Sunset Song (NHB Modern Plays): stage version

By Lewis Grassic Gibbon

A classic of Scots literature, brilliantly adapted for the stage.
Sunset Song is the first novel in Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Scots Quair trilogy, a rich evocation of growing up on a farm in Scotland in the early-20th century, of being in love and in lust, of getting by as a young mother on your own and of losing your lover in war.
The distinguishing feature of the books - and of this dramatisation - is the use of the rhythms and vocabulary of Scots to tell the story.
This stage version of Sunset Song by Alastair Cording was first performed at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in 1991.
'Succeeds marvellously... puts Scotland's own history onto the stage with vigour, precision and skill... a pure piece of theatre' - Guardian
'Does full justice to Grassic Gibbon... a joy and a wrench to watch its blithe unfolding of tragedy and hope' - Scotland on Sunday

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Mar 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788502290

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell) was one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. Born in Aberdeenshire in 1901, he died at the age of thirty-four. He was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays and science fiction, and his writing reflected his wide interest in religion, archaeology, history, politics and science. The Mearns trilogy, A Scots Quair, is his most renowned work, and has become a landmark in Scottish literature.

Book preview

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Reviews for Sunset Song (NHB Modern Plays)

[whatsmacksaid · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh, it was fantastic. The cadence lilted and flowed like nothing else I've read in years, and the characters were real and full of life. I fell in love with Chris' life and it tore at me when things began to change and fall apart. I want desperately to read the second and third books.

This is definitely not something to be read on the train to work, though. This is something you'll want to find a comfortable and quiet corner to curl up and and disappear for hours at a time. It's magical.

[sile_2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Why did I read it? Sunset Song is supposedly regarded as an important Scottish novel, and is (sometimes) studied in secondary schools, because it touches on important themes from the time period in which it is set. I thought I might enjoy it.What is it about? Sunset Song follows the life of Chris(tine) Guthrie from arrival in Kinraddie (north-east of Scotland) as a young girl in the early 20th century. The Guthries' lease a croft, and we follow the fortunes of the Guthries, and other families in the rural community through to the end of the first world war. What did I like? Very little. Kudos to the narrator, [Eileen McCallum, for her vocal skills, both as a speaker, and singer when required. Ms McCallum created unique voices for each character, and her Scots accent was such that the dialogue will still intelligible. If there had been a duller narrator, I might not have been able to finish the novel at all. The one star rating is entirely for Eileen McCallum.The author used some very interesting, and unique similes.What didn't I like? From the start, this novel strained to keep my attention. It opens with a description of every family within Kinraddie, and tells quite a bit of their history, some of which occurs after the novel's actual end, as I was later to learn. This opening section of the novel felt interminable. I kept waiting for some semblance of a plot, and, after quite some time, began to wonder if there was one, or if this was a collection of short stories.The descriptions of people, and places seemed to stretch on, and on, too. I like rural settings, I like descriptions of rural places that can evoke a character of the land itself. Other authors manage this beautifully, and elegantly, without devoting paragraph, after paragraph to the description of a single character before relating their part in tale.The inner thoughts of Chris were far from cheery, which is not a complaint in itself, but Chris's sombre, morbid musings were just too much to bear for this listener. I found myself turning the volume down, waiting a few minutes before turning the volume back up, and then hoping that there was movement in the time line. I don't think I missed much by doing this. I got quite depressed listening to these sections of inner dialogue, and there were too many of them in my opinion.Lewis Grassic Gibbon constantly jumped forward in time, and then would proceed to reflect on the events between the last point at which he left the tale, and the point to which he had just jumped. Why not just progress in a linear fashion? I am of the opinion that nothing would have been lost in the telling by doing so. I have seen this time jump technique used to great effect in other novels, but, in Sunset Song, it was pointless.Other thoughts: My sympathies go to any secondary student for whom Sunset Song is required reading.I get it: There is no such thing as the rural idyll; it's a tough living. It is not necessary to cram your story with as many instances of human defect as you can recall into one novel. Would I recommend it? No. Nor will I be reading the remaining two books in the trilogy, because I cannot face any more dark, depressing navel-gazing.

[craiglea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have just finished re-reading my favourite book, Sunset Song, probably for the fifth or sixth time. It’s a book I first read as a student in secondary school―hated―and then fell in love with.The novel tells the story of Chris Guthrie. Born into a farming family in the north-east of Scotland as the 20th century begins. The ‘Song’ is divided into sections that follow the farming year and mirror Chris’s own life; The Unfurrowed Field, Ploughing, Drilling, Seed-time, Harvest and then, once again, The Unfurrowed Field.Like many students I really struggled with the prelude to this book when I first read it as a teenager. It’s written very differently to the Song, without the strong first-person narrative. I’m pretty sure that I would have read this book as Something To Be Read For School (a chore) but there must have been some reason that I was left with a desire to read this book again at some point the future.Each time I have read the book as an adult I have been struck by different aspects of the story. With this most recent reading I was more aware of the pace of the story and struck by the small size of the geographical area in which it is set.The language of the Song is unashamedly Scottish (or pseudo-Scottish) and agricultural — “education’s dirt and you’re better clear of it”. People are fine or course, from good stock or course stock. But the language also has a fine, delicate, poetry such as the example below.“That died, and the Chris of the books and the dreams died with it, or you folded them up in their paper of tissue and laid them away by the dark, quiet corpse that was your childhood.”And this expresses the theme of the book―nothing endures. Through Chris’s eyes we witness the end of a way of life, the end of the small tenant farmer and even the end of the land.

[elsyd_19 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is truly a gem, in my opinion. I have been to Scotland once, only. The descriptions are perfect. The story is compelling. This is the first book I have read where the author speaks in the voice of the opposite gender, that I felt did a good job. This man has a rare understanding of women's minds and emotions.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Not my style at all.

[piratenin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this a very moving book overall. The way it follows the death of a way of living in Scotland, one in which my grandparents grew up in, is very well handled and true to what I have heard. I can't really comment on the use of Scots, being Scottish myself it flowed beautifully and lyrically, but I can understand that people who have never encountered Scots before may get a bit lost. I think the time period before the war can often become romanticised, and this book steers far clear of it. It shows both the ugly side of the 1900s and the beautiful side. I can't agree that modernisation is always bad, but it is heartbreaking to watch as Chris drifts away from the land she feels she belongs to and to know that her way of life is dying. I loved this book, but I don't know if I could read it again. It is a very sad book and I cried many times throughout it. Showing how war destroyed not just the soldiers but the communities back home, how it changed everybody and everything of that time. If you have not already, I would certainly read this book, although heartbreaking at times, it does justice to its subject, how war changed a society.

[lcanon_16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sex and farming. And yet also a very moving book, especially at the end. Chris Guthrie, the heroine, is a tough character, not always easy to identify with, and she faces a lot of obstacles and sees them through in a resolute, non-sentimental way. Scottish rural life is general is portrayed as being about 5 steps away from crazy, but there are beautiful scenes -- harvest and wedding dances -- and a lot of drama. It didn't occur to me until after I'd read it how brave it must have been, in 1928, to have a hero who deserts from the front.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was beautifully written, like gentle poetry. There was even a hint of humour in the early stages, thanks to one of the more jocular villagers. I just wish the story had moved along a little more quickly.

[soniaandree_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the touching story of Chris, a young Scottish girl whose young life in a farm does not allow her to develop her intellectual advantages towards study. Instead, she settles for a harsh, countryside life. The book is the story of her young years and the choices she has to face to survive, in both love and hate of the land.Parallel to her life, the life of the village changes, with the external events of the first world war and the changes in technology impacting on the environment, as much as the industrial revolution did in the past. No character is left out in these troubled times, and it is a realist reflection of the differences between the 'good old days' and modernity.The book should be read in conjunction with the following series. Recommended.

[mumoftheanimals · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the 1930s there was a revival of writers recording the death of the countryside in the UK - Richard Jefferies, HE Bates, Vaughn Williams - as farm machinery replaced traditional methods and younger people wanted more from life. There was a need to record it passing. Sunset Song adds its voice to this lament. However, as it talks about the decline of the Scottish crofter, it has a new angle. The characters are fiercely independent from their lairds and King and Country but are nevertheless powerfully though subtly influenced by both - and a wrathful God. The book narrates the villagers hardship and love of the land with vigour. Lewis writes in Scottish dialect which takes some getting used to (though there is a glossary at the back I discovered when I finished) and it is one of those books that packs its punch at the end. I felt I had learnt a lot when I finished it - about Scottish rural communities and the Scottish people. Anyone who is interested in Scotland or rural communities must read it - a classic.

[wandering_star_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sunset Song is the story of a young woman called Chris living in a Highland village in the first half of the twentieth century - and trying to decide between the land that she loves, and the joys of learning and literature. At least, it appears to be her story - but her life is inextricably rooted in the community where she lives, which itself is deeply embedded in the land and its history - so it's more about a place and a time than one individual person. The work defines itself against "Englishness", in everything from politics (its attitude to villagers being sent off to fight World War I "for the English") to language - the book is written in language which represents Scots, and in a poetic and storytelling style, with digressions which gradually build up the texture of the community, and repeated themes and images. At times, this can make the book quite hard to read - in particular, some peoples' motivations and behaviour seem to be the way they are to suit the book's theme rather than their characters. But overall, a moving and often lyrical story which is worth persisting with to the end.