Dirt & Deity: A Life of Robert Burns

Rating:
Summary: Must-read for any Burns afficianado!
Review: Ian McIntyre, with this elegantly researched and crafted volume, has established himself as a truly exceptional biographer. This was the first work on Burns I have read that presented a compelling portrait of the poet as we know him from his work: a complicated mix of joy and sorrow, deep thought and bawdy humor, loyalty and infidelity, generosity and poverty, arrogance and innocence, British patriot and sentimental Jacobite. McIntyre's incisive and compelling research, copiously documented in notes, completely debunks the equally silly positions of overly sentimental hero-worshipers (mostly Scottish) and effete Burns-trashers (mostly English). McIntyre demonstrates what Burns lovers have known all along: all of Burns' poetry was not good--but when he WAS good, he was one of the truly great poets. The author also wades into many of the great Burns' controversies. He presents the evidence for Burns heavy (if not excessive for the time) use of alcohol, without diminishing Burns' worth as either a man or an artist. His depiction of the "Highland Mary" debate alone is worth the price of the book. This will become THE essential book on Burns, and it is apropriate (and probably essential) that it was written by a Scotsman.