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diseases, orifices growing on their limbs and body heat fading away. Lanark begins to associate with a group of twenty-somethings to whom he cannot fully relate and whose mores he cannot understand, and soon begins to suffer from dragonhide, a disease which turns his skin into scales as an external manifestation of his emotional repression. Lanark is eventually swallowed by a mouth in the earth, and awakes in the
Institute, a sort of hospital which cures patients of their diseases but uses the hopeless cases for power and food. Upon learning this, Lanark is horrified and determines to leave.
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imagination trimmed off and built into the furniture of the world you occupy". He also writes: "The plots of the Thaw and Lanark sections are independent of each other and cemented by typographical contrivances rather than formal necessity. A possible explanation is that the author thinks a heavy book will make a bigger splash than two light ones".
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Book Four sees Lanark begin a bizarre, dreamlike journey back to
Unthank, which he finds on the point of total disintegration, wracked by political strife, avarice, paranoia and economic meltdown, all of which he is unable to prevent. In the course of the journey, during which he meets his author, he
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parts of the book is the
Epilogue, in which Lanark meets the author in the guise of the character "Nastler". He makes the first two remarks about the book quoted above, and anticipates criticism of the work and of the Epilogue in particular, saying "The critics will accuse me of self-indulgence, but
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In Book Three, a young man awakes alone in a train carriage. He has no memory of his past and picks his name from a strangely familiar photograph on the wall. He soon arrives in
Unthank, a strange Glasgow-like city in which there is no daylight and whose disappearing residents suffer from strange
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is mirrored by Lanark's skin disease 'dragonhide'). He also writes in the novel itself: "The Thaw narrative shows a man dying because he is bad at loving. It is enclosed by narrative which shows civilization collapsing for the same reason" and (spoken to Lanark) "You are Thaw with the neurotic
273:. (Thaw drowns in the sea; Lanark arrives in Unthank with the same belongings, and seashells and sand in his pockets.) The connection between the two narratives is ambiguous; Gray said that "One is a highly exaggerated form of just about the everyday reality of the other" (for example, Thaw's
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beginning in pre-war
Glasgow, and tell the story of Duncan Thaw ("based on myself, he was tougher and more honest"), a difficult and precocious child born to impecunious and frustrated parents in the East End of Glasgow. The book follows Thaw's wartime evacuation, secondary education and his
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as a major influence on the atmosphere of the novel. He also referred to his own experiences in the media industry which he states is reflected in Lanark's numerous encounters in labyrinthine buildings with individuals talking in jargon. The
Institute he describes as a combination of
372:(and unfinished Inner Ring Road) to the north and west. Gray said Glasgow Cathedral was the only location he purposefully visited to make notes about during the writing of the novel; all other locations he wrote about from memory.
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rapidly ages. He finally finds himself old, sitting in a hilltop cemetery as
Unthank breaks down in an apocalypse of fire and flood, and, his time of death having been revealed to him, he ends the book calmly awaiting it.
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Gray began writing the novel as a student in 1954. Book One was written by 1963, but he was unsuccessful in getting it published. The whole work was finished in 1976, and published in 1981 by the
Scottish publisher
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in London. More immediately evident inspiration can be seen in the cathedral and necropolis episodes in
Unthank, whose proximity to an urban tangle of roads is mirrored in Glasgow's real-life
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Gray added an appendix to the 2001 edition of the novel, in which he included a brief biography and elaborated on some of the influences on and inspirations for the novel. He cited
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to be read in one order but eventually thought of in another", and that the epilogue itself is "too important" to go at the end.
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four chapters before the end of the book). In the
Epilogue, the author explains this by saying that "I want
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https://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/2021/02/thinking-about-alasdair-gray-and-lanark-forty-years-since-.html
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Shades of Gray: science fiction, history and the problem of postmodernism in the work of Alasdair Gray
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Blurring The Edges Fantasy, Reality, And The Fantastical Realism Of Alasdair Gray (Ian Phillip, 1997)
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The Unthank parts of the book may be considered as part of the "social-commentary" tradition of
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comprises four books, arranged in the order Three, One, Two, Four (there is also a
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is printed in the margins of the discussion. For instance, Gray describes much of
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by Alastair Cording was staged by Glasgow's Tag Theatre Company at the
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theatre programme, Edinburgh International Festival, August 1995
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158:. Written over a period of almost thirty years, it combines
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Alasdair Gray talking about the inspiration behind Lanark
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638:"BBC - Scotland - Alasdair Gray: Lanark at 30"
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269:Lanark could be viewed as Thaw in a personal
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474:. Bucknell University Press. p. 18.
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405:in August 1995. An adaptation entitled
244:Books One and Two constitute a realist
498:Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography
198:Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year
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680:Campbell, James (29 December 2019).
281:One of the most characteristically
616:. Galda & Wilch. p. 102.
196:award in 1982, and was also named
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176:Its publication in 1981 prompted
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712:"Lanark: A Life in Three Acts"
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767:Unofficial Alasdair Gray site
318:has often been compared with
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826:Unlikely Stories, Mostly
682:"Alasdair Gray obituary"
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229:before Book One, and an
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927:Novels by Alasdair Gray
555:Gray, Alasdair (1981).
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180:to call Gray "the best
529:. London. 22 July 2008
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937:Novels set in Glasgow
857:McGrotty and Ludmilla
495:Glass, Rodge (2012).
354:BBC Television Centre
251:Glasgow School of Art
27:Book by Alasdair Gray
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321:Nineteen Eighty-Four
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907:1981 British novels
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590:Scottish Television
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286:I don't care". An
192:won the inaugural
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864:Poor Things
765:Lanark 1982
411:David Greig
389:Adaptations
370:M8 motorway
290:Plagiarisms
204:. In 2008,
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436:Cencrastus
366:Necropolis
283:postmodern
167:surrealist
647:1 October
642:Bbc.co.uk
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288:Index of
210:heralded
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101:hardcover
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740:18 March
734:"Lanark"
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597:Archived
358:Townhead
231:Epilogue
227:Prologue
136:12635568
91:Scotland
60:Language
574:27 July
421:Reviews
376:Genesis
255:suicide
171:Glasgow
160:realist
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111:560 pp
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333:Kafka
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