The Monarch of the Glen

The Monarch of the Glen is absolutely **ridiculous**.

It came to my attention courtesy of Elizabeth Wein, who saw a stage production involving a hot shirtless dude* somersaulting onto stage in a a kilt, so I acquired a used copy and read it over the phone with my reading-books-over-the-phone bestie.

(click on the pic to go to the full article)

Anyway, I laughed many times at this farce of a book while simultaneously wanting to chuck it out the window. (Basically the same feelings I have about the majority of 1930s screwball comedies.) MacKenzie has a way with descriptors that is wonderful. Sometimes I found the sentence structure confusing. These are a few of the lines I loved best.

(okay, I admit it, I just liked “edible fungus club” and may have spontaneously burst into singing FORTY-TWO POUNDS OF EDIBLE FUNGUS whilst reading)

“I’m not English,” said the red and yellow kilt hotly.

(The entire first scene where the two Scottish Nationalists spend a lot of time bickering about tartans is rather priceless, but I am going to make you read the book yourself if you want to giggle over it too.)

Good English milk gone sour, that’s what Americans are.

Massive figures in kilts and vests whose muscles stood out like bumps in the mattresses of remote Highland inns were tossing the caber and throwing the hammer.

In the fashionably unemotional voice of a barrister reading a love-letter in a breach of promise suit Kilwhillie read.

(THIS DID NOT MAKE ME THINK OF THE PEARL THIEF **AT ALL**.)

Seventeen hikers and twelve hikeresses were expected to join the party.

You’re not going to marry my kilt. You’re going to marry what’s inside the kilt.

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*James Rottger, @JamesRottger on Twitter. Behold the dishiness:

-Eva