When They Lay Bare by Greig, Andrew (2001) Paperback

by Andrew Greig

- See more novel of obsession, passion and death occupies the borderlands between the supernatural novels of Scott, Hogg and Stevenson, and the psychological novels of Rendall and Highsmith.An unknown woman walks out of a border mist with an old satchel over her shoulder. Spied on by the factor of the estate, she enters a cottage that has been locked and empty for more than twenty years since the violent deaths of its previous inhabitants. The woman, who will claim to be the daughter of the dead couple, is carrying a set of antique plates that tell the story of adultery, betrayal and murder implicit in the most famous of the sixteenth century Border The Twa Corbies. She believes these plates can tell her the truth both about what happened here in the past and what she is to do now. Who is this powerful woman intent on revenge? It is possible she doesn't know the truth about herself as she works to ensnare the son and heir of the estate, break the factor to her will, seduce the young man's fiancee, and harry the estate owner, Sim Elliot to an early death. This novel's genius is to marry the atmosphere of the Border Ballads - stark, poetic and timeless - with a story at once ancient and contemporary, told through the highly charged and erotic Corbie Plates. Written in prose of extraordinary power and beauty, When They Lay Bare is a gripping, dreamlike narrative, at the heart of which is a burning love story and mystery.- See more

Genres: Scotland, Fiction

Paperback

First published April 17, 2000

About the author

Andrew Greig is a Scottish writer who grew up in Anstruther, Fife. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He lives in Orkney and Edinburgh and is married to author Lesley Glaister.

Reviews

[Ruth Fowler · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an effort. The author gets points, I guess, for taking a relatively straightforward story line and telling it in the most convoluted, thick way possible. Here we have a story told from at least five angles. The point of view changed rapidly, with only extra-large gaps between the paragraphs, and often jumped to the past. You just had to go by the voice or opening details to figure out who was talking and where we were in time. The author decided that quotation marks weren't necessary, which didn't help. (This is a pet peeve of mine, and I groaned when I discovered this fact, thinking of Nadine Gordimer.) It also didn't help that one of the characters "spoke" in Scots, forcing me to use my best guess to figure out what he was saying. There were objects that had significance, but by the end of the book, I still wasn't sure of their actual importance or history. At the end, I could more or less put the whole story together, but wished I hadn't had to work so hard and couldn't help but wonder if it couldn't have been told in a more approachable way. The characters were all unique and several had their own agendas, contributing to the fullness of the tale, but I came away not caring about any of them.

[Sarah Magee]

Loved this book. Beautifully written - very poetic. Very atmospheric and threatening. And quite strange!

[Jack Deighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much enduring literature is about love, sex and death. Greig is good on all three, especially love and its tragedies. In When They Lay Bare David Elliott comes to the family home to show off to his father, Simon, his intended. Meanwhile a strange woman has moved into a cottage on the estate. In David’s childhood Simon had had an affair with Jinny Lauder - for whose death he had been tried for murder, and found not proven. The shadow of those events lies over the book, as, since it is set in those same debatable lands Greig would return to in Fair Helen (but here we are in the twentieth century,) does the history of the borders. Border Ballads are frequently quoted and the book’s epigram is an extract from The Twa Corbies. Throughout Greig does not separate off direct speech by quotation marks but this is never a problem to decipher.


The novel has a central conceit wherein the story is foreshadowed by the descriptions of illustrations on a set of eight plates belonging to the woman in the cottage who at first gives her name as Mary Allan but then says she is Jinny’s daughter, Marnie. The eight sections into which the novel is divided are designated as Plate 1, Plate 2 etc – though 4 and 5 are titled Lover’s Plates (Rose and Red respectively.) These descriptions are rendered in italics. The rest of the narration is carried from the viewpoints of David, Marnie, Simon (from whom we learn the details of his doomed affair with Jinny, a grand passion indeed) and his factotum Tat, a voyeur in his youth whose evidence was crucial to the verdict and who leveraged his knowledge into gaining his position on the Elliott estate. Tat’s narration is littered with Scots words and phrases, as is Simon’s but to a much lesser extent.

Marnie is one of those women whom Greig draws so well. She often alludes to Spook, her word for manifestations of sixth sense, a phenomenon not at odds with Borders history (though in that regard the appearance of Jinny to Tat at the novel’s crux was perhaps a step too far.) Important, too, is a precarious bridge over the Liddie Burn, the scene of one of those Border tales from times past.

Marnie is the heart of the book, the driving force of its motor, the hinge around which the other characters revolve - though Jinny’s actions and her motivations for them are almost as influential - but the most Greigian of sentiments is voiced by David, “Sin and sex make us glow like coals in the dark. That’s why we do it. To burn.” One of the reasons we read novels is to experience that burn, if only at second hand.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beim zweiten Lesen bin ich der Meinung, dass das Buch nicht hierher gehört. Das zentrale Thema ist zwar der Tod Jinnys in der Vergangenheit, aber hauptsächlich deswegen, was es mit den Menschen in der Gegenwart macht. Deshalb würde ich das Buch jetzt eher bei Unterhaltungsliteratur oder Zeitgenössisches einordnen.

Die Geschichte beginnt mit einer jungen Frau, die ein verlassenes Cottage besetzt. Ihre Ankunft bringt das Leben auf dem Landsitz durcheinander, denn sie weckt Ereignisse aus der Vergangenheit wieder auf. Vor Jahren kam die Geliebte des Gutsherrn ums Leben, als sie von einer Klippe stürzte. Manche vermuten, dass er sie gestoßen hat.

Andrew Greig kommt mit wenigen Personen aus: dem Gutsbesitzer, seinem Sohn, seinen beiden Angestellten und der jungen Frau. Jeder erzählt seine Geschichte und seine Sicht der Dinge. Ereignisse in der Gegenwart rühren Erinnerungen aus der Vergangenheit wieder auf. Manchmal war es nicht ganz klar, wessen Gedanken und Erinnerungen ich gerade lese. Das hat dazu geführt, dass die Vergangenheit nie vollständig aufgeklärt wurde.

Ich konnte mich noch daran erinnern, dass ich den Schluss damals ungewöhnlich fand und mich gewundert, warum das Buch trotzdem die volle Punktzahl bekommen hat. Aber als ich die letzten Seiten gelesen habe, ist es mir wieder eingefallen.

[Isobella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written book that explores really complex themes. Very gripping, complex and evocative. Keeps you hooked. Struggled to work through some of the Scottish slang and language but after a few chapters I got the hang of it. My biggest issue with this book is that it lacks a meaningful plot. Perhaps I just misunderstood or missed something but whilst the ending was interesting I didn’t really understand it. I’m not sure why what happened, happened. I felt there wasn’t enough closure around the main mystery for the main characters and to me it made the ending feel unusual and a bit nonsensical. Beautiful writing though the author has a knack for words just wish I understood the plot a little better.

[Thalya Pateridis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much harder read than I thought, mostly because the author switches characters often and without tells of who is speaking, so the beginning of the book was hard to follow but somewhere before the middle it became easier to figure out and the story really blossomed.


Here are some of my fav quotes:

She thinks a counsellor once told her she had a weak sense of reality, but that’s so wrong. She has too strong a sense of too many realities.

You know desire isn’t wrong, only very very painful.

There comes a time to grown up. That means turning our backs on all the doors we haven’t gone through and never will. To make that decision and live with it, he says, takes courage.

[Frances Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book, does all that a modern clever literary novel should do, as it jumps frequently between narrators, telling the story through thoughts rather than dialogue, can't complain, though I wouldn't mind if this trend came to an end. I admired its cleverness, and the writing, but I disliked Marnie, and I suspect the aim of the book was to make her the character we sympathised with. So I found the ending hard. I can't not give it four stars as it is a well written book, and if I don't like the character who's side I'm supposed to be on that must be my fault, surely?

I will almost certainly try another book by Andrew Greig, and hope I sympathise more with his hero next time.

[Ik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get into the story, even though I finished the book. The writing style creates a distance between the reader and the story. You're not experiencing the events in the book; you're not even watching from the sideline. You're just being told about it.

[Carol Aldred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but a bit samey with his first book Electric Brae.
Couldn't find the same empathy for these characters and realised the twist too early on the book

[Louloune · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bit hard to get into especially the passages in scot english . but once you're hooked ,that's it . tok me a while to read it .i suppose i'll give another try sometimes in the future .

[Berta Kleiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems to me, the author did not have a story to tell

[Sophie Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful tale of love but odd in a very convoluted way. Beautifully written and could imagine how it all looked and how the characters were as well

[Sarapepparkaka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of mysteries. I had a lovely time trying to figure out the connections, and the story. It's set in the Borders region, and part of the story is the borders between the past and the present. Another part is a set of 8 old plates, and the woman who owns them now. A third part of the story is a father and a son and their relationship. I tried not to read too fast, but eventually I did read the last of the book.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure its an excellent, well written, book enjoyed by many people. Its just not for me and after several weeks of plodding along I gave up on it. Maybe its the convoluted plot or the slow pace I'm not sure. Some of the descriptive writing (up to page 121 where I stopped) is superb, and I learnt some new scots words as well.I feel slightly guilty only giving it 3*** but I don't see how I can give any more to a book I can't finish.

[Harry Burnside · Rating 1 out of 5]

So glad it is over. I found it a very hard read. Once again I see a book given an average rating of 3.77 and so I must conclude that I just didn't get it. I didn't find the use of the plates to enlighten me as to the moral of the story.
I also found it disconcerting that the author decided to use the Joyceian method of writing by not using quotation marks, however the lack of them does not an 'Ulysses' make.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this quite a few years ago and loved it. Reading it again I was totally involved. Needs a bit of work to assemble all the different voices and points of view - but once you settle into that it's all absorbing. So much that I've found our copy of Electric Brae to read (or re-read as I can't remember if I've read it before) a bit later this year.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utterly engaging. Set in atmospheric Scottish Borders. Young adults haunted by what they do and don't know of lives of their parents and the ways of the Borderers centuries back. I read the book quickly, but once finished felt compelled to start it again - somehow to get the most out of it and pick up on the complexities. A story that lingers in one's memory.

[Georgina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense poetic writing that takes persistence to attune to. Having been able to proceed with reading each packed sentence only once, the narrative was complex, but intriguing. The denoument was a powerful twist, but not fully satisfying.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd read this once before, had an impression of enjoying a tale concerning a cottage and plates but remembered little else. This time, therefore, the story came to me as new and full of twisty tension, which delivered more than the anticipated kick.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense and poetic.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to find his books in US. Great reads.

[NatalyaVqs]

rec by diana gabaldon

[Kay Robart · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018...