, because your rec reminded me, graycardinal: there's also a series of time-travel mysteries set in Victorian Edinburgh -- A Rip Through Time and its sequels, by Kelley Armstrong.

[graycardinal]

[thwacks self on forehead]

I will be astonished if I turn out to be the only person in this gallery who remembers Lillian Stewart Carl...

...who has been a multi-genre author, a boon companion to Lois McMaster Bujold, and is relevant to the present discussion by virtue of a 7-book (more or less) cozy mystery series set mostly in Scotland, beginning with The Secret Portrait. (Again, these have mildly paranormal elements, but what authentic Scottish tale doesna have a few ghosties in it, I ask ye?)

[chestnut_pod]

A listicle, purveyor of false information?! Zounds! That's very funny, but it sounds like you had a grand old time nonetheless!

My favorite set-in-Edinburgh novel is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which is a very different flavor of fun from Kidnapped, but jolly good fun nonetheless.

[pedanther]

Kidnapped does end rather abruptly.

Interestingly, the sequel(*) picks up right where it left off, and the two can be read together as a single continuous narrative. (In which Davie does get to spend some time in Edinburgh before being dragged off on further shenanigans, which include being stranded on an actual, proper island this time.)

(*) The sequel is titled David Balfour: Being Memoirs of his Adventures at home and Abroad, The Second Part: In which are set forth his Misfortunes anent the Appin Murder; his Troubles with Lord Advocate Grant; Captivity on the Bass Rock; Journey into Holland and France; and Singular Relations with James More Drummond or MacGregor, a Son of the notorious Rob Roy, and his Daughter Catriona, but mostly people just call it Catriona.

[landofnowhere]

I should read this, given how much I enjoyed Dunlop's Elizabeth, Elizabeth (UK title Robinsheugh)!

[landofnowhere]

I downloaded Margaret Oliphant's Kirsteen (rec'd by littlerhymes) onto my tablet for similar reasons when I was traveling to Edinburgh last month, but then I was too busy with my trip, and also my e-book hold on the new Courtney Milan Wedgeford book came in, and also I bought books there -- so I still haven't gotten past the first couple pages, and can't actually tell you how much of it is set in Edinburgh.

I have vague distant memories of having read a kids' edition of Kidnapped when I was in bed with a fever, and of enjoying it but also hitting the frustration of discovering that the book was missing its final pages! I should read it again sometime.

[starlady]

I was trying to find spec fic set in Glasgow because I'm going there for Worldcon, but the closest I came was T.L. Huchu's The Library of the Dead, which is set in a near-future semi-post-collapse Edinburgh with magic, and I heartily recommend it.

[osprey_archer]

Wait wait wait, I need to hear more about this mashed potato cafe. Have never heard of such a thing! Fascinated by its existence!

[regshoe]

:D Kidnapped! Glad to hear you enjoyed the re-read, and I like your thoughts on David's confident wrongness and how Stevenson handles political conflicts. I really love Davie's wry commentary on his own past self, as future first-person narrator—the 'wicked men and fools' bit at the end of the Earraid chapter is a favourite.

Without being pushy, and I don't know how you feel about either Alan/Davie or adaptations, but let me know if you would like to watch the play.

I like Waverley (and its protagonist ping-pongs between Jacobites and Whigs in a pretty funny way too, although he's quite different from Davie—as is Scott unlike Stevenson in his attitudes), and Redgauntlet is fun too, if you would like more Jacobites!

About the bigness and weird-crab-looking-ness of the Scott Monument—I know, right???

[skygiants]

She is unfamiliar to me, thanks so much for mentioning!

[skygiants]

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie did come in for several mentions and I definitely ought to read it at some point!

[skygiants]

Yes .... I've gathered this but I have also not heard anyone I know say a good word about the sequel so I did not then pick it up. But perhaps you will be the first person to do so!

[skygiants]

Oh man, if I'd remembered there was a Margaret Oliphant even tangentially associated with Edinburgh I probably would have pre-loaded that for the trip! I keep meaning to read more of her.

[skygiants]

I've never heard of this and it sounds great, thank you for the rec!

[skygiants]

Yeah, such a large part of Davie's charm is how willing he is to make fun of his past self -- it's really endearing and makes you feel like you're in on the joke with him.

(not pushy at all, I would LOVE to watch the play!)

& thank you I will add these to my list! Beth & I both also feel like we've got to read The Pirate on account of how it apparently mentions the Dwarfie Stane in Orkney.

Our tour guide kept calling it "the rocketship" and he was quite right! It's so comically huge!

[skygiants]

Kelley Armstrong! I read a bunch of her a decade or so ago but nothing that was set in Edinburgh

[skygiants]

it was incredibly good -- ten different flavors of mash available and ten different fancy meals to put on top of them -- and so popular that they actually had two separate restaurants, one for reservations only and one for walk-ins, to ensure that the populace could continue to enjoy mashed potatoes in an egalitarian fashion! I had the vegetarian sausage in peppercorn and cream sauce over horseradish mash and I CLEANED that plate.

[regshoe]

I have messaged re. the play!

Oh, The Pirate sounds like a lot of fun—I'll keep that one in mind when I feel like reading more of the Waverley novels.

[regshoe]

IIRC only the epilogue is actually set in Edinburgh, but Kirsteen is a very very good book and you should definitely read it! (There are some interesting descriptions of early-nineteenth-century Glasgow, which is a bit more prominent as a setting, as well as the Highlands.)