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Article: No Great Mischief.
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- March 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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by Alistair MacLeod; Vintage, 2001, $21.95.
THIS WONDERFUL new novel has little plot as such. It is a meditation on love and loyalty, history and kinship. It works like a Celtic design or a Gaelic song, forever circling on itself and embroidering the same few motifs. It is true art because it transcends the grief which helps power it. It is beautiful beyond words, and vindicates a line by the Highland poet Ian Crichton Smith, who died recently: "There is fresh dew on the ballads."
All a reviewer can do is suggest the larger context in which the work has its meaning, and convey a bit of its flavour.
The friends and foes of the royal house of ...