I Crossed the Minch

by Louis MacNeice

In 1937, Louis MacNeice and his friend Nancy visited the Hebrides. Following loosely in the footsteps of Johnson and Boswell, MacNeice describes with distinctive candor the people, customs and landscapes of the Hebrides. Alienated from the way of life he encountered in the islands yet utterly fascinated by it, MacNeice provides a unique insight into a now vanished culture and, as such, creates a fascinating social historical document of Scottish rural life in the late 1930s.

Genres: Travel, Scotland

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Born to Irish parents in Belfast, MacNeice was largely educated in English prep schools. He attended Oxford University, there befriending W.H. Auden.

He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco (1946). His body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed, but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly (or simplistically) political as some of his contemporaries, his work shows a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his Irish roots.

Reviews

[Liam Guilar · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a genre of travel writing in which the eloquent and perceptive author travels to the foreign place and writes eloquent perceptive sounding phrases about it, supported by serious research into the history, economy culture and politics of said foreign place. The author has attitudes the foreign place either supports or challenges. Travel is usually tough, the natives dangerous or childlike, and our hero stoically suffering to bring back the news from where ever it is he or she decided to go suffer.

This is not that kind of book. In the 1930s MacNeice was offered a commission to write a book about the "Western Isles' of Scotland. He knew little about the place, and was surprised to discover that Gaelic was still the main language, which he didn't speak. He needed the money.

The book is what the editor of this edition describes as a "Promiscuous Hybrid". It contains passages that read like they've been lifted from a journal, flights of fancy, poems which range from the jocular and parodic to the magnificent Bagpipe Music, a spectral pair of irritating London acquaintances who are tracking MacNeice in order to write an expose about him, an argument with a Guardian Angel, a discussion between Head and Foot in Rhyming couplets, some very good parody, and passages of fine descriptive prose.

What saves the Hybrid is MacNeice as unpretentious narrator; his refusal to be what he is not, and his ability to describe people and things. Sometimes the book tips towards overdone whimsy: the last fictional letter from Hettie to Maisie (which is almost too long and nowhere near as funny as it should be), the conversation with the Guardian Angel, or even the pair of fantasy characters who dog him thoughout the book, are all in danger of outstaying their welcome but seem to depart just before the"skip this chapter' thought appears.

The honesty is literary artifice. From the narrative you'd be forgiven for thinking he was on his own in the first visit to the Islands. He doesn't acknowledge his companion, which raises the question of how the drawings got there. The poems dotted throughout the book feel like he's tuning up for Bagpipe Music, and the chapter 'Or one Might Write it So" contains fine parodies of Pater, D.H.Lawrence (very good), Yeats and Hemingway and ends with an short murder story written by A.N.Other.

It's an enjoyable and entertaining book, not a classic of any kind, and not one to read if you want to learn about the Islands in the 1930s.

[Gillian Straine · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you know the Outer Hebrides, this book will make you smile, as it will if you love words, poetry and honesty. Don't read it as a travel guide, but it is an excellent dreich stomp through an unusual culture which is contemporary in feel though written before WW2.

[Eric Banks]

I"m on a MacNeice jag lately--he is rightly thought today as one of the most underappreciated Irish poets of the first half of the century. I CROSSED THE MINCH is a very odd part of his oeuvre. It recounts his trip in 1937 to the Hebrides, a journey he was spectacularly unsuited for, roughly in the steps of Johnson and Boswell. It's a very drily funny travelogue peppered with poetry and his strange encounters with an imaginary pair of cocaine-sniffing Londoners who mock him throughout his trip. MacNeice tips his hand about his feelings toward the Western Islanders when he complains that he didn't realize they spoke Gaelic, so he can't really follow what's going on around him. But the writing is incredible: Here's his description of Compton Mackenzie: "I lunched on a glass of milk, which I followed at Mr. Mackenzie's with three gin-and-Its. He is one of the most autobiographical conversationalists whom I have ever met. I wholly approve of this; people who won't talk about themselves are such bores. Mr. Mackenzie cannot be called a bore." Later he describes the novelist as standing "on a sumptuous white mat in front of his fire looking like Lionel Barrymore on the point of turning into a bird." How's that for a metaphor?

[Dru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playful and quite fun. Some startlingly vivid description. Mr Macneice does come across as a bit of a smartarse, but then he did write Bagpipe Music and put it in the book too, so maybe he's justified. Spot the invisible travelling companion...