Who said If you can't make your novel great at least make it peculiar? I don't recall. Anyway, that appears to be the modus operandi in Alasdair Gray's Old Men In Love. John Tunnock, a retired Glaswegian school teacher, has been found murdered in his Glasgow home and the crime is unsolved when his nearest relative is tracked down in Beverly Hills, California, and bequeathed a modest legacy. It includes Tunnock's house and numerous miscellaneous writings. A fictional Alasdair Gray is consulted as to the proper disposition of the manuscripts and advises the legatee to publish them all in a single volume, despite the fact that they are a pastiche of many projects worked on by Tunnock over a many years. Is this a novel? I think that's the question Gray wishes to ask. Gray does make an attempt to piece it all together through his "editing." And it is readable. I did finish it despite one or two tedious stretches. There are some excellent pages. It's the structure I'm not crazy about.

The book reads very much like what it is purported to be: a grab bag of miscellaneous writings. These focus on (1) Pericles and ancient Athens, (2) Fra Fillipo Lippi and Renaissance Florence, (3) the rise and gradual eclipse of Victorian-era religious fraud Henry James Prince, (4) extracts from the late Tunnock's diaries and (5) other bouncy bits. Gray as editor makes an occassional marginal comment in blue ink. The only part I had to fight through (a little) was the overlong section on Henry James Prince, a millenarian like many others but with his own peculiarly sleazoid take on the Second Coming. Like other books by Gray, including the masterwork Lanark, the novel gives one a glimpse of present-day Glasgow. The book itself is a nice production. I have the UK edition (Bloombury) which was printed in Italy (acid-free paper?) and bound with sewn signatures (who still does that?) in elaborately embossed faux-buckram boards. Recommended for those who love Gray. Not his best book despite some fine writing. Newcomers should start with Lanark. ( )

Old Men in Love is, according to the (fictional?) reviewer invited to provide an epilogue, Gray’s last book. If so, it is a fitting bookend for his career, which began with Lanark, a sprawling, disjointed mess of a novel hailed as a Scottish Ulysses and the beginning of a Renaissance in Scots literature. Like Lanark, Old Men weaves several distinct storylines around a common theme (care to guess the theme?), and presents the material, which the narrator claims is that of another writer, in a non-linear, even incoherent, order. Old Men in Love is supposedly the collected writings of a Glasgow schoolmaster, containing the existing chapters from a planned fiction trilogy, to be called ‘Money at Play’, and chapters from his diary.

Tunnock is a bachelor who, late in life, discovered a taste for young women that is his downfall. Diary entries describe his youth in Glasgow, his current situation, and his plans for ‘Money at Play’. It is his fiction, however, that comprises the bulk of the text. We get stories of a breakaway Scottish Utopian minister, an Italian painter, and a retelling of Socrates’ trial, each done in by a socially-unacceptable desire; each was to be a volume in the trilogy, but none is near complete. The trial, which is climactic to Old Men in Love, proceeds as a dialogue and differs greatly from Plato’s account. It is also the last thing Tunnock writes; he is re-energized by the project and making plans to finish it when he dies.

Old Men in Love is not the important book that Lanark was, but it is another fine piece of creative history and quite a bit of fun. It is easier to digest than Lanark, as well, being half the size and broken into easily-understood segments loosely bound by Tunnock’s story. It would be a good introduction to the author for those who are interested in literature outside the mainstream.

Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray (2009) 311 pp

This is one of the few books I've bought in a while that was not on my wishlist. I had heard of the author (who wrote Lanark which is on the 1001 list and is on my shelf), and what I began to read in the store grabbed me, so I bought it.

The opening part I read in the store consists of a narrative by a long-lost cousin of retired school teacher John Tunnock. She has recently learned that she is the sole heir of Tunnock, who died under mysterious circumstances. She is now in Glasgow to settle his estate, which includes a large antique-filled mansion. She is also going through his papers to determine how they should be handled. The rest of the book consists of portions of these papers.

The papers include excerpts from a number of unpublished novels by Tunnock. One is set in ancient Rome and is about Socrates, one is set in Renaissance Italy and is about some of the more important early masters, and one is set in 19th century England about James Prince, founder of the Agapements. In between excerpts of the novels, Tunnock relates the story of his life, from a childhood spent with his elderly spinster aunts to the bizarre events that led to his death.

I generally enjoy meta-fiction and books in which the author plays games with the reader, but I didn't particularly care for this book. I never fully engaged with John Tunnock's "novels", and while parts of his life were interesting reading, overall this wasn't enough to make it a good book for me. I can't point to any specific examples of bad writing--the catch just didn't match the hook. ( )

Alasdair Gray's books are unusual, as they present a total art work. Gray presents us with some more original features of so-called "postmodern literature", which includes adopting different "voices", illogical order of chapters, illustrations, mixing text types, and experimental layout. Old Men in Love. John Tunnock's posthumous papers has all these characteristics.

I very much enjoyed reading the first part of the book, as the author addressed contemporary issues, but after the first 100 pages, the book started losing focus. All in all, I felt the book was more readable than other work I have read by Gray. ( )

Old men in love is fantastisch uitgegeven (op enkele drukfouten na), met – net als in nogal wat van Gray’s boeken (en van de boeken in mijn bezit is dit jammer genoeg enkel het geval voor de uitgave van Lanark) – erg knappe illustraties.
Gray is gelukkig niet alleen een potige prentjestekenaar, maar ook een begenadigd en weinig conformistisch schrijver. Vooral de manier waarop het verhaal geconstrueerd wordt is erg boeiend (het verhaal zelf ... de verhalen zelf ietsje minder, ze missen de lijvigheid die je van een roman wel, maar natuurlijk van wat nagelaten geschriften niet, mag verwachten) – inleiding en nawoord (beiden fictief natuurlijk), de dagboekfragmenten en literaire of sociaal-geschiedkundige hoofdstukken, de voetnoten, de tekeningen – het lijkt een allegaartje, de toevallige nalatenschap van een gefaald schrijver, maar loopt uiteindelijk wel door in de rode draad dat mannen (en vooral oude mannen) voor de liefde (zij het voor een vrouw, voor God, voor de waarheid, voor het eigen grote gelijk) hun dood tegemoet lopen. Daarnaast ook wat politiek, het proces van Socrates, sneren naar Blair, naar de holle woorden waarmee de democratie verdedigd wordt (in de tijd van Athene, in de tijd van Bush), en de Schotse onafhankelijkheids’strijd’. Het nawoord vooral – waarin Gray zijn grootste (maar fictieve) criticaster aan het woord laat – en waarin het boek zelf volledig afgebroken wordt, o.a. omdat het een samenraapseltje zou wezen van stukken en brokken die Gray uit ouder werk heeft geplukt (een beter lezer kijkt dat vanzelfsprekend even na, ik volsta met de suggestie ...) is ontzettend vermakelijk en doet behalve aan Atte Jongstra, ook denken aan John Barth.

http://occamsrazorlibrary.blogspot.com/2009/01/old-men-in-love-john-tunnockss.ht... ( )