Francis Osbaldistone narrates his decision to pursue poetry instead of follow his father in business, his life with cousins, the cheating of his father at the hand of his cousin Rashleigh, his love for Diana, and his interactions with Rob Roy MacGregor, a "Robin Hood" of the Jacobite cause. Though he only appears mid-way through the book, Rob Roy, for his heart and intentions, was my favorite character. The Scottish brogue makes for plodding reading, but to acquire a degree of understanding was satisfying.

Sir Walter Scott is one of those great classic authors who is completely unread but still very influential. Without exciting historical novels like IVANHOE, tales of medieval chivalry combining military adventure, passionate romance, and aristocratic pageantry, there could never have been a LORD OF THE RINGS, or a GAME OF THRONES.

ROB ROY is harder to get into than IVANHOE, Scott's most famous novel, because the historical background is harder to follow. The year is 1715, just before the first great Scottish uprising to put the exiled Stuart family back on the throne of England. But the story starts as the coming of age story of Frank Osbaldistone, a blank-faced, empty-headed young lad from a wealthy merchant family in London. Frank gets caught writing poetry (instead of learning to be a businessman) and gets sent to a remote estate in northern England, where his cousins are living almost as if it's still the Middle Ages. They hunt, drink, and daydream about the "old days" when aristocrats and not merchants owned England. Frank doesn't like them, but he falls madly in love with his female cousin Diana. Unfortunately, his evil and ambitious cousin Rashleigh (the smart one in the family) wants Diana too . . .

The story would be far more exciting if it focused on the passion between Frank and Diana, and if there were more scenes of actual combat between Scottish highlanders and English redcoats. But for most of the book Frank sort of wanders around seeing things happen but not doing anything about it. He's kind of a Frodo or Bilbo Baggins type, and he never comes across as sexy or reckless enough to captivate someone like Diana, who is really the most fascinating character in the book. In the end, most of the 1715 uprising stuff happens off stage, and the "happy ending" for Frank and Diana is kind of a let down.

So why did I give this classic five stars? Just because the atmosphere is so haunting, like the ruined castle where the cousins live. And the mystery surrounding beautiful Diana. And the way the doomed Highlanders are so loyal to a king they've never even met. And the way Rob Roy rescues Frank because he's a gentleman and in love with a beautiful lass. It's a romantic world, even if the plot is confusing and the characters aren't always very interesting.

A classic but Scott can be so long winded........

One of Scott's most charming works, mainly for the sense of adventure present throughout and the charm of the novel's heroine, Diana. Witty, clever and self-aware, Diana stands out among other Scott heroines. The mystery of her background and the identity of Rob Roy make this a great historical romance and deservedly one of Scott's better known works.

This edition is one of the 'Signet Classic' series of movie tie-in reprints. The ads in the back of the book make that clear. On this basis, you might assume that it actually bears any resemblance to a movie starring Liam Neeson in the title role: but apparently not. Couldn't prove it by me, either way, since, until recently, I had neither read the book or watched the movie. Now I've read the book, but I still haven't seen the movie.

But the attempt to tie-in the novel with a movie version does have one interesting effect: the 'Author's Introduction' is moved to the penultimate section, right before the glossary. If you're not interested in the historical background, this may be for the best. For one thing, the 'Author's Introduction' gives away a lot of the plot. For another, if you're not familiar with the history, you probably won't understand it much better after having read the author's introduction than before: and it probably won't increase your understanding of the plot.

For example, unless you check up on a few historical dates, you probably won't realize that 'the king over the water' the Jacobites are trying to 'restore' to power is not James II, who died in 1701, but rather his son, who would have been James III if not for the confusing abdication of James II in his own and his son's name, but leaving his daughters in contention. By the time of the Hanoverian kings (the 'King George' in this story is George I, who considered his job as Elector of Hanover much more important than his role as king of England, and never even bothered to learn English), the 'King James' in the story is the 'Old Pretender'. Scott didn't feel the need to explain this sort of thing, because he assumed his readers would know it.

The concept of the 'barbaric Scots' as opposed to the 'modern English' is quite a recent development. The Scots were quite closely integrated into British society until at least the 'Glorious Revolution'. The first Stuart king, James I, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, was, after all, ALSO King James VI of Scotland. The resentment of the Scots toward the 'Union' (and the concomitant loss of independence is not an irrational qualm. Both English and Scottish people resented being ruled by German rulers: but the treatment of the Celtic peoples during the period following the English Civil War was MUCH worse than the treatment of people south of Hadrian's Wall. Scott's attempt to argue that all parties will be better off if they just accept the 'opportunities' offered by the growth of colonialism (and also of what would now be called globalism) is clearly not something he expects his readers to accept without challenge.

So, too often, he falls back on blaming the victim. Why are the Scots so badly off? Because of overpopulation, of course. The old patriarchal system required the patriarchs to provide for all their clan members. But it's not (of course) the fault of the British government bleeding Scotland (and especially the Highlands) dry that the patriarchs can no longer meet the needs of their kinsfolk. It's because the feckless Scots couldn't reduce the size of their families that there's not enough work for all the people. And then, instead of sending off the 'extra' population to fight as mercenaries for foreign powers, the lairds set their kinsfolk to banditry. So, you see, it's not the fault of the English, or the Lowlanders who switched loyalties: It's all their own fault that the people are suffering.

Scott might have hoped to convince English people of this sort of thing. He might have even made some progress with the more anglicized of the Lowlanders. But the descendants, especially the descendants of emigrants, have mostly remained unconvinced.

The Rob Roy of this book is the product of one of the mini-genocides that took part in this period. His first 'crime', from which the others might be supposed to have arisen unavoidably, was to have picked the wrong grandparents. Scott goes into some detail as to the precursors of the decision to disband the MacGregor clan, and force its descendants to amalgamate into other clans. He seems to think that the MacGregors should have accepted this placidly: which makes the saga of the MacGregor clan something of a microcosm of the whole story.

The story is somewhat insulated from the 'mainstream' society of contemporary Britain. 'Rob Roy' does sometimes mingle (at his peril) with Lowlanders. And he gets involved with the affairs of the Sassenachs via cross-border raids.

The Osbaldistone family get involved in these Scottish affairs at least partly because they originated in Northumberland. The father of the main character, though the heir, was expelled from his family because of his commercial ambitions. Which makes it all the more ironic that the narrator gets repatriated to his paternal family because he DOESN'T have aspirations for commerce, and thus becomes the innocent precipitator of all rest of the plot. In the narration, the older version of the narrator who is looking back argues that he was in the wrong. Does this mean that his father was also in the wrong? That we all of us inherit our proper work, and have no choice as to what to do with our lives and talents?

I frankly found the 'villain' more than a little pitiable. He wasn't fit for the life he was born to, nor for the life he was deputized to. And, for all his cunning, he doesn't seem to have the ingenuity to decide "Y'all can go to hell. I'm going to Texas" a la Davy Crockett. So he tries (rather clumsily) to engage in a sort of economic terrorism to achieve political ends, and ends up being rejected by everybody. His brothers, who meet various 'appropriate' ends, given their specialties (thus the equestrian, for example, is killed in a fall from a horse), are just abandoned without interest from fairly early on.

Come to that, the female heroes (Di Vernon and Helen MacGregor)don't seem to have the sense to emigrate either. There seems to be a sort of tunnel vision that prevents the sort of romantic dispersion that most of my own ancestors engaged in. If you can't live the way you want to in the Highlands anymore, the ocean is wide.

There were a few elements that disturbed me from the beginning in this story. One of the worst is the paranoid English paymaster who is, in the end, brutally and pointlessly murdered because, due to circumstances beyond his control, he is made a hostage for the good faith of people who aren't negotiating in good faith.

The travelogue elements of this story are interesting, though I sometimes disagree with them pretty strongly. The sort of landscape the author seems to thrill in bores and sickens me (I can't stand treeless mountains, for one). On the other hand, other landscapes are rejected out of hand because the author just doesn't like them: but I might, if they were described properly (I think, by comparison, of James Herriot's descriptions of Yorkshire). Some descriptions of buildings, campuses, etc arouse curiosity, and I might like to see them. The preposterous fantasy plan of one of the characters to fill in Loch Lomond and turn it into a giant industrial park makes me glad that there was no real chance for the character to get the resources to try any such thing.

Note that in this period the depredations of the Puritan Iconoclasts were still fairly fresh in memory, and some churches are described as still bearing the scars of the destruction they wrought, including the smashing of stained glass windows.

One thing about the language: the glossary at the back of the book would really be better as a separate pamphlet. In some of the thicker dialect, it's probably easier to write whole phrases down, and flip through to translate the terms all at once. But even this way, it's not necessarily complete. Scott didn't feel the need to translate contemporary ENGLISH terms; with the result that sometimes the Scottish dialect is easier to construe.

If you aren't familiar with the Scottish dialect do not try to audiobook this one! I read a lot of 19th century fiction. I have no problem with long winded sentences, a writer using ten words where one will do, or even in plots that move at the speed of cream curdling in the cold. HOWEVER, I do not get my thrills from excavating meaning from nearly foreign tongues (I'm lookin' at you Wuthering Heights). I think I would have been ok reading this, but listening to it left huge holes in my understanding of the plot because every time a Scottish character would speak all I would hear is "gubbedy glub tartan kenwa honor weal ah horse ach stochan."

This book robbed (

Walter Scott is along with Robert Burns not only the most celebrated author in Scottish history he is arguably the most celebrated person in Scottish history.

This story written almost exactly 200 years ago is a historical fiction story about Rob Roy the Revolutionary who lived 300 years ago. I recently traveled to Edinburgh and feel I am obligated to read both Scott and Burns after visiting such a lovely city.

By today’s standard this novel (absent historical context) would be a 3 star novel. At times the language used is hard to read (like Gulliver’s Travels or anything written 200 years ago).

I did enjoy the prominence of women leading the Scottish clans and playing a central role in the story and the story was not overly romanticized.

I think the novel is also significant for Scott’s ability to describe scenes such as this fox hunt.

“The fox, hard run, and nearly spent, first made his appearance from the copse which clothed the right-hand side of the valley. His drooping brush, his soiled appearance, and jaded trot, proclaimed his fate impending; and the carrion crow, which hovered over him, already considered poor Reynard as soon to be his prey”

or when the main character was sent to relatives in the Scottish Highlands from England

“What could my father mean by sending me to be an inmate in this strange family?”

or when Frank the main character was having nightmares from the prior battles and escapes with the Jacobites

“The sounds in my dream were not ideal. They reverberated on my waking ears, but it was two or three minutes ere I could collect myself so as distinctly to understand that they proceeded from a violent knocking at the gate.”


or when Miss Vernon slipped away from authorities

“I had next the mortification to see Jobson go straight to the chamber of Miss Vernon, and I learned that from thence, without hesitation or difficulty, he went to the room where Sir Frederick had slept. "The hare has stolen away," said the brute, "but her form is warm--the greyhounds will have her by the haunches yet.”

For very old novels it usually helps me to get a good online plot summary before reading the actual novel especially when you already know the outcome.

If you are skeptical of the importance of Sir Walter Scott to Scotland check out his monument.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott...

Absolutely marvelous! Full of non-stop adventure and intrigue. Pure genius! There's more humor than Scott usually adds in, and the characters are deep and colorful. It exceeded my expectations in every respect.



I just laughed, and ached, and nearly cried, and sat on the edge of my seat. I gasped in surprise, and exclaimed, "I knew it!" sometimes. I recoiled in horror and bit my lip with frustration. I was so immersed in the whole world of Rob Roy and Frank Osbaldistone, that I forgot that I was in the year 2008 where "pretty" gentlemen of that sort are scarce.

I felt so sorry for Rob Roy, there he was, trying to mind his own business, and wham, he's in the thick of it, fighting for justice and fairness from not only the Sassanachs, but also his own people,

Jutt šoti pisikesest aadlist ehk klannijuhist Robert "Roy" MacGregor, keda romaanis peaaegu ise polegi ja kes olla tuntud kui Šoti vaste Robin Hoodile. Peategelaseks on üldisemalt Inglise ja Šoti kõrgklass või täpsemalt jutustaja Frank Osbaldistone, kes tegeleb oma seisusele kohase tühja-tähjaga, nagu rohkem või vähem joovastavate jookide joomine erinevate majade erinevates tubades ning paljude sõnadega mitte millegi lausumise. Loomulikult on Scott selle mittemillegi vooderdanud veel rohkema kirjeldava sõnavahuga, millest millegi loetava välja sorteerimine on tõeline väljakutse tänapäevasema sõnakunsti austajale. Seega võin soovitada ignoreerida esimest 242 lehekülge (1957. trükk), kus juhtub veel vähem kui järgnevatel lehtedel.

Kirjatöö kvaliteeti võib-olla iseloomustab ka asjaolu, et 11 aastat peale esimest ilmumist leidis autor, et midagigi raamatust aru saada, peab lugejale ette söötma 6 paksu peatükki "sissejuhatust". Seiklusjutte maalt ja merelt sarjas on see eesti keelest välja jäänud, kuid ingliskeelses "magnum" väljalaskes on see olemas. Kuna Walter Scotti stiil mulle kohe üldse ei istu, siis istub mulle veel vähem tema kirja pandud ajalookirjeldus. Meenutab eriti igavat ajalooõpikut, kust igasugune elu ja põnevus on eemaldatud, ning sa pead järgmine nädal kontrolltööd tegema.

Kes tuleb siia otsima Šoti elamust, siis peaks seda kuulama näiteks Librivoxi inglisekeelse heliraamatuna, kus hääldatakse šoti murret enam-vähem usutavalt välja. Eestikeelses tõlkes see aspekt läheb mõistagi täiesti kaduma. Samuti läheb suuresti kaduma see Inglise kõrgklassi tühi loba ehk nö viktoriaanlik lilleline keel. Ning muidugi vana keelekasutus, kus "geid" härrad "ejakuleerivad" näiteks "alas" või "stand and deliver"! Eesti tõlge on ka kohati arhailine, nagu näiteks gaeli keele kohta kasutatakse terminit "geeli".

Kaotsi ei lähe kirja saatmise keerukus tol kaugel ajal, milles kunagi kindel ei saanud olla ja suure osa vastusest võttis tihti enda alla kinnitus, millal ja millised kirjad kätte on saadud ja kinnituse küsimine, et vastu kirjutades ikka kirjutataks, milliseid kirju teine osapool kätte on saanud ja millal.

Inglased kutsuvad siin šotlasi nende hulgas levinud nime järgi "donalditeks" - irooniline tähelepanek, kuidas ükski kuulus Donald tänapäeval pole šotlane. Üks on part, teine on andnud nime burgeritele ja kolmas on napakas oranž jobu. Vähemalt väikese tähega donaldiks on kirjutanud selle eestikeelne tõlge. Inglise keeles on see suure tähega, kuid samas ilma eesliite Mac-ita ja murdekeeles.

“Muckle needs to tell me that,” said Andrew, contemptuously, “as if I had never seen a Hielandman before, and ken'd nae how to manage them. Nae man alive can cuitle up Donald better than mysell—I hae bought wi' them, sauld wi' them, eaten wi' them, drucken wi' them".

Ajaloos orienteerumiseks tasub mainida, et Šoti ja Inglise kuningriik jagasid kuningat juba aastast 1603, kui Šoti James Stuart sai Šoti kuuendaks ja Inglise esimeseks Jamesiks. Kuningriigid ühinesid ametlikult 1707 ja romaan leiab aset 1715, kui katoliiklikud jakobiidid on korduvalt ebaõnnestunult mässanud krooni vastu, sest upitavad oma katoliiklikku Stuarti kuningat troonile. Jakobiidid olla nime saanud Jamesi ladina keelse vormi järgi, Jacobus. Mitte segi ajada Prantsuse revolutsiooni aegsete Jakobiinidega.


Inglise väeüksus hävitatakse Rob Roy naise Heleni ja mägilaste juhtimisel sel ajal, kui ta mees on vangi langenud. Rob põgeneb, naaseb klanni juurde ja maksab jutustajale tagasi võla, kuigi too on inglane, kellega šoti mägilased tunduvad olevat vaenujalal. Lõpp näitab 1715. aasta jakobiitide ülestõusu varjus šoti mägilaste veritasu inglastest kolonisaatorite vastu. Rob pistab oma claymore'iga läbi peapahalaseks kujunenud Rashleigh, et anda talle mingitki tegevust raamatus, millel on tema nimi. Die põgeneb isaga Prantsusmaale, kus vanamees sureb ja tütar tuleb tagasi, et abielluda meie jutustajaga.


Lõppu võib-olla väike stiilinäide kahes keeles:

"Teie ise olete mind õpetanud siia uksele koputama, mu kaunis nõbu," vastas Rashleigh häält või maneeri muutmata, "ja õpetanud nii tulemusrikkalt, et see harjumus on saanud mulle teiseks loomuseks."
"Ma hindan siirust enam kui viisakust, sir, ja te teate seda," oli miss Vernoni vastus.
"Viisakus on peen mees, õukondlane läbi ja läbi, ja seepärast on tal daami toas aukoht."
"Siirus aga on ustav rüütel," andis vastu miss Vernon, "ja seepärast hoopis enam teretulnud."

“You have taught me the form of knocking at this door so perfectly, my fair cousin,” answered Rashleigh, without change of voice or manner, “that habit has become a second nature.”
“I prize sincerity more than courtesy, sir, and you know I do,” was Miss Vernon's reply.
“Courtesy is a gallant gay, a courtier by name and by profession,” replied Rashleigh, “and therefore most fit for a lady's bower.”
“But Sincerity is the true knight,” retorted Miss Vernon, “and therefore much more welcome, cousin."

First a warning: the movie “Rob Roy” has little to do with the novel “Rob Roy,” except that they share the titular character. I was 250 pages into this book before I finally realized this was the case. I wouldn’t want the rest of you to make a similar error.

The story is a bit complicated. The book jacket says this is a tale set in the Jacobite Uprising of 1715, which sounds exciting, but is true only to the extent necessary to sell this book to you. The plot is much more subtle than that. The hero is not Rob Roy, but young Francis Osbaldistone (wha?), the callow son of a London tycoon/merchant whose business is what we would now describe as “import-export.” Dad has been trying to teach Francis the family business, but exiles his son to northern England after discovering that Francis has been writing poetry. Francis is sent to live at Osbaldistone Hall with his drunk uncle, 5 drunk cousins, and the uncle's beautiful-yet-mysterious ward Diana Vernon. Francis’ sinister cousin Rashleigh goes to take Francis’ place at the family firm. Rashleigh steals some bills of lading and absconds with them to Scotland where he hopes the resulting credit crunch will lead to armed insurrection and chaos (note how this plot manages to be torn from the headlines of two eras!). Francis, eager to prove himself to his father, follows Rashleigh into Scotland, where he eventually falls into the hands of Rob Roy, the Scottish version of Robin Hood. After a lot of running around among the Moors and Highlands, everyone lives happily ever after.

The virtues of this novel are immediately apparent. Scott’s descriptions of the book’s settings – whether a London counting house, a musty library, an underground church, downtown Glasgow, an isolated loch, a smokey tavern, etc – are simply masterful; and, I would say, some of the best descriptive writing I have ever read. Only Dostoyevsky and George Eliot are on the same level. The characters are also masterfully developed, with each character having a quirk or a quality that makes them vivid and three-dimensional. The love interest, Diana Vernon, is one of the great female characters in English literature – a beautiful intellectual with a mysterious past and a penchant for secret plotting, and a skilled horsewoman to boot. Scott’s tone gives this book a moral depth that is rare in literature. Even the death of the book’s most obnoxious character is treated as a mini-tragedy.

The real triumph of this book is Scott’s description of Scotland, which was, in 1715, a wild and chaotic land (interestingly, my research on the Internet indicates that Scott’s readers considered the Scots to be equivalent to American Indians). Much of this book is a travelogue of Scotland with plenty of descriptions of Scottish religious practice, clans, social customs, and even clothes and weaponry. There is also an extended sequence in Glasgow. Scott’s descriptions of the Scottish landscape add immeasurably to the tone of menace and mystery that the entire book is shrouded in from beginning to end. His rendering of Scottish dialect is also excellent. One imagines a young William Faulkner getting some of his ideas about dialogue from Scott’s example.

The book has some weaknesses. For one thing: who foments a rebellion in Scotland by stealing some shipping papers in London? It seems like a roundabout way to bring about the “Jacobite Rebellion” that is the book’s main plot point. The plot itself develops slowly (the first 200 pages could be described as expository), and then finishes in a rush of multiple denouements. The character of Rob Roy looms over the book, but he is not much in it until the last half. More often then not, he spends his time giving speeches justifying his life as an outlaw, which probably seemed very important to Scott, but doesn’t resonate much in the 21st century.

Of course, none of this should stop you from reading this book, or any others by Scott. He is one of the earliest novelists whose books can still be read for pleasure, and Rob Roy is one of his good ones.