Where I Finish My Homework 36 Years Late

The Works of Sir Walter Scott: The Heart of Midlothian by Walter Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was supposed to read this for Professor Finlayson's class at Queen's University (the one in Kingston, Ontario, not the one in Ireland) 36 years ago. I found it too hard to get through back then; I didn't this time. I hoped to find an email or something for the professor to tell him about it, see how he was doing. I hadn't remembered his name in the years between but it came back to me just now--and looking him up, I see he passed away about seven years ago.

A shame. He was something of a wit, described in the university notice of his passing as "charmingly cantankerous, with a wicked, dry sense of humor..." That's how I recall him, in the silent lecture hall full of nerds seated in ranks, and he'd make off-topic comments that went almost unnoticed but amused him. He'd half suppress a smile and go on.

I'm sorry I can't tell him I finished my reading, finally, and I liked it. (As a good Scot himself, he was an admirer of the author.)

It isn't my favorite of Sir Walter Scott's novels, however. The story spans decades, and the pacing is less even than is usual in his novels. (The fictitious landlord who narrates this novel and many others even admits that he "filled more pages than I opined.") Yes, it's a 19th Century novel, and you have to make allowances for style, but even doing so, he goes on here in a very Victor Hugo kind of way. It really seems to me that the first hundred pages or so and about 50 near the end could have been left out without doing the story harm--probably several other chapters in the middle--while making the overall reading experience much more accessible and entertaining. However, having said all that, it's still pretty great. For reals.

The main character is a young woman who is not terribly pretty or well educated or outgoing, but she is quietly impressive and becomes quite a hero. When her sister conceals a pregnancy and the newborn child, delivered in secret, goes missing, she is tried under a law that makes it an assumption that the baby was murdered. Jeanie could save her poor sister from hanging if she tells a lie--that her sister confided in her about the pregnancy. But raised in a severe Christian home, taught to be scrupulously honest, she refuses to lie and her sister is condemned to hang.

Jeanie Dean's heroism is manifested instead in the way she resolves to find a way to get her a pardon, walking from Edinburgh to London barefoot most of the way even though she'd never gone anywhere alone. Assuming she can cover the distance without being robbed and beaten on the road, she still has to find a way to get an interview with the Duke of Argyll and somehow convince him to intercede with the queen--who will then, hopefully, intercede with the king. It's a longshot, and succeeds at every step on the strength of her honesty, humility, courage, and quiet patience. She's no superhero; she has no great skills (except making cheese, apparently); but she is a fantastic protagonist, a great example of a strong female MC who uses what agency she has to take on a giant task, and she succeeds because of who she is. No one else could have done it. Her humble character opens doors to her, and when she speaks the truth, people believe her.

The novel says a lot about what justice is available to different people--who has easy access to mercy who doesn't, who receives due process who doesn't, who is believed and who isn't. There's probably a great deal to be said on the topic (and many other topics) and I find myself wishing for a few more meetings in that half-remembered lecture hall to address all of them...

Alas.

Recommended, as always, for lovers of Sir Walter Scott, but not really for casual readers. Would make a great Netflix show.

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