Auld Licht Idylls

Thrums #1

by J.M. Barrie

Auld Licht Idylls is Barrie's second book and first serious work of fiction, a series of stories centering around a religious sect called Auld Licht in the Scottish community of Thrums.
(description from Fantastic Fiction)

Genres: Classics, Fiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

James Matthew Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays.

The son of a weaver, Barrie studied at the University of Edinburgh. He took up journalism for a newspaper in Nottingham and contributed to various London journals before moving there in 1885. His early Auld Licht Idylls (1889) and A Window in Thrums (1889) contain fictional sketches of Scottish life representative of the Kailyard school. The publication of The Little Minister (1891) established his reputation as a novelist. During the next decade, Barrie continued to write novels, but gradually, his interest turned towards the theatre.

In London, he met Llewelyn Davies, who inspired him about magical adventures of a baby boy in gardens of Kensington, included in The Little White Bird, then to a "fairy play" about this ageless adventures of an ordinary girl, named Wendy, in the setting of Neverland. People credited this best-known play with popularizing Wendy, the previously very unpopular name, and quickly overshadowed his previous, and he continued successfully.

Following the deaths of their parents, Barrie unofficially adopted the boys. He gave the rights to great Ormond street hospital, which continues to benefit.

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most people know J.M. Barrie from his book Peter Pan. Not many know much else about him, that he was Scottish and wrote a wonderful little book called Auld Licht Idylls. This book was published in America once and good luck finding a copy.

Auld Licht Idylls, is a series of short stories about a small Scottish town, Thrums, and all the little dramas both melancholy and silly that occur in such small towns. Each character carries his own fascination and amusement for the readers. Of course these types occur everywhere, but this happens in the context of Scottish culture and dialect and superb wit and humor in the hands of Barrie.

I found these stories as charming as they were entertaining and holding an almost magical quality as if the reader has stumbled upon his own Brigadoon and, in a sense, we have, because this old town stays firmly in the past, ever receding from our constantly forward-thrusting present.

[Mariangel · Rating 3 out of 5]

After I read The Little Minister, which I liked very much, I found that there were two previous books about the town of Thrums and its people. This is the first book, but it is not a novel. It is a collection of sketches or reminiscences of Barrie's hometown, of its more quaint inhabitants, and of the religious congregation called "Auld Licht".

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hum. This is a hard one to review. I'll admit while I was reading this I was charmed, bored, confused, laughed, lost, interested, and mildly to hugely entertained. That because this book is charming, confusing, humorous, baffling, interesting, and boring. It's not so much that the author (J.M. Barrie of Peter Pan fame) is all over the map when writing this. It's because this book is written for a late nineteenth century Scottish audience and mentality, and I am neither Scottish nor nineteenth century minded.
Now, I love books written during that time period, but unlike Dickens or Collins, this book wasn't written for all time to enjoy, but written for a specific time and place that wasn't likely to grow beyond that specific area or timeframe. It is immediate in the sense that it is written for the now. And, well, it's not "now" now is it. :)
Oh, there is a lot of charm in this novel of scenes of Thrums, a small Scottish town. There is no plot, only vintettes of small scenes of various natures, all centering around the kirk (church) in the town.
The dialogue, and there is some, is impossible to read. It's written in Scottish dialect and unless read aloud, with a good understanding of Scottish slang, it's incomprehensable. Twain did better.
So, three stars, meaning "Hey, if you got the chance, go for it, but don't twist your back doing it"

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am working my way through James Barrie's Novels, Tales and Sketches. This is a collection of what were short stories in his early career, generally centered around a small village in Scotland. He himself said the stories, and the book, were not worthy of the binding, and belonged at the bottom of the mill pond. That being said, it is interesting to see how he began, and I, for one, found the colloquial language intriguing. Some of the stories are poor, but a few are quite entertaining. Being a Barrie fan, I enjoyed the read, if only for the fine descriptions of life in the village and the everyday doings of very ordinary people seen through his wry humorous wit. Because he was clearly a beginning writer when he produced these, I gave it 3 stars, with room to grow, but they are still engaging. To answer the first question I had (and looked up) - the Auld Lichts were a religious group, and the stories reveal their position in the community.

[Darrell Madis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I've read this 4 or 5 times. Hugely entertaining. A few of the Scotchisms take some getting used to.
(it's actually J. M. Barrie, not M. J., the author of Peter Pan.)

[Lise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories about the "Auld Licht" in Thrums

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

When reading J.M. Barrie I feel like Margaret Ogilvy is definitely the book to start with, not because it is the best, but because it seems to set the scene, to show the background out of which many of his other writings originated, and provides a bit of an introduction to them to help set the scene and to place them in context. I think I enjoyed Auld Licht Idylls more for having that background knowledge. And I did enjoy it. It's interesting and amusing. If you like books like Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, about the quaintnesses and eccentricities of village life in bygone days, then you should like this. For years I have rather turned a blind eye to Barrie, largely I think because I started by reading him in the wrong books. Perhaps if I were to revisit some of those books again now I might have have a greater appreciation for them, now that my interest has been piqued, or now that I'm more attuned to his manner and style. Perhaps age and an alteration in my tastes in the intervening years might also have helped. But now I feel like I have finally discovered Barrie, as a writer, for the first time.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable for 1800's Scots dialect of an isolated one-room house school teacher surviving on a tiny stipend from the locals but under threat of review and poor attendance, one can sense the protagonist is Barrie himself. The rambling narrative resembles a diary of local life in Thrums, a weavers town, that is brought to life by way of their fierce opinions against non-Old Lights churches nearby. Tragic anecdotes such as the young man who traveled to a nearby town, fell in love, but back in Thrums could recall neither her name or the name and location of his love, and so died in old age unrequited in his fancy.

I don't see where reviewers note that Thrums was the center of stage of The Little Minister, one of my favorite novels of all time, wherein our diminutive Auld Lichts type young minister crosses paths with a would-be gypsy girl willfully free as a complete counter-type defending Thrums like an unasked-for Joan of Arc, yet they reconcile under the ultimate compromise of opposite ends to add life and love to the town.

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't recall now where I found out about this one, perhaps an old publisher's list when I was scouring the internet in the early Kindle days, looking for free public domain works to add to my device.

Anyway, this was a fairly charming series of vignettes about a small Scottish town called Thrums. The Auld Lichts were a conservative religious sect at the time. Barrie would go on, of course, to write the more well-known Peter Pan. This was his first book, and it's an interesting window into a little town during this time period.

[Brian Schiebout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Auld Licht Idylls by J. M. Barrie is a novel about life in late 19th century small town Scotland. The whole set of stories revolves around the town of Thrums and more especially the members of one of the four churches in that community. The Auld Licht Kirk happens to be more hard core Calvinist's than any other group in Scotland at the time. In English they would be called the Old Light Church as they believed that the traditional morals of the church had been compromised and so they broke away from the proper Presbyterians. This group and there methods and traditions shows that people can live hard working, strict lives and still barely be about to survive. I found many aspects of the book sound like my our churches history as for most of its history the different Calvinist branches of the church ended up having a more strict morality than any other group in history from the time of the Pharisees. I am glad that today we do not live that way but I often find among the elders of the community people who grew up and still believe in that method. The stories in this book show how the strictness of the rules twisted even the most sad of occasions such as funerals into joyful times as they presented a proper way that people could socialize and relax together. I enjoyed the picture of the Scottish church as it shows how a church can no matter how well intended can become twisted by a human attempt at perfection.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming selection of stories set in the Scottish town of Thrums. Sort of a companion book to 'A Window in Thrums' by the same author.