Autofiction: Stained Radiance and The Thirteenth Disciple

Mitchell’s first two novels are examined as works deploying the medium of imaginative literature for introspection and analysis of his own past. In reverse chronological order they recreate the narrative of his childhood and early adulthood, in the course of which they present a state of the nation critique of early twentieth century Britain. The forthright verisimilitude of the social realism is in keeping with the philosophical nihilism prevailing in the inter-war years, with the political responses of mainstream parties and of radical splinter groups such as the Anarchocommunist Party appearing unable to change society for the better. Mitchell’s technical experimentation with metafiction and intertextuality indicates the scale of his literary ambition, while his proto-feminist sympathies are marked by his reliance on female protagonists.

Distant Cousin Lewis Grassic Gibbon: A Scots Quair (Sunset Song, Cloud Howe and Grey Granite) and Scottish Scene

A quarter of this monograph is devoted to Gibbon’s masterpiece, the trilogy A Scots Quair, approached as a strategically integrated volume. This chapter places the book within its contemporary context, using original research to focus authoritatively on the aims and ideals that shaped its social, political, cultural and philosophical achievement. Sunset Song garners greatest attention for its bespoke narrative techniques and for the eclectic deployment of literary influences from Scotland and elsewhere. The nostalgic power and moral impact of this first novel as a compelling bildungsroman and an elegy for the crofting society destroyed by the war feeds into the more overtly political character of the remaining parts of the trilogy. The revolutionary political perspective at the heart of the work is convincingly based on the author’s ready identification with the subaltern classes, marking it as the highest form of littérature engagée. The Gibbon contributions to Scottish Scene are considered in relation to the central achievement of the trilogy, with the Scottish stories replicating the author’s signature style and, in ‘Forsaken’, successfully carrying it to a more sophisticated level of stylistic experimentation. The polemical essays are welcomed for shedding light on the author’s ideas and beliefs, about literature, politics, history and religion.

Narrative Preludes: The Calends of Cairo and Persian Dawns, Egyptian Nights

Mitchell’s early fiction writing is analysed as a modern take on Arabian Fantasy mixing realism and mysticism and forging a strong spirit of place from memories of his army service in the middle east, particularly his principal posting in post-war Cairo. Mitchell’s story-cycles appear stylistically dated, but his experimentation, particularly with first person narrative, anticipates several of the signature features of his mature fiction style. The social and political temper of this early work is also seen to be reflective of his mature humanitarianism, in the subtle denunciation of colonialism and in the socialist utopianism seen at play throughout the narrative.

The Real Stuff of History: Hanno, Niger, The Conquest of the Maya and Nine Against the Unknown

Mitchell’s abiding interest in history and prehistory was a concomitant of his overarching commitment to human rights. This chapter studies the impulse underlying his dedication to the Diffusionist school of history, which most importantly served as a moral prop for his belief in human goodness. The four full-length history books that he published span his writing career and testify to the continuity of his ideological preoccupations, expressly with the welfare of the ordinary people and with the responsibilities of mankind with regard to safeguarding the rights of ethnic peoples and respecting the natural environment. His anti-imperialist sensibility is evident in his promotion of the rights of the peasant. This runs right through his biography of Mungo Park, with whom the author keenly empathises as son to a smallscale Scottish farmer, and his study of the pre-Columbian theocracies in his most academic treatise The Conquest of the Maya right up to his study of Fridtjof Nansen, which closes his final volume Nine Against the Unknown, hailed as the champion and embodiment of the most inspiring ethical, environmental, political and philosophical values.

Legacy

The final chapter reviews the development of Mitchell’s literary legacy following his death up to the present. Translations of his best work to different genres, including radio, drama and film dramatisations, have had variable success while generically reflecting the growing popular esteem with which the Gibbon fiction is held. Critical appreciation has found a prominent place for A Scots Quair within the history of campaigning working-class writing and within the Scottish tradition in literature. Gibbon’s achievement with narrative focalisation and stream of consciousness combined with the epic grandeur of the trilogy working through Scottish subject matter to address vibrant universal themes has secured his place within the growing body of global criticism as one of the pre-eminent modernist novelists of the twentieth century. While his reputation within the British literary canon has been deemed to have suffered from his subliminal association with a marginalised culture, however, the author’s profound humanitarian principles manifested in his championing of the rights of the individual, irrespective of class, gender, religion and race, together with his prowess as a supreme proponent of ecofiction have a timeless appeal.

Life and Background

This foundational chapter presents Mitchell’s writing as a barometer of the times that he inhabited. It sets out the book’s biographical and critical aims to examine the precise nature of the author’s literary achievement against the dramatic geopolitical background of the early decades of the twentieth century. Drawing authoritatively upon original sources, Mitchell’s short life is summarised as a triumph of innate talent over the social hardship and cultural poverty of his upbringing, from his origins in peasant society to service in the army and the airforce, thereafter moving to city life in Scotland and London, before finally settling in Welwyn Garden City. Mitchell’s personal experience of many of the key developments of the modern world, in country and city, at home and abroad, in wartime and peacetime, is shown to have shaped his personal ideology – particularly his left-wing radicalisation. The two central planks of his greatest writing, his love of nature and his fierce social commitment, are traced to his peasant upbringing as son to a poor Aberdeenshire crofter. His literary corpus is presented as a knowing response to the zeitgeist of the inter-war years, as a renunciation of outmoded Victorian modes and an embracing of the new.

Setting Tales upon the Truth: Three Go Back, The Lost Trumpet and Gay Hunter

While Mitchell was offhand about his imaginative romances, they are viewed here as more than just potboilers whose brand of utopian idealism was designed to garner widespread popularity. On the contrary, Mitchell employs a lightweight fiction form to promote key themes about society, human nature and historical evolution. Two of his fantasy novels are explored as classic time-travel yarns of Voyage and Return. The first of these, Three Go Back, invokes a natural Golden Age of the prehistoric past untrammelled by civilised values, while his last fantasy Gay Hunter constitutes a darker dystopian narrative informed by the contemporary rise of fascism in Europe. The intermediate romance The Lost Trumpet is appraised as a classic example of the popular genre of the Quest, an early form of magical realism set in Egypt in which pressing socio-political themes are addressed within the framing fantasy of an archaeological search for Joshua’s talismanic trumpet of Old Testament legend. Ultimately the fantasy form is viewed as uncongenial to Mitchell’s literary aspirations, although his formal experimentation in these novels was important to his literary development.

Haunted by Horrors: Image and Superscription and Spartacus

Mitchell himself confessed that he was vexed to a near-pathological extent by ‘horrors’ – incidences of human cruelty in past and present – which provided the emotional and ethical drive for his writing. This chapter explores the two novels that most acutely highlight this aspect of the author’s mindset. Image and Superscription, his bracing picaresque novel of Rebirth, is presented as an unsuccessful attempt to dramatise and come to terms imaginatively with mankind’s propensity for cruelty. While visceral scenes depicting human brutality in contemporary times are overstated, however, the graphic treatment of historical atrocities points forward to the success of Spartacus. The historical novel dealing with the legendary uprising of the slaves against the Roman Republic is adjudged a triumph in conception and execution. It is appraised as both a realistic account of an inspirational historical event and an emblem of revolutionary ardour. Further, Mitchell’s permeating humanism is productively allied with a deeper lying philosophical scepticism to sustain a sanguine vision of humankind’s destiny.