Blue Heaven Bends Over All: A Novel of the Life of Sir Walter Scott

In its way, this is a perfect book. A biography of Scotland's greatest novelist by a well qualified woman writer of Scotland. Compared to the vast biographies by John G. Lockhart (Scott's son-in-law) and by Edgar Johnson (nearly 1,400 pages), Jane Oliver's THE BLUE HEAVEN BENDS OVER ALL (384 pages) is of manageable proportions. Yet it covers well the Laird of Abbotsford from birth in 1771 to death six decades later. It is especially good in explaining Scott's needlessly heavy involvement in the printing and publishing ventures of his friends, that led him to the brink of financial ruin. The hell of his last half dozen years, impoverished, in debt, widowed, in wretched health is superbly clarified. Walter Scott accepted not one penny from anyone to pay off his 100,000 Sterling obligation. He vowed to satisfy his creditors by writing his way back to solvency, saying "My own right hand shall pay my debt." Yet the world was clamoring to give him all he needed, with no strings attached. Just two aspects of this close-to-perfect work give me pause. First, its subtitle: "A NOVEL of the LIFE of SIR WALTER SCOTT." The ratio of biography to novel is at least nine to one. The fictions are pretty much limited to imagined conversations and an occasional mistaken date, including the one day error regarding what part of Scott's JOURNAL the title is taken from. This is a solid, accurate, vivid, credible, immensely valuable biography. As a novel it is merely negligible. My second regret is that the author or the publisher has not provided a glossary of such Scots language terms as "fash" (annoy), "haugh" (river meadow) and "clarty" (dirty, sticky). Jane Oliver appears, without a glossary, to be writing only for residents of Scotland or the English Border counties. Yet the book brings Sir Walter Scott alive for readers of all countries. -OOO-