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The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories
These two long stories are set, like most of George Mackay Brown's work, in Orkney and in a period, the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the pattern of island life, little changed since Viking times, was beginning to be threatened. "The Golden Bird" tells the story of the slow decline of an island community: a scattered village dependant on the sea for its livelihood and at risk from it, a place subject to the peculiar tensions of isolation and the unsettling influence of new values. "The Life and Death of John Voe" looks at the life of a typical young Orkney man: after whaling and sailing and gold-mining he comes home to devote the rest of his days to a beautiful country girl. These stories are the creation of a very rich imagination, of a practised and skilful writer, but they also have the power and simplicity of the traditional ballad. They will delight Mackay Brown's fans.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
65 people want to read
About the author
George Mackay Brown
183 books101 followersGeorge Mackay Brown, the poet, novelist and dramatist, spent his life living in and documenting the Orkney Isles.
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 14, 2020
The Golden Bird is the first of the two stories. It spans the lives of an Orcadian crofting community over several generations from the later 19th century onwards. The timeline is not always linear and doesn’t always seem logical but the quality of the writing is as spare and beautiful as always. The underlying theme is of rural lives changing through modernisation beyond the crofters’ reach or comprehension, reminding me of Thomas Hardy novels. An underlying tremor of resentment is always present whether it’s due to the arrival of incomers, or the ambitions of some of the younger generation to improve their minds or their prospects. The Golden Bird of the title is the first engine-powered boat to be built by a local and from the outset it’s clear that an inauspicious fate lies ahead.
Local men and women are not easily praised for trying to better themselves. There is an element of that still in Scotland. When Mr McFarlane, the schoolmaster, visits a pupil’s parents to encourage them to send him to secondary school in Hamnavoe (Stromness) and eventually to University, he says,
‘One or two boys from this valley...have gone to sea and become master mariners....Captain Tom Spence comes home to Burnside once a year to visit old Tammag and Williamina. You know it as well as I do, he sends them money orders through the post regularly. They won’t fall into poverty in their old age.’
‘Tom Spence has done well,’ said Willa. ‘He hasn’t got above himself, that I can see.’
‘He speaks a bit proper and perjink*,’ said Magnus. ‘But forby that, I can smoke a pipe with him yet.’ *Scots for precise or neat - not a compliment!
The second story is The Life and Death of John Voe. I was underwhelmed by The Golden Bird but this more than made up for it. John Voe disembarks in Hamnavoe on the day of the Lammas Fair. He has just returned from an 18 month trip to South America and South Africa on a merchant ship. He has money in his pocket and proceeds to spend most of it in the pubs. The description of the Lammas Fair is a wonderful account, full of local characters who, I’m sure, will have been recognisable to GMB’s contemporaries on whom they will have no doubt been based. Again, the narrative isn’t linear as we follow Jock’s travels as a young man, interspersed with his dying days seen both close at hand and from a distance by the community. As always, the writing is understated, with beautiful phrases such as under a salting of stars. How lovely is that?
3.5-4 stars as it’s a mixed offering but I’m glad I read it.
Local men and women are not easily praised for trying to better themselves. There is an element of that still in Scotland. When Mr McFarlane, the schoolmaster, visits a pupil’s parents to encourage them to send him to secondary school in Hamnavoe (Stromness) and eventually to University, he says,
‘One or two boys from this valley...have gone to sea and become master mariners....Captain Tom Spence comes home to Burnside once a year to visit old Tammag and Williamina. You know it as well as I do, he sends them money orders through the post regularly. They won’t fall into poverty in their old age.’
‘Tom Spence has done well,’ said Willa. ‘He hasn’t got above himself, that I can see.’
‘He speaks a bit proper and perjink*,’ said Magnus. ‘But forby that, I can smoke a pipe with him yet.’ *Scots for precise or neat - not a compliment!
The second story is The Life and Death of John Voe. I was underwhelmed by The Golden Bird but this more than made up for it. John Voe disembarks in Hamnavoe on the day of the Lammas Fair. He has just returned from an 18 month trip to South America and South Africa on a merchant ship. He has money in his pocket and proceeds to spend most of it in the pubs. The description of the Lammas Fair is a wonderful account, full of local characters who, I’m sure, will have been recognisable to GMB’s contemporaries on whom they will have no doubt been based. Again, the narrative isn’t linear as we follow Jock’s travels as a young man, interspersed with his dying days seen both close at hand and from a distance by the community. As always, the writing is understated, with beautiful phrases such as under a salting of stars. How lovely is that?
3.5-4 stars as it’s a mixed offering but I’m glad I read it.
June 7, 2016
A hauntingly poetic pair of novellas that chart the slow decline of Orkney's crofting tradition.
July 3, 2022
read the first novella, the golden bird. my favourite george mackay brown so far.
November 1, 2016
I wonderful 'hommage' to Orkney and all things Orcadian. This edition combines two novellas, my preference being for the first, The Golden Bird, which reminded me of the folktales I used to love to read as a child. That said, in "The Life and Death of John Voe" I was enchanted by John Voe's interaction with the ghost of a Neolithic boy, references to Dounby which I visited this year and some beautiful descriptions of sea and sky...
"Night hung clusters of stars over Orkney. They westered. The banked-up forge of sunrise was in the east. The stars were cinders, soon. They vanished. The forge doors opened in the east. Earth's jewelry, the dew, flashed from innumerable grass-blades."
"Night hung clusters of stars over Orkney. They westered. The banked-up forge of sunrise was in the east. The stars were cinders, soon. They vanished. The forge doors opened in the east. Earth's jewelry, the dew, flashed from innumerable grass-blades."
August 4, 2012
I love Mackay Brown. His style of narrative structure is not complicated but it is like reading 200+ pages of poetry which is both beautiful but demanding. Love it.
May 1, 2024
I loved the first of these two stories: The Golden Bird. Mackay Brown's story of an island community, their lives and superstitions, and the coming of cash transactions rather than barter, of education and of 'progress' and whether or not it is seen as desirable, is just full of the essence of Orkney life of previous ages. The stories intertwine, with three children at the beginning, growing up and becoming adults in their turn. The ending seems a little ambiguous and sudden, but there is no easy way to tie up all the ends in such a saga.
The second of these long short stories is the Life and Death of John Voe. It begins with Voe, seriously ill, facing death in the first paragraph. It is written as a series of reminiscences by Voe, of his life and the major events and people who featured in it. It is profoundly moving in places, and again paints the character of John Voe so clearly that one feels one knows him inside out.
Mackay Brown was a master in his writing of character and event.
The second of these long short stories is the Life and Death of John Voe. It begins with Voe, seriously ill, facing death in the first paragraph. It is written as a series of reminiscences by Voe, of his life and the major events and people who featured in it. It is profoundly moving in places, and again paints the character of John Voe so clearly that one feels one knows him inside out.
Mackay Brown was a master in his writing of character and event.
March 25, 2021
This book came highly recommended from a friend and it certainly has a distinctive flavour. It's about the "olden days" of 60 or 70 years ago and I did love the setting (the Orkney Islands). The small town flavour demonstrates a certain amount of disrespect for each other that I didn't enjoy so much. Maybe it's because during a pandemic we've found out more about some people in our town than we ever wanted to know. Was this just coming a little too close to the bone?
September 10, 2009
Of the two novellas included here, "The Golden Bird" is by far the strongest. Moving across decades and generations of a small crofting and fishing community, following a few characters not constantly but episodically as their lives intertwine, Brown captures a complicated moment of transition into the modern, electrified, mechanical world. Through those poetic and crystallized moments "The Golden Bird" manages to convey a vast sense of time and culture with impressive efficiency and focus. The second novella, "The Life and Death of John Voe", limits itself mostly to one character and his more personal moments of upheaval, but the narrative starkness isn't as effective as in the other story - the skeletal telling becomes a bit too abstract. So four stars for the first story, but three for the book as a whole.
March 6, 2014
Winner of the 1987 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
They had not spoken to each other, the crofts of Gorse and Feaquoy, for three generations.
They had not spoken to each other, the crofts of Gorse and Feaquoy, for three generations.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews