Latest news with #MichaelPedersen
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review – anything can happen on this remote Scottish island
Often thought of as the northernmost point of the British Isles, the Scottish island Muckle Flugga lies on the outer reaches of the Shetland archipelago. Norse legend has it that this craggy and almost uninhabitable place was created by two warring giants, obsessed with the same mermaid. While throwing boulders at each other, one of the rivalrous giants' missiles accidentally plopped into the sea: and so the island was born. A version of this mythic tussle is central to Michael Pedersen's debut novel. When the narrative opens, delivered in a lively present tense sprinkled with Scots, The Father and his 19-year-old son Ouse are the only residents on the island. The Father mans Muckle's lighthouse, and is as volatile as the waves he illuminates. A gossip from a neighbouring island describes him as irascible, with 'a viper in his throat and … a broken soldier's thirst for whisky'. Ouse, meanwhile, is 'a queer sort' 'who sounds as if he's been sooking helium out of party balloons … always staring off into the distance'. He's famed in the area for being an 'artiste', a dab hand at needlework with a reputation for producing beautiful handmade textiles. What unites father and son is that they take their stewardship of the island seriously. They are devoted to the extraordinarily various wildlife – puffins, gannets, sea otters, peacock butterflies – and hypnotised by the thrillingly chimeric weather. Unspoken grief for The Mother, who drowned two years before the story begins, also binds the two together. The Father assumes his only heir will eventually take over the family business. Enter Firth, a foppish twentysomething failed writer from Edinburgh with griefs of his own. Racked with self-loathing, he has vowed to kill himself after fulfilling a promise: to visit the enchanted isle of Muckle Flugga, much loved by his late grandfather. Almost as soon as he arrives, Firth is entranced by Ouse's mercurial demeanour, as he parses landscapes and seascapes alien to Firth's urban eyes. Firth is struck, too, by the blazing potential of Ouse's artistic talent. He wants to whisk him away to the mainland and make him a star. Thus begins the tug of war for Ouse's allegiance: The Father, familiarity and tradition yank one way, but Firth, possibility and the seductive unknown pull just as hard. This perhaps presents the plot as neat and fairly recognisable: a narrative of masculine archetypes vying for one-upmanship, with notes of The Tempest. But Pedersen introduces wild cards – spooky visions of religious zealots, a pumpkin-punching contest – that emphasise the strangeness of this remote place, so far away from the norms of the mainland that anything might be possible. Significant among these zany additions is the ghost of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson – who came from a family of lighthouse engineers – acts as imaginary friend and confidant to Ouse. He counsels Ouse for his maternal loss and guides him through the decision about where his future might lie. Pedersen threads the apparition's dialogue with aphorisms from the real Stevenson's work and correspondence. The novel's most memorable feature, and perhaps most potentially divisive one, is its loudness. The characterisation of the villainous but vulnerable father, of the hapless city type and of the ethereal innocent is bold and broad – sometimes cartoonish. The setting, rich with images of the aurora borealis and storm-lashed shores, is almost psychedelic. But the narrative voice is loudest of all: constantly baroque, with the linguistic and emotional dials turned up high. Firth receives an unexpected letter, and the missive is 'a Pandora's box, a bete noire, a curse, a lifeline, an arch nemesis, a fairy godmother … a gift from the gods'. A flurry of snow after an exchange between the protagonists is 'a divine offering, the impetus for reconciliation under the auspices of a natural phenomenon'. Pedersen is known as a poet, and his wonder at the magic of language is evident in this self-consciously high style. In places, the linguistic busyness occludes the plot's more interesting undertones: the queer desire between Ouse and Firth, considerations about our place in and responsibilities to the natural world. But there is, ultimately, something immensely charming about this novel. It is weird, rambunctious and repeatedly demands the reader surrender to its particular wildness. Its generosity of spirit, its unrestrained warmth and humour – the brilliantly kinetic description of a surprise ceilidh is a case in point – steadily worked away at my scepticism. Like Ouse's flamboyant designs, inspired by the spectacular landscape around him, it is 'garishly alive'. Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen is published by Faber (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Herald Scotland
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The 'Great Edinburgh poem': a makar's search for the heart of a city
The first firecracker in my inbox was a commission to write what could be termed my 'Great Edinburgh Poem'. A daunting task at the best of times. Season into that, this commission coming from Edinburgh City of Lit to mark their 20 year anniversary as the world's first UNESCO City of Literature. Lurking in the undertow, an even more grandiose celebration that called for some poetic cap-doffing – that being Edinburgh's turning 900-years-old as a city full stop. Having grown up in the Portobello area of Edinburgh, and also serving as the Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University, the stakes were immediately set high. Read more in our series The Future of Edinburgh: Edinburgh is a complex beast, abstruse and arcane, hidden Closes and summer rain. I love it, it hurts me, I'm so, so grateful to have been wombed and raised here. All the same, it's a risky pursuit, there's no way of my poem ever being everything to everyone. My idea was to quest off on a safari to track down where the Edinburgh's heart might be cooring down – places that chimed and chirruped for me came reeking in younger years nostalgia, alongside them sat some of the more trophistic symbols of the city. My list includes: The Portobello Bookshop, The Mosque Kitchen, Sampson's Ribs, The Sheep Heid Inn Skittle Alley, Jack Kane Sport Centre, National Library of Scotland, and, yup, Edina Castle. In the end, it came back to people, that is Edinburgh for me – the denizens who dwell here: whether generations deep or in their city-living infancy. I'd always wanted to write a poem that dissolved into a list of names of many people I love. And so I did. In order to amplify that multi-authored, multi-perspective, global vibe, we enlisted a gaggle of Edinburgh College of Art animators, from 12 plus different countries, to respond to sections of the poem. Together they brewed a stunning fandango of a film, widening the narration and the lens. Upon its grand unveiling, amongst the deluge of soppy sentiments, applause, and zealous plaudits there was, of course, a few cries of 'drivel' and 'talentless to compared to X', but perhaps that's as it should be (another canny demonstration of Edina's rich vagaries). I should say, all the more gnarly comments were on Twitter/X, and I've since left. Michael Pedersen (Image: Shaun Murawki) For Edinburgh International Book Festival moving into his new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute – the former Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion and Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh – I wrote a piece entitled Wards on the Wards. This was a tribute to my lovely mum, who had trained as a maternity nurse on these very corridors in her late teens/early twenties. In order to assist, she rushed off to retrieve her nurse's notebooks containing the names of all the babies she cared for during her last few shifts there – annotations of jaundice, broken hips, mucus-filled lungs, and blue babies, haunting the healthier crop of younglings she helped into the word. The poem issues a sizeable swoon at her doing so much so young, nerves wringing and left alone to save these baby lives. Wow. It ends with a meditation on my mum growing older and the hefty task of keeping up the work the garden takes to reach full bloom; this becoming more gruelling as her body ages. It meant a lot to her, I'm so chuffed to have been able to conjure it. Shortly after this my mum was diagnosed with cancer, it became a lot very fast, all-consuming, and though she's now recovering well there's still hurdles ahead, and we had to have those life-altering chats about the worse-case scenario. I am carrying these sentiments with me into a forthcoming commission for Edinburgh University's Medical School turning 300-years-old next year, paying tribute to all the young doctors and nurses they've propelled off into the world, especially those that volley towards our NHS. What a gift. Another commission that reverberated through me when approached was to sculpt something for the Samaritans. I was privileged to write a poem about reaching out for hope in times of despair – flares of light cast into the gathering dark. I think of lighthouses flinging out their beams to offer courage and safety to rope the way home. Edinburgh bridges are as robust and beautiful as they are eerie and dangerous. This commission would help catapult their new tartan range, SamariTartan, out into the world. Of course, I think of the cherished friend I lost, Scott Hutchison, in crafting these words. The gargantuan absence his leaving flings across this city in which our friendship was born and burgeoned. Edinburgh is full of ghosts, we carry the anchors of our greatest losses into even the happiest of moments. Yet, trilling above the loss, this city feels thronging with the spectres of magical memories, the splendour of the past – that's what Scott really is to me (warm and wonderous). Reflecting on Edinburgh, Neu! Reekie! comes fast to mind, the lustre we fomented here, over ten plus years of unfurling literary events upon the city. I co-founded Neu! Reekie! with Rebel Inc's Kevin Williamson, and down the line we were joined by photographer, Kat Gollock, and music-maker/FiniTribe diva, Davie Miller. Together we hosted hundreds of arts extravaganzas curating take-overs for the likes National Museums of Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, EIF, EIFF, EIBF, & more. Yet at the core of it was our grassroots shows in Summerhall, Pilrig Church, Limited Ink, Leith Theatre, Leith St Andrew's, and the Scottish Books Trust. Scotland's premiere avant-garden noisemakers, Neu! Reekie! left a gap, a gulf, a lacuna, that I don't think has been fully filled, despite a truly sublime number of new nights and festivals upping their game. We're always jostled by punters in pubs that it's time to bring it back, but I doubt that will ever happen. Neu! Reekie! answered a clarion call for something as artistically enriching as it was rambunctious, but so much of the momentum came from growing, evolving, and outdoing ourselves, taking new challenge by the horns. A comeback, having climbed so high, seems to lack the gonzo spirit of it all, expectations would already be soaring, it'd need to be something jaw-dropping. I turn instead to the artists inhabiting the city now, ploughing their own furrow, and hope to be one of this clan. Those makars striving to make the city a more vibrant, progressive, powerful, intriguing, kinder, and fairer place, some simply by doing what they do so brilliantly. To name a few choice denizens: Young Fathers, Nadine Shah, Mark Cousins, Val McDermid, Emun Elliott, Withered Hand, Irvine Welsh, Sarah Muirhead, Kevin Harman, and Jonathan Freemantle. Whereas I arrived into the Edinburgh Makar role a tad worried about the carousel of commissions I might be riding in on, it's been quite the opposite. These commissions have been creative enzymes, gusto giving galvanisers. My poem for Edinburgh is called Be More, Edinburgh. It's an encouragement, nay prod in the ribs, that as well as celebrating this city, that holds my heart so dearly, I have to ensure that I'm one of those insisting it doesn't waiver in doling out its precious succour – at home and afar! That it supports our charities and protesters, and casts out its own muckle beam – a luminous bolt of welcome kilted into the sky. Some might say I didn't push hard enough, I'll be thinking on that, there's time yet. Michael Pedersen is a Scottish poet, author and spoken word performer. Alongside his writing, he co-founded the Edinburgh arts collective Neu! Reekie! which existed from 2010 to 2022. He is the current Edinburgh Makar and writer-in-residence at The University of Edinburgh
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Roving reflections in the best Literary Fiction out now: ABSENCE by Issa Quincy, MUCKLE FLUGGA by Michael Pedersen, THE BOOK OF RECORDS by Madeleine Thien
ABSENCE by Issa Quincy (Granta £14.99, 192pp) A big influence on the 21st-century literary novel is the essayistic fiction of the late German writer WG Sebald, whose imprint can be seen on Rachel Cusk and Teju Cole, two of many authors to ditch plot and character in favour of roving reflection. The latest book to tread that mazy path is this seductively conversational debut from a British writer based in New York. It starts with the narrator disclosing his feelings about a cherished former teacher, whose murky past emerged only after an encounter with another ex-pupil. We then range across Europe, America and Africa in a dizzying chain of densely nested episodes circling themes of trauma and remembrance. While the writing is always absorbing, you might feel you're being led a dance – but the novel's style is its own reward. MUCKLE FLUGGA by Michael Pedersen (Faber £16.99, 320pp) Poet and memoirist Michael Pedersen turns to fiction for the first time in this offbeat and tonally unpredictable coming-of-age debut, set on the Scottish island that gives the book its title. The action turns on a life-changing encounter between two men: Firth, a troubled writer visiting from Edinburgh, and Ouse, a daydreaming teenager in imaginary dialogue with the Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson. Each character widens the other's horizons as they get to know one another while roaming the deserted seascape. Soon Ouse is in conflict with his drunkard dad, a widowed lighthouse keeper who wants his son to inherit his job and uphold tradition against technological change. Pedersen's style is exuberant with curveball coinages, but despite the whimsical feel, he handles his age-old subject – how to find your way as an adult – with heart and sincerity. THE BOOK OF RECORDS by Madeleine Thien (Granta £20, 368pp) Canadian writer Thien made the Booker Prize shortlist with her previous novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which tackled chewy themes of history and politics by tracing the interwoven bloodlines of a Chinese refugee and the Vancouver household that takes her in. Her new novel is even more labyrinthine in structure. We're in a mysterious refugee centre known as the Sea, where Lina, the daughter of a Chinese dissident, encounters other migrants whose tales echo those of real-life figures, including the 17th century philosopher Spinoza. While Thien deploys some whizzy narrative machinery to explain the overlap, a substantial part of the novel is essentially fictionalised biography, framed by sinister disclosures about Lina's father. A tricksy splice of historical fiction and sci-fi – easier to admire than enjoy.
Scotsman
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review: 'an extraordinary first novel'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Like all the best adventure stories, Michael Pedersen's debut novel Muckle Flugga begins with a map. It's a map of an imagined island at the far northern tip of Shetland; a small island complete with lighthouse, bothy for accommodating visitors, cliffs, caves, coves, and also unexpected gardens, and wild places. It's to this island that the book's central character, a young Edinburgh writer and artist called Firth, makes what he intends to be a final journey, after he abruptly cancels his planned suicide off the Forth Bridge. He is inspired to live a little more by a visit - as he dangles from the ironwork - from a passing gannet; the bird reminds him of a promise he once made to his old seafaring grandfather - who used to tell tales of Muckle Flugga - that he would go there and paint a gannet for him. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shaun Murawski | Shaun Murawski So it is that Firth arrives on the island, inhabited only by the fierce widowed lighthouse keeper and his gentle 19-year-old son Ouse; and begins a physical, emotional and psychological journey so vivid, intense, and fiercely tragic-comic that it often threatens to take the breath away. Indeed Firth himself seems to spend much of his time gasping for air, as he is overwhelmed by rain and seawater, pitched by the swaying hammock in his bothy into the bath that sits beneath it, attacked by the ravenous sea birds known as bonxies, or - most significantly - increasingly heart-struck by the beauty, wisdom and genius of the boy Ouse, a quiet lad relentlessly bullied by his distraught father since his mother's death, yet nonetheless filled with an inner poise and creative energy that enables him to survive his father's rages, and even to continue to love him. Until now, Michael Pedersen has been known primarily as a poet; currently Edinburgh's Makar, he has published three powerful collections of poems, as well as his acclaimed 2022 memoir Boy Friends, a study of love and friendship inspired by the death of his friend Scott Hutchison, of the indie band Frightened Rabbit. In Muckle Flugga, though, he delivers an extraordinary first novel, that takes a fairly simple narrative arc - despairing hero travels to a far place, where he rediscovers the will to live and love - and packs it with the most audacious forms of strangeness, including a weird, tangential relationship with the normal timelines of human history. It is difficult to know, on Muckle Flugga, whether we are in an internet-free past where a demented solo lighthouse keeper might avoid the attention of the authorities, in a disintegrating future where such systems are breaking down, or in a parallel reality altogether, where past and future collide in Firth's tormented, whisky-fuelled dreams. What is clear, through, is that Firth's time on the island reconnects him with the natural world in ways that are both comically emphatic and unbelievably rich in brilliant and rotting detail; and that that encounter with the physical extremes of life on Muckle Flugga has nothing to do with 'escape' from Firth's previous city life, and everything to do with a new recognition of the reality on which all life rests. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad For all its geographical distance, Muckle Flugga is intensely linked to the wider world in myriad ways that race and dance through Pedersen's story. There is the lighthouse lamp itself, and its intense connection to the lives of the ships and sailors whom it guides to safety, all filtered through the disturbed but energetic mind of The Father, who tends the light with fanatical dedication. There is the great library Firth discovers on the island, tenderly cared for by Ouse, and rich with stories and histories from across the globe. And there is that strand of Scottish history that links islands and maps and lighthouses through the Edinburgh family of Lighthouse Stevensons, builders of the Muckle Flugga light; and their rebel son Robert Louis Stevenson, the magical storytelling creator of the best loved of all treasure islands, who appears on Muckle Flugga as Ouse's familiar spirit and guardian angel. Stevenson, of course, is also the author of The Strange Case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and it's difficult not to see autobiographical elements both in Pedersen's self-mocking account of the briefly fashionable Edinburgh writer in flight from the shallowness of his world, and in his portrait of the strength, steady sweetness and sheer creative genius of Ouse, who designs and makes the most beautiful woollen artefacts Firth has ever seen. Pedersen's first novel, in other words, is as rich in meanings and resonances as a gorgeous painting laden with significant detail. And all of its threads and strands are transformed and re-energised by the brilliant refracting lenses of Pedersen's prose; sometimes tumbling over itself in haste and over-exuberance, sometimes glinting in perfection, but always conjuring up vital new realities, just when we need them most.
