What do you think?
Rate this book
Magnus
This hilarious novel charts the rise and fall of Magnus Merriman - would-be lover, writer, politician, idealist and crofter - moved by dreams of greatness and a talent for farcical defeat. A satirical and irreverent portrait of Scottish life, literature and politics. Nothing is sacred and no-one is spared!
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
41 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
George Mackay Brown
183 books101 followersGeorge Mackay Brown, the poet, novelist and dramatist, spent his life living in and documenting the Orkney Isles.
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
April 8, 2019
Seamus Heaney once remarked that George Mackay Brown passed everything “through the eye of the needle of Orkney”, those remote islands north of Scotland where he was born and spent his life. This observation is certainly true of Magnus. The novel treats of aristocratic ambition, rousing sea battles, the depredations of marauding armies, petty crime, political plotting and brutal assassination, yet it never strays far from the seascape and landscape, the animals and people of the Orkneys.
Magnus is a resonant novel, “religious” in the best sense. It is animated by themes such as the dignity of daily life, the hunger for atonement, and the necessity of sacrifice, but then unifies these strains into the central theme of Eucharist, showing how this blessing of bread and wine forever enriches daily life, uniting it to atonement and sacrifice in the eternal mystery of time.
Except for his brief studies in Scotland, Brown lived all his life in the Orkney city of Stromness (population 2000 today). He was one of six children, and his father, the local mailman, was forced to retire early, having become incapacitated by illness. George himself was a tubercular youth unfit for most available work, and, although he became a paid journalist at twenty-three, and later published highly esteemed poetry and short fiction, he failed to achieve financial independence until he was in his early forties, relying on his mother Mhairi for support. All his life he was an ardent drinker (not a popular pastime with mother) and—after his conversion at the age of thirty-eight—an ardent Catholic as well.
In his fifties, Brown began to write novels; Magnus (1972) was the second. It tells the story of St. Magnus, 12th century Earl of Orkney, who began his rule jointly with his cousin Haakon, acquiring a reputation for peacefulness and holiness. Inevitably, the two cousins battled for control of the islands until their supporters, weary of war, demanded one earl not two. Then Magnus—perhaps considered a little too holy—was assassinated. The miracles began; Magnus became a saint.
From this story, Brown fashions a novel of beauty and power. Be warned, though: it builds slowly. Many critics find the work fragmentary and disjointed, but Sir Peter Maxwell Davies—the composer of the opera The Martyrdom of St. Magnus--thought otherwise. I believe Davies is right.
Perhaps one needs a little music in the heart to appreciate Magnus. Each paragraph, spare in language, vibrates with the music of earthy yet transcendent poetry, and the novel's structure is as elaborately symphonic as a work by Mahler. It is a series of seven movements—from pastoral, to idyll, to march, to lament—culminating in the magnificent sixth movement, “The Killing,” which begins more than halfway through and comprises one-quarter of the book.
I must admit that I was getting impatient before I reached “The Killing,” but, having read it, I was completely won over. Here Brown distills his mastery and his message, shifting in diction and tone from ancient saga-singer to BBC reporter to mystical theologian to realistic novelist to poetic pastoral novelist again until it seems the most natural thing in God's world that the killing of Magnus and the murder of Dietrich Bonhoeffer are one, and that we through Eucharist participate not only in their deaths but also in the miracles blossoming afterward.
Brown says it better than I can:
Since all the round of time is gathered into this ritual half hour, the actions of Everyman, once the bread of divine wisdom is in his body, have an immense importance; what he does and says and thinks reverberates through the whole web of time.
September 22, 2024
this was one of two books I finished at the weekend, that had an interesting structure, and what felt like a perfect closing sentence 😃
tho in both instances, they might have been easier as paper books than audiobooks, esp wrt fully seeing, and being better able to navigate, the structure of the book.
I also loved both novels 😍
🌊🪨🎚🌊
I think Magnus is maybe the first novel by George Mackay Brown that I've read, having read some of his short stories previously.
and I suspect it might remain my favourite novel (and possibly book/writing) of his.
I read the novel on and off over a few months, and several times at bedtime 😉 and I didn't make many notes at all...
...from recall, I realise much of the content about the Earls, the court, the conflicts, etc didn't stay in my memory - I suspect this is cos this kinda content rarely interests me very much, however well written. and I do believe it was well written.
what did stay in my memory was the colour and feel of the earth in the fields, the weathered hands and faces of Mans and Hilde at plough, the Island of Birsay and the causeway, the shriek of the gulls and smell of the seaweed...
I was struck from the very beginning of the book that it is so very nicely written, it's language and turns of phrase very evocative, poetic... and it's incredibly well situated if you know Orkney, and hopefully also if you don't - the first few sentences set it superbly 😁😊
🌊🪨🎚🌊
so, I loved the early part, the descriptions of day to day island life... I didn't retain much of the more political stuff, beyond snippets... and then... wow! 🤩
'The Killing' took me by surprise! 😯😃 I loved its interlude as reportage - short pieces from different islanders about the day that the strangers landed, and anchored in the Bay of Skail. I loved the small details drawn out, focussed on... intricate aspects of day to day life, and the lives of the 'common people', including their thoughts on, or indifference to, the Earls 😉
it was superb both in content, and the way it broke things up, shifted the pace around, played with what we'd been experiencing and expecting until then 😃😁
and at this point the structure became abit more obvious to me, tho I feel like I need to reread the novel to appreciate it in full, having been less attuned to it thru the earlier part of the book.
the dream sequence that followed was superb also - moving thru place and people, past, and into our present and its future 😃😁
then the priest wakes, and the ships that landed at Egilsay - their people are drinking and trying to get to the bottom of a numerical error 😆😉😃
so much humour, awa history and honouring.
around this point we also have an incredibly sobering excursion into World War 2.
and then we're back on Orkney, traipsing the land, primarily with the tinkers, Mary and Jock, "bright foot, and dark foot", across the fields.
we pass and again meet Mans and Hilde, circling back to them as they were at the start of the novel 😊♥ and I loved this circularity, and grounding back into the life and the earth of Orkney.
Jock and Mary reach Birsay,
where Magnus is buried:
"Birsay, place of his beginning and end, birth and sepulchre"
and where Jock lights a tallow candle and prays to 'St Magnus the Martyr'... who has yet to be canonised and recognised as such by the church 😉😆
I loved this layer of pilgrimage, and it was maybe a layer that could have been missed with the two tinkers maybe not being thought of as key characters, esp within an historical tale. that the church, the army, the politics can in ways be seen as secondary, and backdrop to an ordinary couple of folk just trying to get by, and also on a kind of spiritual quest/pilgrimage, and in search of a miracle/blessing.
this is maybe also revealing of a lasting (and more significant?) role of Magnus (compared to Hakon who ruled) ??🤔🙃🤔??
the novel felt both very earthy and very holy, in very accessible ways 🙂😁😊
and there was something that felt very weighty in the final sentence, with Jock following across the causeway "after the sea-washed feet of Mary", following her glimmer of light back to the Orkney mainland ♥😊♥
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
accessed as an RNIB audiobook, well read by Crawford Logan 🙂
tho in both instances, they might have been easier as paper books than audiobooks, esp wrt fully seeing, and being better able to navigate, the structure of the book.
I also loved both novels 😍
🌊🪨🎚🌊
I think Magnus is maybe the first novel by George Mackay Brown that I've read, having read some of his short stories previously.
and I suspect it might remain my favourite novel (and possibly book/writing) of his.
I read the novel on and off over a few months, and several times at bedtime 😉 and I didn't make many notes at all...
...from recall, I realise much of the content about the Earls, the court, the conflicts, etc didn't stay in my memory - I suspect this is cos this kinda content rarely interests me very much, however well written. and I do believe it was well written.
what did stay in my memory was the colour and feel of the earth in the fields, the weathered hands and faces of Mans and Hilde at plough, the Island of Birsay and the causeway, the shriek of the gulls and smell of the seaweed...
I was struck from the very beginning of the book that it is so very nicely written, it's language and turns of phrase very evocative, poetic... and it's incredibly well situated if you know Orkney, and hopefully also if you don't - the first few sentences set it superbly 😁😊
🌊🪨🎚🌊
so, I loved the early part, the descriptions of day to day island life... I didn't retain much of the more political stuff, beyond snippets... and then... wow! 🤩
'The Killing' took me by surprise! 😯😃 I loved its interlude as reportage - short pieces from different islanders about the day that the strangers landed, and anchored in the Bay of Skail. I loved the small details drawn out, focussed on... intricate aspects of day to day life, and the lives of the 'common people', including their thoughts on, or indifference to, the Earls 😉
it was superb both in content, and the way it broke things up, shifted the pace around, played with what we'd been experiencing and expecting until then 😃😁
and at this point the structure became abit more obvious to me, tho I feel like I need to reread the novel to appreciate it in full, having been less attuned to it thru the earlier part of the book.
the dream sequence that followed was superb also - moving thru place and people, past, and into our present and its future 😃😁
then the priest wakes, and the ships that landed at Egilsay - their people are drinking and trying to get to the bottom of a numerical error 😆😉😃
so much humour, awa history and honouring.
around this point we also have an incredibly sobering excursion into World War 2.
and then we're back on Orkney, traipsing the land, primarily with the tinkers, Mary and Jock, "bright foot, and dark foot", across the fields.
we pass and again meet Mans and Hilde, circling back to them as they were at the start of the novel 😊♥ and I loved this circularity, and grounding back into the life and the earth of Orkney.
Jock and Mary reach Birsay,
where Magnus is buried:
"Birsay, place of his beginning and end, birth and sepulchre"
and where Jock lights a tallow candle and prays to 'St Magnus the Martyr'... who has yet to be canonised and recognised as such by the church 😉😆
I loved this layer of pilgrimage, and it was maybe a layer that could have been missed with the two tinkers maybe not being thought of as key characters, esp within an historical tale. that the church, the army, the politics can in ways be seen as secondary, and backdrop to an ordinary couple of folk just trying to get by, and also on a kind of spiritual quest/pilgrimage, and in search of a miracle/blessing.
this is maybe also revealing of a lasting (and more significant?) role of Magnus (compared to Hakon who ruled) ??🤔🙃🤔??
the novel felt both very earthy and very holy, in very accessible ways 🙂😁😊
and there was something that felt very weighty in the final sentence, with Jock following across the causeway "after the sea-washed feet of Mary", following her glimmer of light back to the Orkney mainland ♥😊♥
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
accessed as an RNIB audiobook, well read by Crawford Logan 🙂
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2014
I read this because I was going to the Orkneys on holiday, and I always like reading fiction set in the place I'm traveling to. It was very disappointing. I can see how Mackay Brown was trying to be innovative in his use of different formats (playscript, poetry, prose), but the story didn't have any cohesiveness. I also got very frustrated by the fact that none of the female characters were anything beyond a plot device for another, obviously more important, character to marry/rape/procreate with/provide for.
The story of St Magnus is, like many stories of saints, a bit linear and non-sensical, and kudos to Mackay Brown for attempting to create a meaningful novel out of it. However, I feel that Mackay Brown was trying too hard to make this an intellectual piece of writing, and in doing so created a story with no heart or body.
The story of St Magnus is, like many stories of saints, a bit linear and non-sensical, and kudos to Mackay Brown for attempting to create a meaningful novel out of it. However, I feel that Mackay Brown was trying too hard to make this an intellectual piece of writing, and in doing so created a story with no heart or body.
January 2, 2021
This is the story of based on the life of Magnus Erlendson, Earl of Orkney from 1106 to (about) 1115.
Magnus's story is told in three Norse sagas, but here recreated as fiction inside 200 pages, by the very wonderful George Mackay Brown.
Magnus was the first son of Erlend Thorfinnsson, Earl of Orkney, who ruled jointly with his twin brother Paal, who also had a son, a joint heir, Haakon Paalsson; two heir-apparents, vying for one Earldom, of very different characters. Haakon, aggressive, quarrelsome and arrogant, and Magnus, quiet, contemplative, and a mystic, reading psalms aloud during a sea battle off the Anglesey coast.
This begins with two incredibly compelling chapters, but what follows cannot quite keep the pace. The first, as a group of 7 boys leave their homes for the first time, and wait on the Birsay shore for the tide to go out, so they can walk across to attend boarding school for two years. And the following chapter, with Magnus and Haakon now young men, on a raiding expedition in the Irish Sea, and the battle off the coast of Anglesey.
One of its most unconventional features, though considered as Historical Fiction, is that (without warning) it slips out of its twelfth-century setting. I was reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in the scene with the police interruption.
I wanted more after the first chapter as the boys attend school - the jump to adulthood seemed too sudden. But the novel is unpredictable, experimental in many ways.
There are moments and scenes which engrave themselves on the memory, it is a tantalising piece of Orkney / Norse history, relevant in the current day as the Scottish people consider their heritage, and whether they have more in common with England and Wales, than with Norway, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland. But the voices from the Islands are few, the places much changed of course, and more than likely will not be heard.
Magnus's story is told in three Norse sagas, but here recreated as fiction inside 200 pages, by the very wonderful George Mackay Brown.
Magnus was the first son of Erlend Thorfinnsson, Earl of Orkney, who ruled jointly with his twin brother Paal, who also had a son, a joint heir, Haakon Paalsson; two heir-apparents, vying for one Earldom, of very different characters. Haakon, aggressive, quarrelsome and arrogant, and Magnus, quiet, contemplative, and a mystic, reading psalms aloud during a sea battle off the Anglesey coast.
This begins with two incredibly compelling chapters, but what follows cannot quite keep the pace. The first, as a group of 7 boys leave their homes for the first time, and wait on the Birsay shore for the tide to go out, so they can walk across to attend boarding school for two years. And the following chapter, with Magnus and Haakon now young men, on a raiding expedition in the Irish Sea, and the battle off the coast of Anglesey.
One of its most unconventional features, though considered as Historical Fiction, is that (without warning) it slips out of its twelfth-century setting. I was reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in the scene with the police interruption.
I wanted more after the first chapter as the boys attend school - the jump to adulthood seemed too sudden. But the novel is unpredictable, experimental in many ways.
There are moments and scenes which engrave themselves on the memory, it is a tantalising piece of Orkney / Norse history, relevant in the current day as the Scottish people consider their heritage, and whether they have more in common with England and Wales, than with Norway, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland. But the voices from the Islands are few, the places much changed of course, and more than likely will not be heard.
March 13, 2013
Don't have time for a proper review, but suffice it to say that this novel, on first read, has probably entered my top ten favourite novels list (a list that probably includes upwards of twenty titles, heh). I had only scarcely heard of the author before now but now am so intrigued I'll be hunting up everything by him. This hidden gem from 1973 also has me totally dying to visit Orkney. (I've lived in Scotland for over ten years, but never made it that far north.) It's a 'historical' novel that also contains mind-bending postmodern narrative surprises, experimentations with form, elements of 'magical realism', aestheticized gory Viking battles, bawdy humour juxtaposed with sacred ritual, passages of deep devotion, rich theology, gorgeously poetic ecology, profound philosophy of time and history and politics and community, and - seriously - more. Its flaws are its strengths. It is so achingly poetic and rigorously philosophical that its passion sometimes nearly defeats itself. But it was an utter pleasure to read and this author's failures, if he has any serious ones, are above many other author's highest achievements. I'm sure subsequent readings will tone down my ecstatic eulogising, but I'm equally sure they'll also deepen my appreciation and the ability to express it accurately.
October 12, 2009
I leapt at this account of the canonised Orcadian Magnus from an interest in a belief that medieval life is unfathomably strange. But the book was the antithesis to my motivar by its elucidation of the determined cycle of human existence, and its clear presentation of the complex products of northern European civilisation. The novel's first two quarters are written in a beautiful language-style that borrows the serial simplicity of an epic, while the flip into modern reportage at quarter #3 became a leaden broil of political attrition and did not seem to recover my respect or soul there aft. However, the vivid landscape of Birsay, the medieval regal society, and the profound presence of the characters was completely consuming and should be awarded five of those little yellow stars.
June 1, 2025
“Harder than precious stones are acts of pity and praise and charity.”
This book is one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever read and has brought me closer to God. I picked it up because Bishop Erik Varden mentioned it in one of his books, and I’m so glad I did. Also the Goodreads description is completely wrong, don’t trust it. I couldn’t recommend this highly enough.
This book is one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever read and has brought me closer to God. I picked it up because Bishop Erik Varden mentioned it in one of his books, and I’m so glad I did. Also the Goodreads description is completely wrong, don’t trust it. I couldn’t recommend this highly enough.
December 28, 2018
I've liked the idea of George Mackay Brown ever since reading about him a quarter of a century or so ago. I just hadn't got around to reading his books, even though I had a couple of them in the house.
For me, this novel was mixed. It was so nearly brilliant at times and rather amateurish, frankly, at others. Let's start with the good. Mackay Brown was also a poet and there is much beautiful imagery to enjoy. The writing is powerful, in places. There are some vividly drawn scenes. In this, 'Magnus' reminds me of the work of William Golding - and that's a high compliment from my perspective. Mackay Brown thoroughly imagines life in the remote past and brings it alive. Magnus's dream sequence is spectacularly successful. If it were all as good as this, it'd be up there among my favourite books. So far so good...
It's when you feel the author straining to be 'modern' that the novel becomes less successful. Inserting sections of play script was old hat when Orwell did so in 'A Clergyman's Daughter' in 1935... There are some on-purpose anachronisms that truly grate. Using modern military ranks when talking about a Viking horde was irritating enough but the section of TV reportage from twelfth century Egilsay was infuriating. I have no problem with multiple narratives. It was just that they didn't always work here. The Nazi Germany insertion is a case in point. There was also some cod-medieval writing that failed to convince. The invented 'high-born' characters who play such a big part throughout the book were almost indistinguishable, one from another. And just because the author was obsessed with beer doesn't mean that all of his characters have to be so too. Perhaps the greatest weakness is that the character of Magnus, one of the few real historical figures in the book, is never really established and so it's difficult for the reader to care too much about him. We're being asked to weep for a symbol rather than a man.
So overall, I felt this was a missed opportunity, but still worth reading.
For me, this novel was mixed. It was so nearly brilliant at times and rather amateurish, frankly, at others. Let's start with the good. Mackay Brown was also a poet and there is much beautiful imagery to enjoy. The writing is powerful, in places. There are some vividly drawn scenes. In this, 'Magnus' reminds me of the work of William Golding - and that's a high compliment from my perspective. Mackay Brown thoroughly imagines life in the remote past and brings it alive. Magnus's dream sequence is spectacularly successful. If it were all as good as this, it'd be up there among my favourite books. So far so good...
It's when you feel the author straining to be 'modern' that the novel becomes less successful. Inserting sections of play script was old hat when Orwell did so in 'A Clergyman's Daughter' in 1935... There are some on-purpose anachronisms that truly grate. Using modern military ranks when talking about a Viking horde was irritating enough but the section of TV reportage from twelfth century Egilsay was infuriating. I have no problem with multiple narratives. It was just that they didn't always work here. The Nazi Germany insertion is a case in point. There was also some cod-medieval writing that failed to convince. The invented 'high-born' characters who play such a big part throughout the book were almost indistinguishable, one from another. And just because the author was obsessed with beer doesn't mean that all of his characters have to be so too. Perhaps the greatest weakness is that the character of Magnus, one of the few real historical figures in the book, is never really established and so it's difficult for the reader to care too much about him. We're being asked to weep for a symbol rather than a man.
So overall, I felt this was a missed opportunity, but still worth reading.
January 27, 2016
A beautifully written, deep book centred on the life and martyrdom of Magnus (latterly Sainted) of Orkney. Told between Magnus, his nobles, the servants, priests and others. I couldn't decide if Mans was written po-faced or as a comedic creation (he's not normally much of a comic) - if the book wasn't written years before Monty Python and the Holy Grail I would have thought it's a tribute. Maybe it was a precursor.
As with all George Mackay Brown's work, it is completely imbued with the sense of Orkney throughout. The prose can be wonderful. It's also more experimental than anything else Mackay Brown did - the style can flit between prose, poetry, script and back. That doesn't always work for me, nor does the sudden segue to the last moments of a German philosopher in a Nazi death camp (he is drawing parallels, but it is too far a leap for me, with too little explanation of who the bloke is (I don't think they give his name, you have to read the reviews on the cover to get it). Other sections can be just a little bit dry, or sometimes so deep in their meaning I kind of lost the plot to what it actually did mean...
But as with all of his books, you get a lift from reading it - a sense of place, time and language. A rich and rewarding writer, even if not his strongest.
As with all George Mackay Brown's work, it is completely imbued with the sense of Orkney throughout. The prose can be wonderful. It's also more experimental than anything else Mackay Brown did - the style can flit between prose, poetry, script and back. That doesn't always work for me, nor does the sudden segue to the last moments of a German philosopher in a Nazi death camp (he is drawing parallels, but it is too far a leap for me, with too little explanation of who the bloke is (I don't think they give his name, you have to read the reviews on the cover to get it). Other sections can be just a little bit dry, or sometimes so deep in their meaning I kind of lost the plot to what it actually did mean...
But as with all of his books, you get a lift from reading it - a sense of place, time and language. A rich and rewarding writer, even if not his strongest.
May 29, 2023
Not to be confused with the novel Magnus Merriman by Eric Linklater, which Goodreads seems to do! This novel is very different. It is about Saint Magnus, Earl of Orkney. It is about farmers and warriors, sacrifice, and the interconnectedness of space and time. It is theological and philosophical: 'The body-spirit dichotomy, or the body-intellect dichotomy, is a bitter cleaving of the wholeness of a man's nature' (p. 121). It is very good.
April 16, 2018
Magnus
by George Mackay Brown
Magnus is an atmospheric mystical book that guides the reader through the key events leading up to the martyrdom of Magnus Erlendson whose 900th anniversary was celebrated this year.
The tale is frequently carried by two peasants, Mans and Hild. Their lives are bound to the seasons, to their faith and to their poverty. They who suffer first hand the effects of civil strife between Magnus and his cousin Hakon Paulson because of the divided Orcadian Earlship. At times, two tinkers also take up the narrative. The pair are made up of the good hearted Jock and the blind, irascible Mary who is eventually cured following Jock makes devotion to the recently slain Magnus.
The diversions into the scraps between the Paulson and Erlson men are thrown into sharp modern day relief with a sinister passage set in the Jew extermination camps of Nazi Germany (I wondered for a long time why my library copy had a swastika on its cover). Again a chef is called upon to do a filthy and barbarous act by men who are barely recognisable as animals, never mind humans.
This is far more than a pastoral sequence and the telling of the life of a saint. There are no pallid tableaux to warm the hearts of the faithful and send comfort that even in this windswept locality great martyrs rise. The narrative is an indictment of human weakness and the negative effect of logical political conclusions on the lives of the people that leaders are meant to serve rather than exploit. Modern parallels abound.
There is no aggrandisement of Magnus the man, nothing convoluted or hyperbolic about his uniting with Christ during that final night of torment and prayer.
What choice did Magnus have? That remains an eternal question for so many human actions. It can be applied to Hakon as freely as to Magnus, to their men at arms, to the way Mans drinks and abuses Hild, to the way Mary remains ungrateful and feckless. Do they have any more choice than the barely seed thrown into the rill on the hillside? or the seeds carried by the wind and throttled by weeds?
There is delightful richness in George Mackay Brown’s prose, slowing the reader down as poetry does, producing a steady rhythm, an ebb and release of story that is born of confidence and mastery of the form. It is certainly not a book to be rushed through, as the library will know from my many renewals.
There are passages that I want to revisit, to hold again in my mind – I will now return my copy and in time, seek out a copy of my own.
Gabrielle Barnby
Orkney, 1st Nov, 2017
by George Mackay Brown
Magnus is an atmospheric mystical book that guides the reader through the key events leading up to the martyrdom of Magnus Erlendson whose 900th anniversary was celebrated this year.
The tale is frequently carried by two peasants, Mans and Hild. Their lives are bound to the seasons, to their faith and to their poverty. They who suffer first hand the effects of civil strife between Magnus and his cousin Hakon Paulson because of the divided Orcadian Earlship. At times, two tinkers also take up the narrative. The pair are made up of the good hearted Jock and the blind, irascible Mary who is eventually cured following Jock makes devotion to the recently slain Magnus.
The diversions into the scraps between the Paulson and Erlson men are thrown into sharp modern day relief with a sinister passage set in the Jew extermination camps of Nazi Germany (I wondered for a long time why my library copy had a swastika on its cover). Again a chef is called upon to do a filthy and barbarous act by men who are barely recognisable as animals, never mind humans.
This is far more than a pastoral sequence and the telling of the life of a saint. There are no pallid tableaux to warm the hearts of the faithful and send comfort that even in this windswept locality great martyrs rise. The narrative is an indictment of human weakness and the negative effect of logical political conclusions on the lives of the people that leaders are meant to serve rather than exploit. Modern parallels abound.
There is no aggrandisement of Magnus the man, nothing convoluted or hyperbolic about his uniting with Christ during that final night of torment and prayer.
What choice did Magnus have? That remains an eternal question for so many human actions. It can be applied to Hakon as freely as to Magnus, to their men at arms, to the way Mans drinks and abuses Hild, to the way Mary remains ungrateful and feckless. Do they have any more choice than the barely seed thrown into the rill on the hillside? or the seeds carried by the wind and throttled by weeds?
There is delightful richness in George Mackay Brown’s prose, slowing the reader down as poetry does, producing a steady rhythm, an ebb and release of story that is born of confidence and mastery of the form. It is certainly not a book to be rushed through, as the library will know from my many renewals.
There are passages that I want to revisit, to hold again in my mind – I will now return my copy and in time, seek out a copy of my own.
Gabrielle Barnby
Orkney, 1st Nov, 2017
February 22, 2024
Poetic, powerful, mystical and moving.
Read
January 31, 2020I need to read more on Dietrich Bonhoeffer before revisiting the final section of this book. As it stands, I find Brown's prose and alternating form delightful, I just know I'm missing out on much of what makes this book a 'good read'.
March 2, 2024
Undoubtedly George Mackay Brown has a profound understanding of typology, and this retelling of the life of St. Magnus of Orkney is an exemplary enactment of his insight. For he truly comprehends the mystery of participation, in which there is harmony and by which unity in the archetype is attained without compromising the peculiarity of the individual participants. Every sacrifice is in a sense a representation of The Sacrifice, but each representation is still different in its particular glory. And the glory of Magnus is a one not only of resignation to the divine will, but much more of the grand refusal to succumb to the spirit of the world, of the city of man, of the antichrist. Diligently managed utility, meticulously calculated efficiency, and, ah, well deserved prosperity! Indeed, the main antagonist is not Hakon, for he is after all just another faceless and featureless minion amongst many carried along by the billow of ‘practical concerns’ – the feuds are the true murderers of Magnus: ‘Gravis est nobis etiam ad videndum, quoniam dissimilis est aliis vita illius, et immutatae sunt viae ejus…’ ‘In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt.’ Every martyr, including Bonhoeffer, is thus an image of Christ. Despite not being killed explicitly for odium fidei, Magnus is no less an image of Christ. His is a Myshkinian innocence that is too radiant to behold and too simple to comprehend, a Socratic fortitude that is willing to suffer injustice rather than to commit it, and a Christian faith that announces the year of the Lord’s redemption is at hand, though only after shedding the blood of the Lamb.
November 27, 2019
I enjoyed Brown's use of the language, though for me he falls into the category of poets who can't do plot to much effect. If this is his "magnum opus", I am not impressed. If it is just an attempt to do a novel by a wordsmith, then I can understand its shortcomings. Plenty of beautiful phrases and passages, instances of near-ideal word choices, and therein lie the only wonders of this tale. Maybe picking such an obscure individual for half his comparison helps, though many may not know much of Dietrich Bonhoeffer either (I would guess Nazism lends the latter more renown than even a deep fascination with Norse invasions would for Erlendsson, most likely). Possibly this allows Brown to be rather fantastical, dare I say hagiographical, with his prose in regards to Magnus. Hard to know, since two of the three lead characters - Erlendsson and Brown - are dead and cannot be queried. And I would doubt Bonhoeffer ever saw his predicament with Hitler mirrored in the life of the Earl.
Standard male author reference/esteem given to religion, battle, myth, female bodies, and nature. Nothing novel here, but beautifully worded nonetheless.
Not a book I would recommend, though Brown fans may disagree with this, as is their wont. It never rose above average for me, and spent much time well below that, to be honest.
Standard male author reference/esteem given to religion, battle, myth, female bodies, and nature. Nothing novel here, but beautifully worded nonetheless.
Not a book I would recommend, though Brown fans may disagree with this, as is their wont. It never rose above average for me, and spent much time well below that, to be honest.
April 10, 2011
Most of George MacKay Brown's books are about Orkney and this novel is no exception. He uses the saga of St. Magnus the Martyr to relate the transition of man's instinct to worship God from prehistoric times of human sacrifice through animal sacrifice. The Crucifixion of Jesus becoming the ultimate sacrifice. Still he shows that innocents are martyred throughout out history with the story St. Magnus in 1155, and the martyrdom of Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer by the Nazi. The character Lifolf who remains complacent and he is drawn into the murder of both St., Magnus and Rev. Bonhoeffer surely represents those of us who remain complacent to evil in our own day.
This not a book for the faint of heart.
This not a book for the faint of heart.
January 19, 2018
The story of St Magnus told mainly as if in his time. The narrative moves unexpectedly into old language, modern re-imagining, and World War 2 eras. The language and imagery are beautiful. The savagery of the time is horrifying. However, I found my attention wandering at times.
December 22, 2025
‘It’s the old sorry tale – two earls, one small domain, a sundered allegiance. There was bound to be trouble.’
George Mackay Brown draws on the Icelandic Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney for his novel about Saint Magnus, an earl who ruled jointly in the Orkney Islands in the early 12th century with his cousin Hakon.
Brown’s novel employs some unusual narrative techniques. To interrogate Magnus’s doubts and decisions, Brown has a ‘Tempter’ offering Magnus options to escape difficult situations. In Jesus-like fashion, the pious Magnus turns the Tempter down. Then, in a real change of perspective, some parts of Magnus’s life are viewed through the lens of a 20th century news reporter; in others, the saint’s life is conflated with German atrocities in World War II.
Brown’s account of Magnus’s life is fascinating not only for the creative risks he takes but also for the grounding (literal and metaphoric) in the Orkney Islands’ way of life. Brown is attuned to the land and its people – the tilling of the earth, the changing of the seasons, the crofters, the tinkers, the bishops, the earls – all play a part in the unfolding story.
Many of the wisest insights in the novel come through the voice of Bishop William (a canny man with political acumen who was initially sceptical of the claims of miracles following Magnus’s death). Here are some of William’s prudent judgements:
‘Such is the flaw at the heart of all human skill and endeavour … that the most important law of all, that concerning inheritance, makes every death-bed in our part of the world a place of wrangling and dread … Everywhere, the past bequeaths to the present a mutilated inheritance.’
‘Our history and our thought and art are steeped in this manic melancholy, out of which only one virtue comes – a kind of stoical courage.’
‘At certain times and in certain places men still crave spectacular sacrifice.’
Inheritance, courage, sacrifice. Sums up George Mackay Brown’s story of St Magnus.
* * * * * * * * * *
For a deeper look at this novel, see my blog post ‘St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, the Orkneyinga Saga and the novel Magnus by George Mackay Brown’ on my website, Thoughts from an Idle Hour.
January 5, 2024
I bought this book in Orkney, having travelled there last summer and always try to find a local bit of literature whenever I go somewhere new. I vaguely knew of George Mackay Brown as an Orcadian poet and author but knew little to nothing about his work. I learnt all about St Magnus in my time in Orkney and was fascinated by his story, so buying Mackay Brown's fictional portrayal of Magnus's life and death seemed a good choice.
I was expecting an interesting bit of historical fiction. What I got instead was far more, and far better, with a significant spiritual dimension, which Mackay Brown founds woven through the events of history.
I was treated to a historical saga, weaving together the life and death of Magnus, the martyrdom of anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the hopes and cares of the Everyman and Everywoman in ancient times. Through all this, what Mackay Brown acknowledges as the focal point of all history, the crowning event in the history of mankind, is the time when God became man and took upon Himself all of the evils and sins of the world--all of the weight of the evils man has committed on each other, all of the shattered hopes and dreams thwarted by the evil designs of others, all of the lives cut short by selfishness and ambition of others. And because of this momentous occasion of God Himself taking these burdens, and his subsequent resurrection and defeat of death, the memorialization of this event in the eucharist as celebrated through the millennia since, becomes an ongoing focal point in which Everyman and Everywoman can continue to look for hope and peace. As GMB wrote: "Since all the round of time is gathered into this ritual half hour, the actions of Everyman, once the bread of divine wisdom is in his body, have an immense importance; what he does and says and thinks reverberates through the whole web of time."
Some will no doubt be jarred by the experimental juxtaposition of styles (stage play, poetry interspersed with prose, TV reporter interviewing witnesses, narrative) and the sudden switch from Magnus's murder to Bonhoeffer's and then back to post-Magnus. There's no question that what Mackay Brown does with "Magnus" is unconventional in some regards. But I embraced it and found the beauty and appreciated the sacredness of the lives portrayed, as he chose to do so. Vanity, ambition, selflessness, piety, humility, ungratefulness, all the beauty and ugliness of humanity is here, in the story of Magnus, all in only 185 pages of short, succinct sentences and paragraphs. Mackay Brown uses his words sparingly but powerfully.
I was expecting an interesting bit of historical fiction. What I got instead was far more, and far better, with a significant spiritual dimension, which Mackay Brown founds woven through the events of history.
I was treated to a historical saga, weaving together the life and death of Magnus, the martyrdom of anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the hopes and cares of the Everyman and Everywoman in ancient times. Through all this, what Mackay Brown acknowledges as the focal point of all history, the crowning event in the history of mankind, is the time when God became man and took upon Himself all of the evils and sins of the world--all of the weight of the evils man has committed on each other, all of the shattered hopes and dreams thwarted by the evil designs of others, all of the lives cut short by selfishness and ambition of others. And because of this momentous occasion of God Himself taking these burdens, and his subsequent resurrection and defeat of death, the memorialization of this event in the eucharist as celebrated through the millennia since, becomes an ongoing focal point in which Everyman and Everywoman can continue to look for hope and peace. As GMB wrote: "Since all the round of time is gathered into this ritual half hour, the actions of Everyman, once the bread of divine wisdom is in his body, have an immense importance; what he does and says and thinks reverberates through the whole web of time."
Some will no doubt be jarred by the experimental juxtaposition of styles (stage play, poetry interspersed with prose, TV reporter interviewing witnesses, narrative) and the sudden switch from Magnus's murder to Bonhoeffer's and then back to post-Magnus. There's no question that what Mackay Brown does with "Magnus" is unconventional in some regards. But I embraced it and found the beauty and appreciated the sacredness of the lives portrayed, as he chose to do so. Vanity, ambition, selflessness, piety, humility, ungratefulness, all the beauty and ugliness of humanity is here, in the story of Magnus, all in only 185 pages of short, succinct sentences and paragraphs. Mackay Brown uses his words sparingly but powerfully.
July 24, 2019
Brown really shows off his delicate and beautiful prose in this book. It is arguably a novel, and forms more a series of vignettes that roughly describe the life, and in greater detail describe the world, of St Magnus of Orkney.
He does have great talent at evoking the feel of the place; the bracing wind, harsh seas and simple, god-fearing life. Unfortunately there's also a healthy dose of modern-stylings, where parts of chapters veer off into different styles. A bit fun to read, sure, but not entirely convinced they serve the purpose that was intended. For example, there's one section that is written as if a script of a play, another which reads like a sky-news broadcast (complete with intense anachronisms) and another that suddenly shifts the narrative to WWII Germany- hardly subtle and really detracts from the otherwise peaceful and beautiful book.
And parts of it definitely are beautiful! Magnus's dream/meditation in the penultimate chapter really is captivating.
What I found really interesting was how Magnus himself was set up as almost completely unsympathetic; he's an inattentive and disobedient child, a disinterested teenager. And as an adult he causes a civil war in his land when he claims his Earldom, which he is presented as pretty incompetent at ruling anyway. So the ultimate, inescapable conclusion really seems like probably the best outcome for everyone.
An interesting character study, and fascinating world-building, but ultimately shoots itself in the foot by trying to be too stylish.
He does have great talent at evoking the feel of the place; the bracing wind, harsh seas and simple, god-fearing life. Unfortunately there's also a healthy dose of modern-stylings, where parts of chapters veer off into different styles. A bit fun to read, sure, but not entirely convinced they serve the purpose that was intended. For example, there's one section that is written as if a script of a play, another which reads like a sky-news broadcast (complete with intense anachronisms) and another that suddenly shifts the narrative to WWII Germany- hardly subtle and really detracts from the otherwise peaceful and beautiful book.
And parts of it definitely are beautiful! Magnus's dream/meditation in the penultimate chapter really is captivating.
What I found really interesting was how Magnus himself was set up as almost completely unsympathetic; he's an inattentive and disobedient child, a disinterested teenager. And as an adult he causes a civil war in his land when he claims his Earldom, which he is presented as pretty incompetent at ruling anyway. So the ultimate, inescapable conclusion really seems like probably the best outcome for everyone.
An interesting character study, and fascinating world-building, but ultimately shoots itself in the foot by trying to be too stylish.
Read
December 31, 2020My Scottish friend recommended George Mackay Brown to me. His grandparents live on Orkney, and apparently knew Brown when he was alive. I wish his books were easier to find in the US.
Magnus is a fascinating amalgam of history, myth, and religious mysticism. I'm still trying to figure out how Brown managed to write a novel that reads like it was unearthed in a series of ancient scrolls, and yet feels more contemporary than most science fiction. Also, the dude can turn a phrase: "Everywhere the past bequeaths to the present a mutilated inheritance."
A short biographical addendum: In spite of various offers to write and teach on the mainland, George Mackay Brown spent his entire life in the Orkney Islands. This was due to tuberculosis, his love of his home, and his firm belief that a writer must engage with their own people on their own soil. According to admirer Seamus Heaney, Brown passed everything "through the eye of the needle of Orkney." He probably would be better known today if he lived in Edinburgh--but would his writings have lost some of their idiosyncrasies?
Magnus is a fascinating amalgam of history, myth, and religious mysticism. I'm still trying to figure out how Brown managed to write a novel that reads like it was unearthed in a series of ancient scrolls, and yet feels more contemporary than most science fiction. Also, the dude can turn a phrase: "Everywhere the past bequeaths to the present a mutilated inheritance."
A short biographical addendum: In spite of various offers to write and teach on the mainland, George Mackay Brown spent his entire life in the Orkney Islands. This was due to tuberculosis, his love of his home, and his firm belief that a writer must engage with their own people on their own soil. According to admirer Seamus Heaney, Brown passed everything "through the eye of the needle of Orkney." He probably would be better known today if he lived in Edinburgh--but would his writings have lost some of their idiosyncrasies?
May 26, 2018
I need some time to ponder this one. The interweaving of the story of Magnus in the 12th Century with the philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the 20th Century and parallel themes was interesting, but I found the switching of time and writing styles a bit disconcerting. I got the book after visiting Orkney and reading the Orkneyinga Saga, and I did enjoy Brown's retelling of Magnus's story. I am not sure, though, if I would have understood some of Brown's story without the background information I got from the Orkneyinga Saga and my Orkney visit.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2020
This book was recommended to me to read alongside the Orkneyinga Saga. The style of this book is what I had hoped the Saga would be like (unrealistic, with the Saga’s date of authorship). I loved how the historical bones were fleshed out with this writing and how the different classes were all described. We spent a week in Orkney in 2017, and the places were all beautifully described (and easily pictured 3 years later) in the writing. This would be a great travel read while someone is in Orkney for a week.
January 6, 2022
It was a hard read. Yes much of the language was beautiful with the styles kept changing and the story was hard to follow and I was totally thrown off when I’m one of the sections of the book was allegorical told from the perspective of an employee at a German concentration camp. I think if I had read the basic story about Magnus before I read the book so I at least knew what was going on that would’ve helped but the bottom line is this is a book that I’m glad I read it I don’t particularly want to reread
August 18, 2017
After spending a few days on the Orkney Isles staying at Birsay, I bought this book on the ferry back to Aberdeen.
I visited George Mackay Brown`s grave in Stromness and have always loved his work.
This is a wonderful book. The words flow so beautiful. It is complex to read because GMB changes style in the book. In one part he resorts to a newspaper type report on the war between the two Earls.
I visited George Mackay Brown`s grave in Stromness and have always loved his work.
This is a wonderful book. The words flow so beautiful. It is complex to read because GMB changes style in the book. In one part he resorts to a newspaper type report on the war between the two Earls.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2018
Brown is a Scottish poet from the Orkneys, and this fictionalized account of those Islands' patron saint is poetic and lovely.
There are a few odd aspects from a historic perspective (a Marxist 11th century peasant?). Also the ending is, I thought, a bit weak. Too on-the-nose and too overtly and straightforwardly religious compared to the rest of the book. But Brown's talent as a writer and powerful sense of place are both top notch. He's one to read for sure.
There are a few odd aspects from a historic perspective (a Marxist 11th century peasant?). Also the ending is, I thought, a bit weak. Too on-the-nose and too overtly and straightforwardly religious compared to the rest of the book. But Brown's talent as a writer and powerful sense of place are both top notch. He's one to read for sure.
August 17, 2019
George Mackay Brown. This book is not the key but the lock to his peculiar, intensely felt world - the over-determining set of characters and themes who could never be less or more than they are: stone blocks that build the history of Orkney as Brown knew it. As to the novel where he translated those immovable, immutable things into narrative prose, it is gloriously and deeply chaotic - a mess of nested symbols. A wrestling match with the Angel of Jacob, if you will. But what a show it is!
June 13, 2021
A lovely book about harsh lives. It is somewhat jarring at times in its transitions from one type of writing (novel to play to poetry, etc.) to another, but the overall effect shows the timelessness of the stories, and how often plot is not so important as the details of how it is told, and the most exciting events and outer trappings of a life are not always the most important. Reading the descriptions of the Orkneys are like looking at close-up photographs.
October 12, 2023
This short novel is in a category all its own; in some sections, it seems to be a philosophical treatise on the nature of man. The plot concerns the 12th century martyrdom of Magnus, the Earl of Orkney. Time passes in eight chapters, in which we also become acquainted with peasants, tinkers, and members of the church. There are two surprising sections, in which Brown subtly takes us out of that long ago time to one more recognizable. Quite compelling, and I'm sure it will prove memorable.
January 28, 2019
This retelling of St Magnus' story is mesmerising and innovative. Often the prose moves from ancient to modern day action but the reader is never in any doubt where they are in the story and where all the connections lie. Characters are real and the landscape evocative. And I was captivated from page one by the poetic storytelling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews