“Laidlaw” is a novel written by the famous Scottish born author William McIlvanney. His inspirational style of writing has delivered him prestigious awards for all his high quality novels.
“Laidlaw” is set in the urban city of Glasgow in the 90’s and delivers a cutting insight to big industries and crime in society. McIlvanney creates a stunning atmosphere and examines the fascinating issues of why people commit murder and the devastating results of violence. One of the reasons I selected this novel wasn’t just because of the quality and origin of the author and the setting , it was because of the infuriating character of Cheif Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw , he is the main character and the most memorable one. He is the spearhead of the investigations into the murder of a teenage girl , he has to do this in a city of hard men, villains and fat cat businessmen. To look more deeper into the mysterious character of Laidlaw and his personality , we need to look at his interests and prejudices , Laidlaw is the main focus , in this novel and he captures everyone s imagination and thoughts . He is an unorthodox detective who is always wondering about the nature of society , threading his way through pubs and clubs trying to find the murderer of an apparently innocent girl. Laidlaw is such a memorable character who requires to be looked at and examined closely.
Jack Laidlaw is a universe apart from other examples of detectives , he examines the more intriguing issues of how and why people can commit the reprehensible crime of murder and the harrowing aftermath of crime and violence. Jack Laidlaw can deeply understand people more than anyone could ever imagine.
Jack Laidlaw is an odd sort detective, and this is an odd sort of novel. He lives and works in the gloomy, cheerless heart of urban Glasgow; and he keeps the works of “Camus”,” Unamuno” and “Kierkegaard”in his top desk drawer, “where other detectives would normally rather keep their secret stashes of liquor.” Unlike many other detectives with uppity tastes in literature, no one congratulates him for this or encourages him in any way; the whole world tells him that he thinks too much to be a good detective . However, he persists in trying to understand crimes as well as solve them : “You want to live as if the rest of the world was just a necessary evil and that you have to be a monster to be a criminal ,it’s fucking not true , it’s all in peoples concealed heads. That may be a nuisance to you. But it’s a fucking sight worse for the victims of crime!”
Laidlaw loved putting himself in other peoples shoes and think how and why they could do such a disgusting crime; a young girl from a repressive working-class home has been raped and strangled and left in a public park. We know from the beginning who committed the crime ; what supplies the dramatic tension is that Laidlaw is only one of several people who are, for their own reasons, racing to get to the murderer’s hideout first – and Laidlaw is the only party interested in offering humane treatment to the murderer when he is found. Unlike most inverted novels, Laidlaw has no trouble at all in maintaining the tension and pacing of the investigation.
Laidlaw has an interestingly muscular argument for maintaining an engaged stance toward a brutal world. When his wife whines at him for working long hours (the bane of police marriages the world over, it seems), he snaps and he discovered he had been shouting.
“Don’t swear. The children will hear you.”
“Fuck-off! Swear-words they’ll survive. What they might not survive is your indifference to everybody else but them.”
Laidlaw is unusually dense and evocative, and the character of Laidlaw is true to life and horrifyingly believable.
Laidlaw’s life would revolve around his desk , he is very sceptical and curious about his future and about his life and what he has achieved , he was constantly thinking about it , one day he had a bleak view ;
“When the mood seeped into him ,nothing mattered. He could think of no imaginable success , no way of happiness in life , no dreams of wishes that could ever satisfy.”
Laidlaw’s character and the way he thinks could have been moulded and created by his childhood and how devastating it was to his mentality ;
“Even when he was a child , it had been present in his own childish form. He remembered vividly the nights when the terror of darkness and all that s connected with the darkness , had driven him through to his parents’ room . He must have run for miles on that bed”. And nowadays he runs for miles on his head always thinking about how to make his life easier and better and everyone s along with him.
Laidlaw’s wild imagination and thoughts can give the reader a shock as well and can take the reader into another world , especially in his childhood the reader can see deep inside his head and what was running through it constantly as a child ,a very good insight ;
“Then it had been bats and bears , wolves running round the wallpaper. The spiders were the worst , big ,massive hairy swines , with more legs than a chorus-line. Now the monsters were simultaneously less exotic and less avoidable.” This shows that as he grows older his imagination matures and becomes “less exotic”. He also had more dreams as a boy; than nowadays.
His marriage and interests are an issue even the reader can’t fully explore and explain , he is such a complicated character to study and demands a lot of respect from the reader and the language we use ;
“He was drinking far too much – not for pleasure, just sipping it systematically , like low proof hemlock. His marriage was a maze nobody had ever mapped , an infinity of habit and hurt and betrayal down which Ena and he wandered separately , meeting occasionally in the children.”
He was a Policeman , a Cheif Detective Inspector , and more and more he wondered how and why that happened to him. And he was nearly forty. This is true to life as many policemen wonder why they are doing such a hard job, in a society which nobody really respects or appreciates what they are trying to do. The hard urban city of Glasgow typifies this fact and probably enforces it.
Jack Laidlaw always knew the right questions to ask threading his way through peoples minds , he done this with ease , nobody knew how he could do it so easy . One reason was probably because he was so philosophical and studied a lot of philosophy ; which was probably why he was so sceptical about everything in his life.
Laidlaw’s authority demanded far too much respect than anybody could give. This even spread into his home and his family , he always wanted to lay down a law ; that might be a reason why the character’s surname is “Laidlaw”(”lay down the law”). His family often suffered from his devastating occupation as a policeman ;
“Ena (his wife) lay in bed upstairs and listened to Laidlaw getting ready to go to work. His movements were so positive. He walked back and forth pacing out his own purpose. In the silence of the house it was like someone doing sentry duty. It was an everyday event but he made a ritual of it ; a toothbrush missing and a crime might go unsolved. She hoped he had his migraine pills.”
Laidlaw was so hard to live and work with . It was the sheer demand he put on everybody ; he had so much moral aggression. It was as if this had extended itself into his social life ; people seeing him would always think :” Introducing in the red corner……”.
Laidlaw is fascinating and scintillating which makes him such a memorable character ; which was one of the real reasons why I preferred this novel to others. He is a universe apart from other human beings ; in his way of thinking. He is the most distinguished detective character in crime fiction for years.
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