How well Mackay Brown predicts the gray wash that pervades all of human life these days - the beginnings noted in the 1960s and now making us all the same - dreary and homogenous. A really interesting autobiography. ( )

This is one of the best autobiographies that I have ever read. George Mackay Brown turns upon its head, the usual biography. You know the kind of thing, two pages cover the family history, another two childhood; perhaps as much as a chapter about the struggle and then, a smothering mass of detail about the famous career. George (No, I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but if one has read this, one seems to become a bosom friend) goes into detail about his family, his youth and the events and emotions which lead to his poetic style.

He is the most self effacing autobiographer that I think that I have read; in another hand, this could become a tedious attempt for a sympathy vote. Mackay Brown simply tells it as he remembers life. He takes responsibility for all his faults and gives thanks for his virtues. He is quick to give thanks to those who helped him to achieve his position and slow to review any slights that he must, inevitably, have suffered along the way. He was obviously a very generous man.

The style of writing is also quite beautiful: one could miss out all the references to poetry and still know that this man was a poet. Each word is carefully chosen to be, not just an approximation of what the author wishes to say, but is the only suitable word. Again, in so many hands, this would come across as 'arty', not here, it reads as a beautifully crafted history of a thoroughly decent, and talented, chap. Highly recommended!!! ( )