Rebel against Calvinism

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 20

Rebel against Calvinism

The Albannach. By Fionn Mac Colla. Souvenir Press, 1984. 336 pp. $17.50 (paperback). (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) The first appearance of “The Albannach” in 1932 began a trend in Scottish writing: that of showing life in the Highlands as it really . was, untouched by the romanticism which had suffused previous .writing about Gaelic life. It is a powerful and moving novel, born out of the author’s anger at the repressive and negative effect of Scottish Calvinism on the isolated communities in the north of Scotland. Fionn MacColla is the pen name of Thomas Joseph Douglas McDonald, who was born in 1906 of Highland stock and worked as a teacher in Palestine, ■ the Highlands of Scotland, and lastly in Edinburgh until his death in 1975. “The Albannach” and “The Cock Crew” were the only novels he published in his lifetime (though he left others, and an autobiography, in manuscript). “The Cock Crew” deals with the terrible time of the Clearances, but “The Albannach” has a simpler, yet no less meaningful theme. Murdo Anderson, brought up in a small, hidebound community, severely ruled by the minister and elders of the Free Presbyterian Church, escapes briefly to

Glasgow University, but is forced by circumstances to return to the place which seems to him the negation of all life, poetry and song. He reacts’ at first with a selfprotective numbness, and then with despair, until he suddenly realises that 6, he himself can say yes to life. His changed attitude and ; actions regenerate a dying community. The novel is alive with the author’s (and Murdo’s) love of the landscape of his native land, with his delight in the variety of human appearance and behaviour, and with his joy in the reawakening of the Gaelic spirit. There are flaws in the novel, most notably when one sees the author manipulating his characters to express his theme, or when he becomes carried away in long purple patches of descriptive prose. One could wish also that McDonald’s hatred of repressive Calvinism in the Highlands had not led him to the extreme position that there is no good at all in any form of Reformed Protestantism. However, the other side of his blind hatred of this “life-negating and culture-destroying religion” is the vitality of McDonald’s writing and the celebration of poetry, music, friendship, and nature which make this novel memorable.