Review
A Night out with Robert Burns: The Greatest Poems (Canongate)
A Man for A’ That
A collection made for reading, says Sean McMahon.
Robert Burns, unquestionably Scotland’s national poet, was born on 25 January 1759, so this year’s Burns Night was the 249th anniversary of his birth. This personal selection - beautifully presented by the impeccable Canongate - will be a fine preparation for the big 250th. O’Hagan has recently raised a toast to his subject in The Guardian and this selection, ‘made for the pleasure of reading’ as the blurb says, renders it a less daunting bedside book than the 555-page Poetical Works.
The categorisation into ‘The Lasses, ‘The Drinks’, ‘The Immortals’ and ‘The Politics’ adumbrates a rich if troubled life and the book contains nearly everyone’s favourites: ‘Tam O’ Shanter’ and ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’, the exquisite ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ and ‘The Silver Tassie’, the timorous mouse and the wandering louse. O’Hagan’s introductions to each of his selections are unobtrusively enlightening and he nudges us towards other sharper works that we may have missed. Yet as a Burns Night handbook it has one serious omission: not a word of the honest sonsie face of the great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race. There will be questions asked!
