James Kelman - Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime: Why Ideas Matter

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The real reason Kelman, despite his stature and reputation, remains something of a literary outsider is not, I suspect, so much that great, radical Modernist writers arent supposed to come from working-class Glasgow, as that great, radical Modernist writers are supposed to be dead. Dead and wrapped up in a Penguin Classic: thats when its safe to regret that their work was underappreciated or misunderstood (or how little they were paid) in their lifetimes. You can write what you like about Beckett or Kafka and know theyre not going to come round and tell you youre talking nonsense or confound your expectations with a new work. Kelman is still alive, still writing great books, climbing.

James Meek, London Review of Books

A true original. A real artist. Its now very difficult to see which of his peers can seriously be ranked alongside Kelman without ironic eyebrows being raised.

Irvine Welsh, Guardian

Probably the most influential novelist of the post-war period.

The Times

Kelman has the knack, maybe more than anyone since Joyce, of fixing in his writing the lyricism of ordinary peoples speech. Pure aesthete, undaunted democratsomehow Kelman manages to reconcile his two halves.

Esquire (London)

Kelman has always been a true and honest writer, which is why he is one of the fairly few who really matter.

Scotsman

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Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime

Why Ideas Matter

Noam Chomsky and James Kelman

Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime: Why Ideas Matter

2021 the respective authors

This edition 2021 PM Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 9781629638805 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781629638867 (hardcover)

ISBN: 9781629639000 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020952228

Cover by Drohan DiSanto

Interior design by briandesign

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PM Press

PO Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623

www.pmpress.org

Printed in the USA.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Gus John and the George E. Davie Estate for their generosity in permitting the use of their work, and to the others whose correspondence is included. All proceeds from the Scottish end of the production go towards the Spirit of Revolt archive.

For all those volunteers, participants, and
audience members who took part in the
Self-Determination & Power event, Govan, 1990

Contents

James Kelman

James Kelman

James Kelman

Noam Chomsky

James Kelman

Noam Chomsky

George E. Davie

Professor Gus John

Noam Chomsky

James Kelman

Introduction

James Kelman

My correspondence with Noam Chomsky began earlier than documented here. There was the first letter I wrote him, and there may have been a second. I dont have these. This was early 1988, and I was working on typewriter and rarely kept copies of letters. I had been commissioned for a review of The Chomsky Reader by Peter Kravitz, then editor of Edinburgh Review.* The review just got longer and longer as the ideas expanded, and Peter was happy with that. Space was not a consideration. Later he heard through friends that Chomsky was visiting London to give a public lecture. We wanted to invite him north to give another in Glasgow and attended the lecture at Battersea Town Hall, hoping to make the invitation in person.

John Pilger attended the same meeting and recalls the incident when (Chomsky) defended the right of a neo-fascist to heckle him. I remember this too, and very clearly. The man had travelled from France to attend the lecture, expressly to confront Chomsky. He was so close to the platform had he fired a gun he could hardly have missed. The significance of that stayed with me. During his subsequent visit to Glasgow, I mentioned it to Chomsky. He shrugged. It was nothing new and there was little he could do about it.

When we issued the original invitation to him, the idea was that he visit Glasgow to deliver a lecture. Nothing else was planned. When he agreed to come that one lecture developed into what became the Self-Determination & Power event, held over two days. This book is not a record of that, nor of its organization, and I make no attempt to present either, although they are a part of it.

The value of debate and exchanging points of view was in evidence during the organization. People were ignorant of the work of George Davie and could not fathom why he should have been sharing the second-day platform with Noam Chomsky. A few were for, and a few were against. Others knew nothing of any of it. Readers of the Edinburgh Review knew more than most. Peter Kravitz was one of Davies graduate students and had been publishing his essays there. He was also commissioning editor at Polygon Books, publishing wing of Edinburgh University Students Union. The students involved were responsible for galvanizing contemporary Scottish literature during the 1980s. They were also responsible for bringing Davies work to the attention of the wider public.* In so doing, they were introducing to them the philosophical tradition of their own country.

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