Why Sunset Song remains one of Scotland's greatest ever novels 90 years after author's death

NW

The first time I read Sunset Song, it broke my heart, and I haven’t quite been the same since.

Even now, just before writing this piece, I picked it up and read the lines near the end of the book that shattered me to my core all those years ago, to see if I still felt it, and I sobbed and sobbed.

Beautiful things always cause heartache, that’s what makes them beautiful.

And yet Sunset Song has endured, as Friday marks the 90th anniversary of the death of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, his work is as loved, and relevant as ever. BBC Scotland's 1971 film is being shown again in a re-mastered version to commemorate the anniversary.

There’s no mystery about why it’s still as popular in Scotland.

The book uses Scotland as its constant, the land, the beauty…it is ancient and everlasting.

It’s writing, language, setting, politics; it’s all a capsule of our culture and history.

It's about the people who work the land, who live in small communities, the everyday, ordinary people living in a turbulent and brutal world.

This book isn’t about people with power or control, but who still suffer the impact of decisions made by those who live miles, and lifetimes, away.

But winding through the book, like golden thread, is hope. A belief that just as loveliness doesn’t last, nor does cruelty and darkness. The sun will inevitably rise again.

And knowing that through this, we can choose our own path. We can choose who we will be, and how we face the world. We are never completely powerless, we have our own fate in our hands, and we can look to the earth, to the stone and to the sky to keep us still and our feet firm.

We can choose to be good, and to love, and to hope, and to believe that the future is worth it.

As a journalist, it can feel like bad news is relentless.

Pain and suffering cascading from every direction, and it’s so easy to feel like we are just spiralling out of control.

At these moments, almost 20 years after I first read it, Sunset Song is still where I turn. An emotional support book that I keep close by, and I know I’m not the only one.