Tales of the cities
Edinburgh-based architect Malcolm Fraser and Glasgow-based novelist Zoé Strachan share their favourite City Stories with Allan Radcliffe.
yer since lidinburgh was
awarded the permanent title
‘l'Xl-LS(‘() Literature. in October 2004. the Usual assortment of sniping Scots cringers have been queuing tip to protest that the honour is little more than a meaningless epithet. of no practical advantage to the wider public. This .luly provides clear recourse to such nay sayings. as the inundation presents two exciting free events. in which well-knoer figures from the arts world delve into the relationship between cities and literature.
(‘ity Stories. presented in association with The List. which takes place at the National Library of Scotland on \Vc‘d l‘) July. brings together Stirling Pri/e finalist and 2003 Scottish .-\rchitect of the Year. Malcolm l5r'ascr. and award- winning novelist. Zoe Strachan. to argue the case for their favourite writings about cities.
l‘or l‘raser. long associated with the capital for his work on Dance Base. the Scottish Poetry Library and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. the event is an oppomrnity to move sideways from books about architecture in lidinburgh. 'I wanted to look at books that made me think about the nature of place..
8 THE LIST clue-'5 Ja
('ity of
he says. ‘The best literature. like Alasdair (iray's Lanark. gives its setting an imaginative life well beyond its conventional portrayal. \Vith Lanark. (iray was concerned that (ilasgow hadn‘t taken flight in the way other places had. so he came up with an astonishing piece of artistic invention. a great spark ofelectricity.’
Strachan is fascinated by the duality of cities in literature. 'A city can be a place where you‘re constantly being jostled by characters and their stories.‘ she says. ‘as in the New York Truman (‘apote captures so wonderfully in his 'I‘ravel Sketches. ('ities take on a different texture when they‘re filtered through memory. like Muriel Spark‘s recollections of her lidinburgh childhood in (‘urriculum Vitae. where her first awareness of poor men and women nudges against a cosy world of the Buttercup Dairy (‘ompany and five o‘clock tea. liqually. they can be lonely and desperate places. like the dreadfully bleak ()slo (Kristiania) where Knut Himsth narrator tries to pawn his buttons to buy food. in Hunger.~
For Fraser. Louis Aragon's Paris Peasants was a particularly formative text. ‘I came across this book when l was studying. l w as not particularly
' 1""
interested in architecture. but I was very interested in politics. and Aragon‘s weaving of the city of Paris with the lives of her citizens helped me realise that these were not separate things.‘
Strachan also acknowledges the influence of the city on her own work. 'l‘m fascinated by the awkward interface between the individual and the urban mass. Nowhere’s as anonymous as a city: they‘re the easiest places to become isolated. In my novel Negative Space. I wanted to contrast that atmosphere with somewhere geographically isolated (Orkney). a place of history and nature and continuity. And Spin Cycle wasn‘t meant to be specifically about (ilasgow at all. but the city has too forceful a personality to ignore. It elbowed its way in. bringing its history with it. until I embraced it with open arms.‘
This lively. interactive session is preceded on Tuesday 18 July by City Ideas. in which novelist and critic James Buchan. discusses Edinburgh's glory days as the centre of the Enlightenment.
Both events are free, but ticketed. Call 0131 623 3845 or email eventanlsmk.
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