Abstract
Discusses the healthy overlap in the recent BBC Scotland poll on Scotland's Favourite Novel between popular appeal and critical recognition; judges Gray's Lanark as "Scotland's greatest modern novel," which "deserves to be much better known internationally," as "the outstanding postmodern challenge to the global conformism of capitalist hyper-individualism," laments that, despite their usefulness, such curated polls and lists are self-perpetuating, to the neglect of many distinctive Scottish novels, and concludes by asking "what would a truly uncurated top 30 look like?"
Recommended Citation
Lyall, Scott
(2017)
"Scotland’s Top Ten & the Inadequacy of a National Canon: Alasdair Gray’s Lanark (1981),"
Studies in Scottish Literature:
Vol. 43:
Iss.
2, 195–196.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol43/iss2/9