FLECK
Alasdair Gray
The novelist Alasdair Gray was once known as a playwright. In 2007 he began writing a modern verse translation of Goethe’s Tragedy of Faust, and after the first act found the Devil lead the hero into a twenty-first century Goethe never imagined. This required a change of names, so the play is now Fleck, a comedy.
About the Author
Alasdair Gray is the author of many novels, short stories, plays, poems, pamphlets and works of literary criticism. He is also an accomplished artist who has painted many murals, and is the designer and illustrator of his own books as well as those of other writers. Gray's most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years. It is now regarded as a classic, and was described by The Guardian as "one of the landmarks of 20th-century fiction." His novel Poor Things (1992) won the Whitbread Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize.
Praise for Fleck
'Gray's representation of God sums up what makes this, another in a long list of Faust-inspired texts, worth a look. Gray's wry irreverence is in full and pungent flow. With a torture scene involving an episode of 'The Simpsons' and a speech interrupted by mobile phones, he achieves what he wants to by dragging Faust into the 21st century. It has lights and music and molls and liquor and, though it verges on the brassy cabaret side of things, in turning Faust the tragedy into Fleck the comedy, he succeeds in paying his own delirious, wholly un-Goethean tribute.'
Scotland on Sunday
For the full review, click here: http://living.scotsman.com/bookreviews/Book-review-Fleck-by-Alasdair. 4696838.jp
