2 - The Fruits of Bitterness: The Grey Coast and The Lost Glen

Summary

When Gunn's first novel, The Grey Coast, appeared in 1926 from Jonathan Cape, it was praised, by those who chose to notice the book, mainly for its ‘realism’.

The first few paragraphs show clearly enough that realism was indeed the initial intention of the writer:

Before she called her uncle to tea, she had drawn the cheap slip of window-curtain to one side, so that the last of the daylight might be made use of and paraffin saved. Now as her uncle pushed back his plate and cup, and sucked at a tooth, and cleared his throat, saying ‘Ha!’ and ‘Huhuh!’ in husky, replete grunts, she observed through the darkening a figure enter by the slap in the dyke at the foot of the potato patch. Her features stiffened perceptibly.

But her uncle's quick, crafty eyes did not fail to catch that look, that stiffening expression, and twisting his wizened neck he peered blinkingly through the window.

‘Is that someone coming, Maggie?’

‘Ay,’ she said laconically, for his long vision was as good as her own. (GC 7)

These few sentences are rich in information, the subtlety concealed by clarity of diction, as if such directness must be without guile. But it isn't. Without the need for description or explanation we sense the claustrophobic atmosphere of the household. We know without being told that there is no openness between the old man and the young girl. Each attempts to conceal from the other both intentions and reactions to events. Maggie is reticent, Jeems is sly. Their knowledge of the other's stratagems is acute but never put into words. On Maggie's part, this is a defensive ploy. On the part of Uncle Jeems, deviousness, secrecy and manipulation give him what satisfaction he can extract from his declining years.

We learn, too, that they live close to poverty – the cheap slip of curtain, the need to save paraffin; we sense Maggie's concealed revulsion at her uncle's deliberate uncouthness; we know that she recognizes the visitor, who is unwelcome, and that Jeems knows this, and relishes it.

We gather subliminally that they receive few visitors, but this one is only too regular a tapper on the door; and more than that, we read between the lines Maggie's fear of being caught in a trap from which she cannot escape. Altogether it is a passage of considerable accomplishment.