Lanark
First published 1981 · 560 pages · about 9 hours to read
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About this book
Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary, playful imagination, it conveys a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion is to go on trying. First published in 1981, Lanark immediately established Gray as one of Britain's leading writers, compared with - among others - Dante, Blake, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley and Lewis Carroll. This new edition includes an introduction by William Boyd as well as the author's fascinating addendum, the 'Tailpiece' (2001).
Books like Lanark
Quotes
“Art is the only work open to people who can't get along with others and still want to be special.”
Chapter 1
More quotes
“Space is infinite to men without destinations.”
Chapter 32 “People in Scotland have a queer idea of the arts. They think you can be an artist in your spare time, though nobody expects you to be a spare-time dustman, engineer, lawyer or brain surgeon.”
Chapter 20 “I wish I was a duck on Alexandra Park pond. I could swim, and fly, and walk, and have three wives, and everything I wanted. But I'm a man. I have a mind, and three library tickets, and everything I want is impossible.”
Chapter 26 “Instead of making life a continual feast you chop it into days and swallow them regularly, like pills.”
Chapter 1
Quotes from Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0), chosen with AI.
More by Alasdair Gray
- Old Men in LoveOld Men in Love2007
- The Ends of Our TethersThe Ends of Our Tethers2003
- The Book of PrefacesThe Book of Prefaces2000
- Five Letters from an Eastern EmpireFive Letters from an Eastern Empire1995
- A History MakerA History Maker1994
- Ten Tales Tall & TrueTen Tales Tall & True1993