Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Preface

For many years I wanted to capture the very particular romance of living in Edinburgh, one of the most beautiful and entrancing cities in the world. The offer to write a novel in a daily newspaper gave me just such an opportunity – and I seized it with enthusiasm. That resulted in 44 Scotland Street, a novel written in short chapters that were then published in The Scotsman and subsequently in book form. This book and the four volumes that followed it represent a revival of an old-fashioned literary form that had more or less died out in the twentieth century: the serial novel.

I found the serial form to be a most agreeable one. The story has numerous plots; characters drift in and out; some matters are unresolved; strange things happen. In short, a serial novel is particularly well-suited to the depiction of the shape of real life, which does not unfold in a strictly linear way. But even if there is a concern with real life and real locales, that does not prevent, of course, the introduction of flights of fantasy. The arrival of a contemporary Jacobite pretender is fanciful stuff, although, lest anybody doubt the credibility of that theme, there are still Jacobites in Edinburgh, pursuing a cause that was lost long ago. And that is one of the things that make Scotland such fertile ground for fiction: it is still a romantic country, and in spite of the best efforts of some to over-govern it, it is still fun.

And finally, this book is entirely true, or almost. There really is a Scotland Street in Edinburgh, even if it does not quite reach 44. Bertie exists – I have seen him, and his mother, on numerous occasions, just as Cyril, and Angus Lordie, and all the rest can be observed if one walks the streets of the Edinburgh New Town and looks about one. This all happened, and continues to happen, perhaps.

Alexander McCall Smith