Poor Things, Rich Adaptation? Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel & Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film
28 May, 6–7:30pm CEST (5–6:30 BST)
Free online
Dietmar Böhnke will assess what is arguably the highest-profile #adaptation of a #Scottish novel since TRAINSPOTTING (1996) – & will touch on Gray’s works & reputation more generally, including a #film script he wrote for #PoorThings in 1993…
“As Yorgos Lanthimos’ film adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel POOR THINGS has received not only rave reviews but numerous accolades, including four Oscars, it’s the perfect time to look at the source material. This is not a comparison between the two but rather a chance to give those who don’t know the novel an idea of what to expect, and of what makes it exceptional.”
Mazin Saleem’s Ode to Alasdair Gray’s Lesser-Known, Equally Deserving Books, Including a Gargantuan Retelling of the History of English Literature & a Bowdlerization of The Divine Comedy
INTERVIEWER: When somebody asks you to describe your book LANARK, what do you say to them?
ALASDAIR GRAY: I say it is a Scottish petit bourgeois model of the universe.
INTERVIEWER: Just like that?
ALASDAIR GRAY: Yes, I’ve rehearsed it and honed it down to as few words as possible.
From 25 Feb 2021 – the first ever #GrayDay, marking the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Alasdair Gray’s novel LANARK
“LANARK is a book about many things but one of the things it is most about is fantasy and its relationship with reality […] what is an artist but someone who weaves fantasy into the fabric of reality?”
Stephen Durkan reflects on Alasdair Gray’s first novel
In 1984, Anthony Burgess published NINETY-NINE NOVELS, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, & shows the breadth of Burgess’s interest in fiction. This podcast episode explores Alasdair Gray’s LANARK with writer & biographer Rodge Glass.
The Woefully Neglected (and Partially Unfilmable) Creations of Alasdair Gray
“Novels narrated in the first-person or in the third- can have those choices rendered cinematically […]. But Gray used endnotes, illustrations, typography, plagiarism, self-reference, and the layout of the page to further his plots, to deepen his diegesis, and to make us laugh.”
“The film is based on the 1992 novel of the same name by the Glaswegian Alasdair Gray. […] Like watching Lanthimos’s gorgeous spectacle, reading Gray is a wild & unsettling ride. His work is full of progressive imagination, wry impropriety & intricate literary form.”
Discover Alasdair Gray – the radical Scottish polymath & author of POOR THINGS
“There is a great deal of ambiguous truth-telling in POOR THINGS and many conflicting narratives. Poor Things: A Novel Guide explores these contradictions and unmasks the city, people, places, and politics of Poor Things which makes the novel so distinctly ‘Gray’ and a uniquely Glasgow story.”
In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. This podcast by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation explores the novels on Burgess’s list with the help of writers, critics & other special guests.
This episode explores Alasdair Gray’s LANARK with writer & biographer Rodge Glass.