Rob Roy

Walter Scott, 1817 (September 2014)

I was a little surprised in reading this novel at the perspectives reflected in the narrator’s story. Scott, writing in the early 18^th century, takes the voice of an English businessman writing a reminiscing letter to a friend about his adventures as a youth early in the 17^th century. Occasionally, the narrator reflects on his romanticism as a youth and his current settled life, so we are reminded that the perspective is that of a mature, successful and cultivated English gentleman.

  As the narrator, he portrays the Scots as foolish and bumbling thieves, canny but crass business men, or wild violent savages. The only exception is the title character, Rob Roy, or Red Rob, or Robert Campbell MacGregor, a wise but just outlaw, a Scottish Robin Hood, beloved by the country people, scourge of the wealthy city dwellers and especially of the English, fearless fighter and brilliant campaigner. For a Scots nationalist, this seems a peculiar way to portray the people he wants to inspire. While MacGregor is a heroic and mythic figure, the rest of the Scots come off as crude, backward and vicious, although good fighters as described by his English narrator. (And for balance, the English in relation to the Scots seem to come across as arbitrary oppressors and often not a lot brighter than the Scottish Highlanders.) Is Scott suggesting that Scots need to move ahead from their heroic but backward past and join the modern, if grubby, world of business?

  Perhaps so, but the life of business is not very appealing either. The businessmen here may be wealthy, but they seem to have a very limited perspective, whether Scottish or English. The narrator initially rebels against his father’s insistence on joining his business. But Scott, a successful businessman himself (until his publishing business went bankrupt later in his life), makes it clear that the narrator’s romantic youth is a diversion and that his later success came from the family business. So is Scott here telling us that Scots (and we readers) need to put aside romantic notions and do the hard work of creating wealth, after which we can perhaps enjoy a quiet, cultured life? Or, since the narrator does in the end get the woman he loved in his romantic youth, perhaps we can take some of that romance with us in to our more business-like life.

  Also interesting is the detached position of the narrator. Although the narrator tells the story in the first person, he is only an observer. But for the first 200 pages, Rob Roy has only a brief appearance using a pseudonym, and thereafter appears only in short passages (although always to save the day). The narrator’s only active role, to recover his father’s papers, ends when they are presented to him without a struggle. Someone else always intervenes before he has to act himself. In between are scenes that could pass for social satire and comic relief, often given in broad dialect. Is this Scott’s message – that the English are lucky to be saved always by someone else while they acquire wealth and power?

  Perhaps it’s not fair to put these post-modern questions in relation to an author who was creating the genre of the historical novel 200 years ago. Scott apparently wrote at great length with little editing, so maybe this is just where the story took him, and he didn’t concern himself with how the story might reflect on his nationalistic ideals. Perhaps he thought he was just writing a realistic description of the past. His descriptive language, for example, suggests that. He does not romanticize the bleakness of the lowland moors or the primitive Scottish inn where his narrator stays, but he does describe the beauty of the Scottish lakes and mountains. His descriptions of rural life and the role of women (highly prescribed, if not entirely passive) also reflect a realist point of view.

  So the points of view and the narrative style are peculiar to a modern reader, although in the end they make an interesting and picturesque read. The mix of social observation and tame adventure explain why Scott was such a popular writer in his time.