Rob Roy

[KEV67]

I have started reading this. I have read one other book by Scott, Waverley, which I thought was a great book. I quite like Walter Scott's style. It is rather dense, but it is almost cinematographic. In the first couple of chapters the protagonist is holding an argument with his stern father. The protagonist does not want to be a merchant like his father. It is sort of like accountancy. The protagonist wants to be a poet. At this point there is no indication where the story is going. We just know the young fellow has a romantic and independent streak. I especially liked the bit where the lad's father found a poem his son has wrote and critiques it. It seemed like quite a reasonable poem to me.

[KEV67]

Another similarity between Rob Roy and Waverley is that the narrator is a young Englishman. First he goes north to Northumbria. If it's like Waverley he crosses the border to where the wild men live. 

[KEV67]

Another bit of repetition from Waverley is the lovely, young lady whom young Francis Osbaltistone meets on Osbaltistone Hall. She is beautiful, clever, witty, and a Jacobite. She and young Francis have an entertaining chat at dinnertime. 

[KEV67]

I have to say the characters of Sir Walter Scott's novels have great powers of expression.  I envy them that. 

[KEV67]

Still enjoying it. Scott does not let his main characters say a dull sentence.  I don't know how he managed to get so much erudite wit into his books. Presumably he had to get so many words down a day. There is quite a bit of poetry. Characters quote it, and each chapter is prefaced by a verse. In Waverley there was a character who used to quote reams of Latin all the time. I think Walter Scott had a big brain.

[France]

Scott is definitely a Marmite author. I used to love his books, less so now.  He was a great storyteller but I think of his time, some of his attitudes stick in the modern craw particularly where Jews are concerned.

 

My book group  read Ivanhoe a few years ago and two people said that if a book by Sir Walter Scott was ever chosen again they were leaving the group!

[KEV67]

On 4/4/2024 at 9:56 AM, France said:

Scott is definitely a Marmite author. I used to love his books, less so now.  He was a great storyteller but I think of his time, some of his attitudes stick in the modern craw particularly where Jews are concerned.

 

My book group  read Ivanhoe a few years ago and two people said that if a book by Sir Walter Scott was ever chosen again they were leaving the group!

I will have to read Ivanhoe one day.

[niko]

On 3/27/2024 at 11:44 AM, KEV67 said:

I have started reading this. I have read one other book by Scott, Waverley, which I thought was a great book. I quite like Walter Scott's style. It is rather dense, but it is almost cinematographic. In the first couple of chapters the protagonist is holding an argument with his stern father. The protagonist does not want to be a merchant like his father. It is sort of like accountancy. The protagonist wants to be a poet. At this point there is no indication where the story is going. We just know the young fellow has a romantic and independent streak. I especially liked the bit where the lad's father found a poem his son has wrote and critiques it. It seemed like quite a reasonable poem to me.

She sparked real feelings in me. I don't often cry because of books. She even seemed more interesting to me than "Pirate"

[KEV67]

The story is set about 1715 and Sir Walter Scott wrote it about a century later. One of the characters was talking about how the Act of Union would allow Glasgow to develop, because it could participate in the trade of cotton and tobacco, so basically slave produce.

[KEV67]

The chapter I read today was brilliant. It was a chapter in which a troop of Red Coats are ambushed by Rob Roy's men. 

Rob Roy and Waverley puts me in mind of Heart of Darkness. First Francis Osbaltistone relocates from France where it is reasonably urbane and civilised to Northumbria, close to the Scottish border. It's a bit rough and ready up then, but it's still England. Then he moves onto Glasgow, which is a little bit foreign. Then he goes out to the Highlands and he has gone back in time five centuries. Law does not really exist. 

[KEV67]

A slightly interesting thing is that the picture on the front of my Penguin Classic copy of Rob Roy is a scene from the book. It was a painting called The Death of Morris the Spy (1827) by Camille Roqueplan, in the Musee des Beaux Arts, Lille. Rob Roy was first published in 1817. Presumably, it was translated into French and sold well there. I wonder how they translated all the Scots.

[KEV67]

On 4/4/2024 at 9:56 AM, France said:

Scott is definitely a Marmite author. I used to love his books, less so now.  He was a great storyteller but I think of his time, some of his attitudes stick in the modern craw particularly where Jews are concerned.

 

My book group  read Ivanhoe a few years ago and two people said that if a book by Sir Walter Scott was ever chosen again they were leaving the group!

I am going to have to read Ivanhoe. I suspect your book group members were morons. I might be wrong. I honestly do not know any modern author who could write about people as well as Walter Scott.

[France]

I think you're being a bit harsh on the members of my book group Kev!

[lunababymoonchild]

27 minutes ago, France said:

I think you're being a bit harsh on the members of my book group Kev!

Which is putting it mildly. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - on this forum or off it - without being called names. 

Edited April 23, 2024 by lunababymoonchild

[KEV67]

Sorry, I can't remember posting that. I might have had too much to drink.

 

I finished Rob Roy. It was jolly good. 

 

I will have to read Ivanhoe some day, in part to see what the controversy is. 

[KEV67]

Things worked out quite nicely for Francis Osbaldistone. Well I am glad. I don't like unhappy endings. If it's a choice between a great but unhappy ending, and a happy but not so great ending, I prefer the latter.

[KEV67]

On 4/23/2024 at 12:57 PM, France said:

I think you're being a bit harsh on the members of my book group Kev!

I have read Ivanhoe now. Not as good as Waverley, or Rob Roy. Scott was treading on dangerous ground, and poured it on a bit thick with the antisemitism, but it was clear with whom his sympathies were. Did the members of your reading group object to the portrayal of the Africans at end or the Saracens near the beginning?

 

The antisemitic feeling of many of the characters was pretty strong, but I suspect it was accurate for the time. The Prioress's Tale in The Canterbury Tales was very antisemitic. 

 

I did not think Sir Walter Scott was anywhere near as antisemitic as Charles Dickens was in Oliver Twist (although I thought Fagin was the best character, especially when he was in prison).