The Big Man. William McIlvanney

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      

      Also by William McIlvanney

      Fiction

       Remedy is None

       Gift from Nessus

       The Big Man

       Walking Wounded

       The Kiln

       Weekend

      The Detective Laidlaw trilogy

       Laidlaw

       The Papers of Tony Veitch

       Strange Loyalties

      Poetry

       The Longships in Harbour

       In Through the Head

       These Words: Weddings and After

      Non Fiction

       Shades of Grey – Glasgow 1956–1987, with Oscar Marzaroli

       Surviving the Shipwreck

      ‘A splendid and utterly convincing portrayal of Scottish working-class life’

       Stephen Glover, in the Daily Telegraph

      ‘An absorbing study of a man and the small economically depressed Scottish town that has formed him. At his best Mcllvanney digs deep and fruitfully into a class unconscious, into the way men dispossessed not only of jobs but of their belief in past or future, struggle to make – and unmake – their own heroes’

       Margaret Walters, in the Observer

      ‘His LAIDLAW thrillers brilliantly marry tension and acute observation with a style that would do justice to the best urban tradition. They’re his most successful books, but DOCHERTY and THE BIG MAN are no small achievements. His people are powerful creations, his dialogue a crisp slap in the face for defeat’

       Nick Kimberley, in City Limits

      ‘As so often his work surprises, jolts, impresses, THE BIG MAN is the work of a thoroughly intelligent and adult novelist writing at the height of his powers. (It is) the book that will make 1985 a pivotal year in our fiction . . . it tackles unemployment and its psychological wounds, and illuminates the roots and roles of violence in Scottish notions of manhood’

       Isobel Murray, in the Scotsman

      ‘A brilliant study, truly beautiful . . . Mcllvanney makes most of his contemporaries seem effete and ineffectual; a massively gifted, totally aware, compassionate writer’

       Bob Flynn, in New Musical Express

      ‘An exciting blend of violent action and perceptive character study’

       Glasgow Herald

      ‘When Mcllvanney allows his characters freedom in the lives he has created for them, THE BIG MAN succeeds both as moral drama and first-rate entertainment’

       James Campbell in The Times Literary Supplement

      ‘Brilliant... A commentary on the state of Scotland itself’

       Kevin Dunion, Radical Scotland

      THE BIG MAN

      William McIlvanney

      This edition published in Great Britain in 2014 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

      First published in Great Britain in 1985 by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

       Sceptre edition 1986

      Copyright © 1985 by William McIlvanney

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 78211 1955

       www.canongate.tv

      Contents

       One

       Two

       Three

       Four

       Five

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

      For Siobhàn

      What is a rebel? A man who

      says no: but whose refusal

      does not imply a renunciation.

      ALBERT CAMUS

ONE

      ‘Look,’ one of the three boys in a field said as the white Mercedes slid, silenced by distance, in and out of view along the road. The boy had bright red hair which the teachers at his school had learned to dread appearing in their classrooms for it meant mischief, a spark of social arson.

      ‘A shark. A great white.’

      His two companions looked where his finger pointed and caught the melodrama of the gesture. The one who was holding the greyhound said, ‘Kill, Craigie Boy, kill,’ and the big, brindled dog barked and lolloped on the leash. The red-haired boy started imitating the theme music from the film Jaws and the other two joined in. Their voices hurried to crescendo as they saw the car disappearing over the top of a hill.

      The car moved on under a sky where some cloud-racks looked like canyons leading to infinity and others were dissolving islands. There, floating in the air, were the dreams of some mad architect, wild, fantasticated structures that darkness would soon demolish. They were of a variousness you couldn’t number.

      ‘Five,’ the biggest man in the car said. He was called Billy Fleming. He spoke without expression. His face looked mean enough to grudge giving away a reaction.

      There СКАЧАТЬ