While sharing a forename with the eponymous rock group invented by Doug Johnstone for his second novel isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying it, I found it quite handy. To those who need introduction, the original Ossian was a third-century Celtic bard whose epic poems became famous after a Scottish scholar, James Macpherson, published them in 1765. There was a twist: he hadn’t discovered these manuscripts, but borrowed bits from Irish mythology and made up some heroic stuff up himself. Macpherson was denounced as a fake, incurring the particular wrath of England’s pre-eminent man of letters, Samuel Johnson. So it’s fitting that a near namesake, the Scottish journalist and musician Johnstone, should redress the balance by giving the romantic poet another day in the sunshine; but as with the dubious legends of Ossian, there’s a lingering doubt left as to Scotland’s resultant reputation.
Connor, the tortured genius frontman of the Ossians, leads his merry band into a spiralling cycle of scrapes on their breakthrough tour of Scottish backwater venues and scuzzy pubs, thanks to his continuous verbal and substance abusage. High on everything, Connor still manages to make the occasional pithy pronouncement on the state of the Scottish nation and its slip into Jock stereotypes and tourist-size consumable bites of Highland shortbread. However, Johnstone risks typecasting Scottish literature in the same way, by perpetuating the ‘Trainspotting’ school of writing and bolstering the age-old adage of ‘if it isnae broke dinnae fix it’. I must add that Johnstone never quite steeps quite so low as to ape Irvine Welsh’s trademark ‘weedgie’ Scots accent, but the chemically enhanced, raging alky atmosphere is inextricably derivative.
Despite this similarity (readily acknowledged by Johnstone), the journey of the Ossians is the real thing here, and while it’s not exactly Homeric, the band members do exorcise their demons in a climactic rush of blood and a farcical last few gigs. There’s an interesting third-dimension to the book if you want to ‘follow’ the band beyond the book, as Johnstone has penned and recorded material by the Ossians that you can listen to online. Funnily enough, like the Ossianic myths, the songs are better imagined.
