William McIlvanney: genius with words

"If you don't die mystified, you're kidding yourself"

Yesterday evening, BBC2 Scotland screened a short programme on the , now 77-year-old William McIlvanney, one of Scotland's finest 20th Century novelists and a great influence on Ian Rankin, Ali Smith, Val McDermid, Iain Banks and so many others.   In one conversation with his brother, Hugh remarked that while Glasgow working men respect a hard man, what they really respect is the man who has a facility, a flair, a genius with words;  Glasgow is bursting with them - men and words.

But astonishingly, his books were out of print for years and are only now available again for a new generation to read and for those of us who were immersed in them and loved them in the 70s, 80s,90s, to reread.

On my shelves, four of his books; but the others.... Docherty, Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, the novels  I used in school, lending them to senior students ..... no sign of them!  Now I know I will replace them because I am so ready to sink into his vivid street philosophy, the words of a true organic intellectual.