Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation

by Stuart Kelly

His name and image are everywhere – from Bank of Scotland fivers to the monument in Edinburgh’s city centre – yet who reads Walter Scott these days? Stuart Kelly explores the enigma of Scott and the disparity between his influence and his status, his current standing and his cultural legacy, in a voyage around Scotland.

Born in Edinburgh, the ninth child of a lawyer, Scott trained as a lawyer. After the phenomenal success of his novel Waverley (1814) he produced a string of novels, such as Rob Roy, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe, Old Mortality and The Talisman. Scott’s writing strongly influenced, among others, Emily Bronte and Alexandre Dumas, although Mark Twain loathed it; he named a sinking boat, The Walter Scot in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Scott's management of his financial affairs left much to be desired and he was an extravagant spender on his house in Abbotsford and historical artefacts. He found himself in debt in 1826 to the tune of £100,000 and attempted to write himself out of it. By the time of his death in 1832 he had cleared £70,000.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Scotland, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2010

About the author

Stuart Kelly is literary editor at Scotland on Sunday and a freelance critic and writer. He was raised in the Scottish Borders and studied English at Balliol College, Oxford, gaining a first class degree and a Master of Studies.

His works include The Book of Lost Books: an Incomplete Guide to All the Books You'll Never Read (2005), Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation (2010), which was longlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, and The Minister and the Murderer (2018).

Kelly writes for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, The Guardian and The Times. In 2016/17 he was president of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Scott, author of interminable, antiquated, cliché, laughable historical novels, invented the little nation called Scotland. Scott’s influence extends its tentacles far from the enormous spiracles in Princes Street Gardens, far into the Borders, Highlands, and America. This wry, exciting book explores this outrageous legacy, and how Scott’s creations have defined two centuries of Scottishness—inventions the Scots have used to define their standing in the world, have exploited as a fruitful national brand. Kelly explores Scott’s own compulsive pseudonymous tendencies—post-Waverley, Scott wrote as the character Author of Waverley, along with a series of whimsical editors and antiquaries—and his remarkable influence on the novel form. Of especial interest to me is that Scott first invented the notion of characters leaving their authors, as in the postmodern larks of Flann O’Brien—Sterne predates Scott, of course, but still. Phew. A historically exhausting read, but extremely funny, warm and comprehensive. As a side dish, the author Stuart Kelly introduced me to writers like Gilbert Sorrentino, Harry Mathews and Donald Barthelme, among many many others, and my reading owes him a remarkable debt. Hopefully this review is some recompense: Stuart is an extremely gifted bibliophile (best read man in UK, for definite) and a delightful writer!

[Monty Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sir Walter Scott is such a little read and neglected author these days that many people would be put off reading this on the grounds that they have no interest in the old reactionary fuddy duddy. That would be a great pity, for this book is an elegantly written and persuasive examination of the all pervasive nature of Scott’s influence on contemporary Scotland: the Scottish tourist industry, and how Scotland is perceived by outsiders and even, to a large extent, by the Scots themselves is - it is persuasively argued – very largely an invention of Sir Walter’s. Hence the aptness of the book’s title.

Carlyle criticised Scott for his lack of interiority. “Scott gives us speech, not thought; costume, not psychology; the glittering surface of life, not its wellsprings and sources.” Is this too harsh? How fake is Scott? His country house, Abbotsford, is to a large extent a fake - “ a three dimensional Waverley novel” – but even its fakeness has a certain power, because “it incarnates and engenders a profound desire to believe.” It’s like those photographs of the Cottingly fairies: years later, the girls admitted the photos were faked, but said they felt justified because “they really had seen fairies.” To me this is part of Scott’s power – he wants to believe so strongly that we too get swept up and want to believe too, even though we all know there is something fraudulent at the heart of it all.

The power of Scott’s self belief has the paradoxical effect of, to some extent, transforming the fake into a kind of truth. Don’t all of us do that? Isn’t Scott the progenitor of every young person who dyes their hair blue and rejects the gender (or the race or even the species) assigned to them at birth? And when Nietzsche talks about living your life as a work of art, doesn’t that echo Scott’s performative persona? And if I cultivate certain traits of character or personality, does that necessarily make me a fraud, or just someone who makes a choice to become more of the sort of person I would like to be? Is Scott the first in a long line of people who demonstrated the power (and danger) of believing in “my truth”? All of this makes Scott much more intriguingly contemporary than may appear at first sight.

The visit of the gluttonous fantasist King William IV to Scotland in 1822 was triumphantly orchestarted by Scott and was the key event which transformed the cultural landscape from Sir Walter’s personal fantasy into a reality which lasts to this day. The fat King, dripping in bling like a kind of Maharajah of the Glens, with his flesh coloured tights hiding his massively swollen legs tottering under his corpulent kilted frame, makes for an absorbing and richly comic spectacle. When our late queen lay in state in Scotland, the coffin was escorted by the bizarrely attired Company of Archers looking like extras from a Hollywood production of Robin Hood. The origin of this cod medieval royal bodyguard, of course, is Scott himself, who invented them for that same royal visit in 1822. To me, they epitomise everything about the Scott project: absurd and more than slightly fraudulent, yet also somehow oddly satisfying and even somewhat touching.

Mark Twain blamed Scott for the US Civil War (he claimed Scott’s reactionary world view contributed to the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy). I think Twain goes too far, but I take his point that Scotticism, if carried to extremes, can be dangerous. But really – what would you rather have, Presbyterian doom and gloom, or men in tights? Scotland has a Muslim First Minister who has many faults, but the joyfully insouciant way he wears his kilt is not one of them – and I think Scott would have relished that.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of the book tells the story. Walter Scott, a lawyer, began writing heroic narrative poems with much success. When the market changed, he changed to writing heroic novels, beginning with "Waverly". The author covers a lot of Scottish history (I am of Scottish descent along with Anglo-Saxon blood). Before Scott, there were 3 countries, each with their own language. The Borders with English, the Edinburgh/Glasgow area and their Scottish, and the Highlands with Gaelic. The author and his readers brought out the common heritage and the pride of the great nation. He was one of the best selling and most productive authors of his time. But NOBODY reads him now. Even the Jane Austin revival was not strong enough to bring back and interest in Scott.

[Stephen Huntley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chaotic collected ramblings on Mr Kelly's thoughts and feelings towards Scott, peppered with some facts. There are some genuinely interesting and insightful moments buried in the text but it's very hard work uncovering them, and probably not worth the effort. Mr Kelly is no doubt a well educated, erudite and intelligent man who knows a lot on this subject but his book is all over the place. For someone with a passing interest in the topic (I live in central Scotland, have read a number of Scott's books and have an open mind on his worthiness as a person and an author) I felt let down by the lack of cohesion in content and the indulgent forays into the author's muddled musings.

[Peter McLaughlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly not overblown, neither deliberately provocative nor cliché-ridden, and of obvious interest. Yet, like Walter Scott’s novels themselves, I simply could not get through it. The core question, ‘why did Scott’s reputation fall so far from such a height?’, is one that Kelly certainly asks frequently. But I don’t think he has a convincing answer, because any convincing answer has to explain why we moderns do not merely dislike Scott, but find him boring. Kelly admits, with admirable tact, that Scott has ‘a certain slowness’, but he obviously does not find him actually boring. Good for him! but I do, and I could not bring myself to keep reading about the man after a certain point.

[Richard Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this while surrounded by Scott-land was enlightening. Take a walk down Edinburgh's Royal Mile and you'll see lots of shops dedicated to selling an idea of Scotland. I knew Scott had played a large part in creating the image of Scotland that many have, but I hadn't known just how deep his influence had been.
This book looks at the man, his works and his influence in a way as neutral as possible. It asks and attempts to answer the conundrum of Scott.
Why, if he was the most read and most feted author of his day, is he read no more?
I confess, I have never read him.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott isn't much read these days, but if you care at all about the novel, about how fiction works, about cultural history, about the entire genre of historical fiction, about Scotland, about the nature of nationalism, about how we imagine the past, then you really have to read and think about Scott. Scott didn't really much want to be a novelist; he only turned to fiction when he felt his style of poetry had been superseded by writers like Byron, and he never regarded his own accomplishments as a novelist terribly highly, but his early fiction in particular is very good, and his journals are fascinating. Kelly is particularly interested in Scott's importance in Scotland, in the terrific extent to which he and his texts are commemorated there and in the ways he invented the whole romantic version of Scotland that most of us, whether Scottish or not, still think of when we think of the place; Scott made the country a region of the cultural imagination that transcended the actual physical and historical reality of the place. Kelly has a passage towards the end that sums up much of the book's argument: "[W]e should not underestimate the sincere attraction Scott-land still holds. We might call it misguided, or romantic, or even condescending, but we cannot doubt the genuine emotional contact and contract people can find with this vision, without ever visiting the rocks and soil place. At a greater distance we can appreciate Scott's singular influence while admitting its shortcomings. Benedict Anderson defined a nation, in an over-used quotation, as 'an imagined community,' and of all of its 'imagineers,' to use the Disney Corporation's word, Scott is Scotland's most successful and problematic. Scott-land is a hyper-real Scotland, untethered to geography, and it has allowed a sense of identity to persist through dramatic, painful and significant social, political and industrial changes. Since every identity is a form of construction, instead of pointlessly attempting to create a 'genuine' sense of Scottishness, it might be more sensible to accept that every incarnation, from the most naive patriotism to the most kitsch adoption, makes Scottishness stronger by making it more plural. Not being reductive is surely better than aiming at an impossible, unadulterated authenticity. We cannot control what others dream of us, nationally or individually."

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good fun. Scott has suffered one of the sharpest declines in literary reputation ever, from being the toast of Europe and Goethe's idol to being a joke (and a nice railway station).

Besides concocting the tartan myth for a royal pageant and anthologising Scots folk heroes, he was himself quite a novelistic man, for instance that time he worked himself to death to pay off his debts.

[Harish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott-land will stay in our memory forever.

[Nrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, quite, wrong about Margaret Oliphant, but challenging and thought provoking.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading about Walter Scott is more entertaining than reading Walter Scott. The bibliography could have been thorough like listing the Walter Scott knockoffs and parodies.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly enlightening but sometimes goes off on bizarre tangents about characters I have no knowledge of.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

blurb - His name, image and influence can be seen everywhere; from Scottish banknotes to place names across the globe. Sir Walter Scott invented the modern novel, began Scotland's tourist industry and was the first celebrity author - a heady mix of JK Rowling and Dan Brown long before the age of mass media hype. Lauded by contemporary critics as well as his massive readership in the 19th century, he's hardly read - and even more rarely enjoyed - today.


Stuart Kelly examines the contradictory legacy of Sir Walter Scott; bestselling bankrupt, iconic unknown and the Tory defender of the Union who fought to save Scotland's banking independence. Kelly considers the influential images of his own country created by Scott - the stereotype of the kilted native dwelling within rugged, romantic landscapes - images which haunt Scotland to this day.


Stuart Kelly was born and brought up in the Scottish Borders. He studied English at Oxford and is the Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday.


Reader: Robin Laing
Abridger: Laurence Wareing
Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 4, 12:30am Tuesday 17th August 2010
Duration:
18 minutes
Available until:
12:50am Tuesday 24th August 2010
Categories:
Factual, Life Stories, Drama
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

His name, image and influence can be seen everywhere; from Scottish banknotes to place names across the globe. Sir Walter Scott invented the modern novel, began Scotland's tourist industry and was the first celebrity author - a heady mix of JK Rowling and Dan Brown long before the age of mass media hype. Lauded by contemporary critics as well as his massive readership in the 19th century, he's hardly read - and even more rarely enjoyed - today.

Stuart Kelly examines the contradictory legacy of Sir Walter Scott; bestselling bankrupt, iconic unknown and the Tory defender of the Union who fought to save Scotland's banking independence. Kelly considers the influential images of his own country created by Scott - the stereotype of the kilted native dwelling within rugged, romantic landscapes - images which haunt Scotland to this day.

Stuart Kelly was born and brought up in the Scottish Borders. He studied English at Oxford and is the Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday.

Reader: Robin Laing
Abridger: Laurence Wareing
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect bedtime book because it is made up of essays on various themes relating to Scott and the way his novels influenced the way Scotland is viewed and how Scots feel about themselves. So you can choose any chapter, depending on how much you want to read. For my part, I was delighted by his gently humorous debunking of the entire Waverley genre of literature and enjoyed the author's panorama of Victorian sensibilities. Having never climbed up the Scott Monument, I must now make amends and haste me thither.