50th anniversary edition of a true modern classic.
‘Vividly depicted … sheer beauty’ OBSERVER
‘A masterpiece of simplicity’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A simple but noble book … this deserves to be read’ SCOTSMAN
‘When she rose in the morning the house at first seemed to be the same. The sun shone through the curtains of her window. On the floor it turned to minute particles like water dancing. Nevertheless, she felt uneasy …
What had the girl said? Something about the ‘burning of houses’. They just couldn’t put people out of their houses, and then burn the houses down. No one had ever heard of that before. Not in the country…’
In this modern classic, from one of Scotland’s greatest writers, CONSIDER THE LILIES captures the thoughts and memories of an old woman who has lived all her life within the narrow confines of her community during one of the cruellest episodes of Scottish history – the Highland Clearances.
‘Vividly depicted … sheer beauty’ OBSERVER
‘A masterpiece of simplicity’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A simple but noble book … this deserves to be read’ SCOTSMAN
‘When she rose in the morning the house at first seemed to be the same. The sun shone through the curtains of her window. On the floor it turned to minute particles like water dancing. Nevertheless, she felt uneasy …
What had the girl said? Something about the ‘burning of houses’. They just couldn’t put people out of their houses, and then burn the houses down. No one had ever heard of that before. Not in the country…’
In this modern classic, from one of Scotland’s greatest writers, CONSIDER THE LILIES captures the thoughts and memories of an old woman who has lived all her life within the narrow confines of her community during one of the cruellest episodes of Scottish history – the Highland Clearances.
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Reviews
Iain Crichton Smith was, and is, lovingly acknowledged as one of modern Scotland's foremost writers ... Reading Iain Crichton Smith - like the author's own compulsion to write - is a hungry addiction ... The book posits, with absolute subtlety, the need for a compassionate, rather than a dogmatic, understanding of human needs: a message that is surely as important now as it ever was.
A simple but noble book ... this deserves to be read
Crichton Smith has an acute feeling for places and atmosphere. The wind-blown heaths, the grey skies, the black dwellings, the narrow lives, the poverty - are all vividly depicted ... one can linger over the sheer beauty of his phrases
Restrained, finely wrought ... Crichton Smith shows us isolation, perplexity, loneliness, a combination of blindness and indifference
A masterpiece of simplicity
A profoundly human document, with a message for our own and future times