The Fall of Kelvin Walker

by Alasdair Gray

Drawing on a mixture of Scottish archetypes and British stereotypes and expressing all the author's cynicism towards religion, the media and the imperial British centre, this brief fable was reportedly inspired by Gray's own visit to London as a struggling artist to record a documentary called Under The Helmet (in which he tried to increase his sales by suggesting that he was dead).

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Scotland, Literature, British Literature

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.

He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.

His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.

Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

True Confessions # 54—The Great Scot

Hope you don’t have your heart set on a review. Instead, I’d like to substantiate that I still believe the greatest potential for Goodreads is met by the actions of others, however unintentional. When I cannot find anything to try on from my own mental Dewey Decimal, when I’m jammed up along my chakras and my downward-facing dog lacks bite (sure), I have found that there are a few confrères whose breadth of tasty intake allows me to pilfer from. These people keep good larders.

I have my less than a handful of go-to Jane’s and Dick’s (and Jicks), and I’ve never been let down. What a gift: silent and cordial championing without agenda. I don’t know if I’d have come across this book were it not for notable Scotsman, MJ Nicholls, just shelving a Gray reread. But, like all the great Glaswegian bands from C-86 to roughly the middle 90s, this has an undeniably winking core through it that made a very shit day survivable. Its insignificance is likely its greatest significance, and, fuck, is it funny and droll. A sort of Jackanory Story for the clinically maladroit.

Thanks, MJ. It was, in Bellshillese, a very Catholic education much needed, indeedy.

X

[Tom Willard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like a book that shouts in all caps to me, GOODBYE!! A proper exit is demanded in a book that stands on such formalities. The only thing that could out duel Gray's adieu is an ANTICLIMAX, tidily, almost mockingly so, detailing the eventualities of the dramatis personae of this narrative. And it is true, things are always easier for the English. What did I really know about the Scot Gray? I knew his books looked odd, that he is far too fond of large fonts and there lies a woodcut quality to many of the graphics. I confess I approached him with some skepticism due to these oddities. I pretty much loved the book, and I sense this is not a major work. What did I like? Oddly, the dialog, for the dialog was odd, bordering on the mock-heroic. Kelvin's precision and nuance throughout the novel was hysterically funny. The beginning of the novel displayed the kind of black humor that reminded me of Bruce Robinson films.

GOODBYE

[Ruby Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
If Kelvin Walker can steal an identity, march into an interview with zero qualifications and land a dream job at the BBC then goddammit so can I!

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

One from Gray's raging nationalist staple. A confident Scot from a remote village goes to London to make his fame and fortune, but can't shake his father's Calvinist guilt. A rather dour book with no redemption. Lovely. (Nice cover, too).

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't remember exactly when I first read The Fall of Kelvin Walker—it was certainly years before I joined Goodreads, though. This time through, the book felt more familiar to me as I went along, and rereading it did go quite quickly—much more so than writing this review! The book's just 141 pages long, after all, in the Grove Press edition I picked up from Paper Moon Books (which does still exist, just down the street from where I live, though its web presence is sadly truncated).

Kelvin Walker arrives in London alone, stepping off the train from the Scottish city of Glaik (equidistant from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and known primarily for its production of fish glue), with great plans, very little experience, and no money to speak of. He has nowhere to go but up—and no time to waste on mundane strategies for success:

"Nowadays the ladders are so long that the folk who start at the bottom have to retire before reaching the middle. Nearly all the people at the top started climbing a few rungs under it. Furthermore, the nearer the top you get the less real qualifications matter. It's years since the managing directors of chemical corporations needed to know much about chemistry. A minister of transport doesn't bother with railway timetables. The only qualities needed in a position of power are total self-confidence and the ability to see when the folk under you are doing their jobs, and you can usually see that by the expression on their faces."
—pp.29-30

To fall, one must rise—and in truth most of Alasdair Gray's slim novel The Fall of Kelvin Walker, after that inauspicious debut, is concerned with his unexpected (except by Walker!) rise to fortune and fame. In contrast, Walker's wholly expected fall (except by Walker!) is precipitous, both by the number of pages Gray devotes to it and within the time frame of the novel itself. Whenever that is, exactly. Reading Alasdair Gray's slim novel in the 21st Century entails casting one's mind back over not one but two great stretches of time—back a full generation to the book's publication in 1985, and back again from then to "a prosperous decade between two disastrous economic depressions" (p.1).

Or—hmm. Walker's own early comments to his newfound friend Jill now suggest a different reading to me (one I think I really should have tumbled to before):

"{Jesus} had a chance of importance when the Devil offered to make him king of all nations of the world but he refused, I think unwisely. He would have been a decent king. He could have introduced reforms and done a lot of good. But no, he refused the offer and left the world to folk like Nero and Attila and Napoleon and Hitler. Of course, he became famous and got a lot of publicity for his ideas, but who cares for his ideas nowadays? What important men have ever lived by them?"
—pp.12-13

Maybe Walker's descent from austere North to sinful South, from the Presbyterian purity of Glaik to the filthy fleshpots of London, is his Fall—a fall from Grace—however enviable his rags-to-riches trajectory may seem from a temporal perspective.

Any way you read it, though, The Fall of Kelvin Walker is over before you know it. This may not be Alasdair Gray's finest work (I'm still going to insist on 1982, Janine for that)... but this is a worthy addition to his unique oeuvre, and one I'm glad to have encountered again, after all these years.

[Dionysius · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Power, Mr McKellar, can only be used well by men with faith. Understand me, I am not a bigot; their faith need not be my faith. They can have faith in passing a law or abolishing a law, in fighting an opponent or making an ally, in getting money or spending money, but if they have faith in something outside themselves they will only do the world the normal amount of harm."

[Georgia Rossiter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelvin Walker gets himself into such absurd situations he’s hard to hate.

[Zachary Ngow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third Alasdair Gray book I have read (Poor Things, A History Maker). The book has a conniving protagonist who rises in the field of journalism. His blatantly self-serving attitude is quite amusing and the politics are greatly interesting. Alasdair's depiction of the London scene is funny. I liked the interviews building into a final showdown. The book then goes into Calvinism. I saw that he wrote this after recording a documentary, I would like to watch that to recontextualize this. While I enjoyed this, I didn't think it was as good as the others. It didn't help that I had the much uglier Penguin edition...

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished on the tram (I think.) Alasdair Gray is always a delight.

[Ben Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

*⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

[Eleanor Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - an interesting social commentary, albeit lacking an element of character work which would have made it more of an emotional investment. although, if you view the book as being from the view of kelvin, perhaps that’s the point.

[Tama · Rating 3 out of 5]

High3/5

I had tried to start this a few months ago but it was the wrong time, couldn’t get past the first page, didn’t know what double breasted clothing was at that point. Now I’m highly educated and am familiar with such cloning as I note while I see it in cinema or it’s even mentioned in the last book I spent more than one day reading, ‘The Leopard.’

Gray’s ‘Hunger’/‘Martin Eden’? These days a young artist wouldn’t rely on pawn for money to get by. A lot of begging, and commonly perceived as depraved work.

Reading this hair pulling stunt from Jake is very 70s UK grindhouse aesthetic. Picturing a slightly fuzzy voice with a classic cockney accent, he, a tad bit ugly, she, a queen.

This is not ‘Hunger.’ Things are getting along. It’s reading as if ‘Hunger’ went well in most ways. Kelvin would be as interesting whether or not he makes out any successes. His manner in the face of success is stoic and all the more funny for it.

The Jill/Kelvin relationship in chapter 8 may be in need of a rework to not feel tired. Kelvin is a little suffocating and the conversation not so weighty—almost cliché, but well written and of Alasdair.

The ending is pretty sad and funny. Makes the book feel like a waste of time. Makes a fool of Kelvin.

[Lewis Trussler-McCaskill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alasdair Gray’s The Fall of Kelvin Walker is a brief, biting satire that skewers ambition, media culture, and the absurdities of power. Kelvin, a self-styled Nietzschean from the Scottish backwater of Glaik, arrives in 1960s London determined to start at the top—and somehow does. His rise is as improbable as it is entertaining, propelled by sheer audacity and a knack for spin.

Gray’s wit is sharp, and the novella’s structure—framed like a colonial travelogue—adds a layer of ironic distance. However, while the satire lands, the characterisation feels thin, and the narrative’s brevity leaves little room for deeper exploration. Kelvin’s journey is intriguing, but the emotional stakes remain low, making it more of an intellectual exercise than an immersive experience.

The Fall of Kelvin Walker offers a clever critique of societal structures, but its impact is somewhat muted by its limited scope.

[Michael Tarpey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was absolutely brilliant. A hilarious take on the media and power in the UK, examining how power works and operates while being absolutely hilarious. I thought the characters were great and all felt very real and not simply like archetypes and metaphorical figures and kelvin himself was a fascinating, sometimes tragic often incredibly sinister presence.

All this in a short and incredibly readable book, that flowed together wonderfully. Just a brilliantly realised book.

[Marth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fall of Kelvin Walker - 4/5

The funniest deconstruction of Nietzschean and Calvinist morals I've ever read, not that they're is much competition...

Good use of the Scots word glaik as well.

GOODBYE

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this again after many years, and enjoyed Alasdair Gray's sharp eye. Skewering religion, regional stereotypes, class, media, politics and much more in this short novella that can be swallowed whole in one big gulp.

[Matilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really funny book! Also raised some very interesting ideas about ego and hubris. Great read

[lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have been a one-sitting-read if I started it earlier in the day. Flashes of being really good but last 2 chapters feel like he was rushing it.

[James Takos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelvin Walker would love Ben Shapiro

[Tim Owe-Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never trust a man who won’t shut up about Nietzsche

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is easier for them. They are English.

[Moe s. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s complicated…

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The establishment, becoming, religion. Hurt to read.

Excellent from Alasdair Gray as always.

[Gregory Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

'They're English.'

[Seonaid Hair · Rating 3 out of 5]

decent. not as painful as a lot of old books. had a story and the main character is so autistic i got through it so fast

[Marni Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this & would highly recommend as an entry point to Alasdair Gray’s work

[martina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange little book

[Erin Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

bloody brilliant!

[memma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Забавная книга, особенно порадовала неожиданной концовкой.
Очень стройное, законченное произведение.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks like a romp, seems to be advertised as a romp, is a romp but is also a lot more than a romp - we are far clear of 'Wilt' comparisons here.

And so commenced my first foray into the highly reputable work of Alasdair Gary - it was a delight!

Kelvin Walker, fresh from a newly found enlightenment to the tenets of Friedrich Nietzsche's work, quickly deduced that the only way he was to surround himself with such avant-garde thinkers of this ilk and better himself, was to flee his religiously oppressive Scottish town and hotfoot it to London. It is in the capital that he rather naively believes that decency, hard work and using one's initiative, will help him leapfrog huge chunks of the corporate ladder and acquire for himself a powerful position in the British capital.

Gray's character is full of the proverbial 'cojones', his naive and sheltered approach to life belies a fervent desire to be successful. He is at times hopeless and foolish but very endearing and you swiftly want him to be happy (despite the title - the cynical reminder that this isn't going to be anything other than what it suggests).

Yet the ending is well contrived and fitting, bringing about a pleasing arc to a character who is a breath of fresh air. I look at the other books by Alasdair Gray on my shelves and feel that it was not a mistake to buy so many. On first impressions he is a talented, playful writer who is more than capable of spinning a good yarn that has insights and messages aplenty about the world we live in and those we live with.