Lovely color photos of Scotland with text that helps to give context to the historical significance of the site pictured. Chapters include "The Distant Past," "The Time of the Clans," "The Jacobite Risings" and the present day. Very pretty book.

I had the great fortune to meet George Mackay Brown while he was still alive, and the great MISfortune of not knowing what a great writer he was at the time. I was at Stromness in the Orkneys in October 1976 and had just come out of a bookstore where his picture was prominently displayed on the backs of several interesting books of poetry, essays, and fiction. I asked him, "Are you George Mackay Brown?" He smiled, answered, "I do not deny it," and walked on with his hands in his pockets.

Now that I have read several of his books and am continually scouring the world for more, I see this as one of the great missed opportunities of my life.

Who was Magnus? Saint Magnus was one of the great Earls of Orkney in the time when the Isles owed their fealty to the Kings of Norway. Those Viking raids that so terrified Europe all stopped off at Orkney for provisions before going off to pillage the Southrons. Into this maelstrom came a saintly Viking (if that isn't an oxymoron!) named Magnus, who was forced to share power with one of his kinsmen. The latter decided to grab it all, and had Magnus butchered under a flag of truce.

Brown takes episodes in Magnus's life and holds them up in the light to see how it reflects off their surfaces. In Magnus's death, he sees Auschwitz in one famous scene which many critics have disliked, but which I thought was brilliant. Somehow, it took a fellow Orcadian to see Magnus to his core; and Brown does it with majesty, lyricism, and love.

In Kirkwall stands the 12th Century cathedral of St Magnus. I am not sure but that George Mackay Brown, that wild lonely man, built a greater one in this book.

It is indeed difficult to believe that this book was not compiled by Brown himself, because its selection, structure and organization is ideal. This collection of Brown's writing captures GMB's spirit and artistry just as well or better than any of the work that he himself compiled. It is perhaps a better portrait of the poet than his own autobiography. The poet never seems quite comfortable writing about himself at any great length. This book presents Brown's life, family, influences and beloved Orkney as he experienced them. It is a glimpse inside his spirit in many ways. Brown offers commentary and stories that offer insight into his poetry (with the related poem included). There is a section on various Orkney characters (including his parents) that is extremely touching. Other sections include, writing about the months of the year, Orkney folktales and history as well as various episodes from Brown's life. It all forms a very coherent whole somehow, and paints a vivid picture of Brown and life in Orkney. Throughout Brown's writing is superb and his images are wondefully evocative. Oddly enough, this collection of largely unpublished work may be the best place for the uninitiated to eneter Brown's world. For those already familiar with Brown's writing, it is indispensible.

More superb poetry from GM Brown. This is actually a hardcover. It contains beautiful woodcuts for each of the poems. The poem cycle concerns a sea voyage. In the tradition of The Voyage of Brendan, Jason and the Argonauts or The Vinland Sagas, these poems resound with a timelessness and a placelessness that places them in any culture at any time. Brown's poetic skill has infused these poems with magic. Are we hearing this story around a fire in Brown's medieval Orkney or are we seeing a retelling of The Perfect Storm? In Brown's mind the two stories are part of the same fabric. And he fashions this fabric into complex and beautiful patterns in these poems. Brown captures the eternity that the Sea represents and shows its links with humanity. The perfect gift for that poetic fisherman in your life. Highly recommended.

The first half of this novel is completely engrossing. Young Thorfinn Ragnar takes occurences from his everyday life and from these common threads weaves beautiful stories in his imagination. Of course, no one in the real world realizes the importance of these dreams, or how gifted Thorfinn is at weaving tales, and therefore he is dismissed as an "idle, useless boy." In the second half of the book, the story takes place in the real world, abandoning the accounts of Thorfinn's imaginary worlds, and it is here that the novel loses a bit of its charm. The novel is still a beautifully-written novel, and I'm very glad I had the chance to read it.

George Mackay Brown placed an "idle, worthless child" in a boat to look at Time and mold and meld it with his young eyes. Thorfinn Ragnarson is the boy that sails in and out of his own world of Norday in the Orkney Islands of the 1930's. He takes the people of Norday and travels with them into ancestral pasts that far outstrip their solid, predictable day to day lives. When old Jacob Olafson dies, Thorfinn stops at the kirkyard on his way home from school. The Old Testament words, heard just the day before, ring with the gravediggers spade: "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." and Thorfinn builds a life for this old man. He brings baby Jacob across the sea to Norday, sees Jacob the young man board the Hudson's Bay ship, Windward, to journey to the "land of Eskimos and Indians" and return in ten years with an Indian wife. Real time runs its thread of laughter, solid Orkney logic and unexpected colour in the persons of Isa Esquoy, the small, constantly squeaking postmistress-storekeeper, Albert Laird, the joiner who crafts cradles and coffins, Mr. Simon, the droning, long-suffering schoolmaster and the Reverend Hector Drummond, a somewhat muddled minister whose mystery visitor, Sophie, appears in the homes of solitary folks and leaves a trail of laughter and love. Thorfinn, the adolescent, is stricken with an un-dying love for Sophie which surfaces only after the fields, barns and livlihoods of Norday are smothered under the necessary adjustments of war. Before that war, Thorfinn, the young man, still a solitary creature, had conjured the seal-people and spun love, marriage and dream-children from the sounds and silences of the sea. We thank you, George Mackay Brown, for those brief voyages that are the lives of men and for the whispers of melody from that "music that goes on and on, all the way from before the beginning till after the end."

This novel indicates how much Brown was a master of language and imagery. He is equally effective at capturing magical flights of fancy and the ceaseless destruction of modern society. The tension between modern society and the traditional community has a global relevance that makes the story universal. The story would be just as poignant in Africa as it is in Brown's Orkney. A truly remarkable work that well deserved being Shortlisted for the Booker prize

I bought this book on a whim, expecting intrepid and swashbuckling escapism. What I discovered was something quite different, but no less enthralling for that and I feel that Vinland will surely leave a more lasting impression on every reader than most conventional historic adventures. George Mackay Brown has written a saga in the traditional scandinavian style. The usual characterisation and prosaic descriptions are kept to a minimum. The personae speak to us almost entirely through their deeds. The saga unfolds around the life of Ranald Sigmundson who, as a boy and young man is priviledged to have a surfeit of adventure, journeying with Leif Ericsson on his epic voyage to the New World, meeting with kings and fighting in history-changing battles. As maturity sets in, Ranald turns his back on such matters and, echoing Voltaire's "il faut cultiver notre jardin", settles down to life as a farmer. Ranald's increasingly reclusive and ascetic lifestyle is in stark contrast to the violent acts engendered by the ruthless power struggle of earls and kings around him. Like the eye of the hurricane, Ranald finds fulfillment through his lone meditations. Yet, in so doing, has Ranald chosen the coward's way out in running from worldly things, including distancing himself from his beloved family? This book will make you question your personal values, the path you have chosen through life and will make you face your own mortality. The elegiaic and poetic conclusion is deeply moving and will stay with the reader for a long time.

I too failed to find GMB in his autobiography, and I had read some of his fiction and poetry first. Reading this book you learn of some things that happened to GMB, but you never end up feeling like you got to know the man at all. His style of writing in this autobiography is consistent with his style of writing fiction, but it's less satisfying in the context of autobiography.

I could not with any certainty find Brown in these pages. Having never read his poems, stories, or novels, I didn't have any preconceived notion for whom I was looking. But I think I only got fleeting glimpses, and I am not sure of whom. I know I didn't find Orcadians, for whom I was definitely looking. So I will try a book of his verse, a collection of stories, and a novel. If I don't, I will be left with the impression of a somewhat self-absorbed, more than somewhat lazy, bit more than average talent.

GM Brown did not wish this book to be published until after his death. The book makes it clear that he was a person who did not like to talk about himself. He was a self-effacing and extremely humble genius. I am not suprised that several readers had trouble finding Brown here. Brown sought most of all to be a member of his community in Stromness. He was a writer by trade as others were fishermen or cobblers. Brown's observations on life in Orkney and the cycles of History are what make this book so rewarding. Readers looking for heavy self-exploration or a confessional type work will be dissappointed. As was the reader looking for a description of Orkney life. This is Brown's life and observances and influences laid out for those of us who love his work. I, for one enjoyed being able to hear Brown's reminiscences and ideas. This is wonderful reading and necessary for those who want added insight into Brown's work and philosophy. Honest, humble and powerful. A fitting final work from one of the 20th century's greatest writers.