O Caledonia cover art

O Caledonia

With an introduction by Maggie O’Farrell

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O Caledonia

By: Elspeth Barker, Maggie O'Farrell - introduction
Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton
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About this listen

Vera was painting the pony's hooves gold in the dining room; Janet said this was bad for him; poison would seep into his bloodstream.

At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the 16 years of Janet's short life.

A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house.

A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila.

A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination.

With an introduction by Maggie O’Farrell

©2010 Elspeth Barker and Maggie O'Farrell (P)2021 Weidenfeld & Nicolson Fantasy Horror Fiction Scary Paranormal

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Critic reviews

"I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book." (Maggie O'Farrell)

"A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century." (Ali Smith)

"Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up. The Brontë sisters and Poe via Dodie Smith and Edward Gorey." (David Nicholls)

"An absolute sumptuous treat of a book." (Elizabeth Macneal)

"A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour." (Penelope Lively)

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The most eloquent story which submerges the reader into a detailed account of a child’s view of her family and wider world

Fantastic colorful prose

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This is a beautifully written book whose observation of growing up in the highlands in the 40's is funny, compassionate and touching. but more than that the narration is superlative.

Outstanding!

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I found the voice very annoying - it made an interesting story unlistenable.
A real shame as I had saved it for a long journey.

Annoying narrator

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Darkly humourous and heart wrenching at the same time. This coming-of-age story of Janet will be my absolute favourite hereon. Barker's words are like the many shades of colours, painting bright and vivid, melancholic and sorrowful pictures with dark, bleak and dangerous strokes.
I have so loved Janet, more precisely, the way she viewed the world. I could clearly see my own adolescence in her. The narration heightened everything for me and I just could not put the book down.

A Must Listen

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This is a novel like no other; a listening and reading experience like no other. Never, have I listened with such cautious anticipation and sometimes foreboding. I even paused between chapters. Never have I gasped at the creative flow of incidents, characters and descriptions. There is so much in this short novel, it is hard to avoid the sense of genius at work. It is easy to see why this is so well regarded a novel: the idea is so original, the character-drawing so precise, the descriptions so wonderfully painted, the main character so unique. There is outright laughter as well as terrors in this novel which is so well handled you pause in amazement many, many times. No one with a human heart can resist taking Janet, the main character. Starting the novel with its outcome is a stroke of genius and listeners and readers if like me will move through this novel hoping the outcome will be different to that foretold. I have found myself reflecting on the story and the author's telling of it more than most any novel I have experienced. The audio-book performer is skilled, superbly able in her voice characterisations; so much so that it sometimes sounds like there is a cast of readers. Eilidh Beaton is an audio-book performer that I will look out for in the future. The Introduction to the novel by Maggie O'Farrell is an excellent introduction and preparation for the novel itself. All prospective listeners will find this novel one that they will want to discuss immediately with others.

Janet, Oh, Janet - Like No Other

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Ali Smith was right when she described O Caledonia as ‘one of the best least known novels of the 20th century’. Elspeth Barker’s only novel first published to acclaim in 1991 has now been re-issued following her death in 2022. With Maggie o’Farrell’s enthusiastic introduction, I think it could become one of those special re-born novels. I absolutely loved every minute of it

In the bold opening scene, the blood -drenched body of 16 year-old Janet lies at the foot of the stairs in her family home, the draughty old Scottish castle of Auchnasaugh. Before the book ends with the same scene, we have lived through the sixteen years of Janet’s life. Labels such as ‘noir’ and ‘gothic’ do the novel a dis-service. There is no other like it. Having very recently been blown away by Elspeth Barker’s essays Notes from the Henhouse introduced and read by her daughter Rafaella Barker, I can see that Janet is only part fictional. The highly idiosyncratic and blazingly real child and adolescent Janet IS the author with her highly unusual childhood in a Scottish castle , her beloved jackdaw and host of animals, and her love of words and literature.

The details are darkly funny. For Janet’s father , a girl is merely an inferior kind of boy. With the boys’ taunts in her ears, Janet climbs perilously high up a tree to display her boy-taelnts - and falls. Resorting back to her glorious self - which always attracts harsh reprimand,- she makes her hated dolls house into the perfect home for her tame jackdaw who is dearer to her than any human. Forced into a friendship with friendless Cynthia whom she loathes at boarding school, Janet’s misery is lightened by her obsession with witches

Janet is kind – tending hapless creatures and talking tenderly with war-maimed veterans, for which she is scolded. She is concerned for poor Lila, the unwanted elderly relative sodden with whisky in an upstairs room. In stark contrast, grown-ups are not kind to either animals or humans. Lila is banished to a dismal Home called Sunny Days, and Jim the sullen hunchback gardener is decked with slaughtered rabbits and smells of ‘effluvia and guts’.

O Caledonia is a wonderful celebration of the natural world of land and sea . Gloriously happy, Janet rides her pony bareback in the wild countryside ‘starry’ with flowers, and Barker’s crisp and poetic language is celebratory too. I love the cat curled up ‘like an ammonite’ and the lobsters ‘lurking in myopic retreat’ . As they were for Elspeth herself, Janet’s passion for words - from English, Scottish, Latin and Greek poetry, history and legends- are the fibre of her being . The entwined references are not only a pleasure to hear, but are skilfully used to make Janet’s dangerous disintegration as she enters adolescence wholly credible. And what an ending!

I became used to the narration but generally I found it too ‘little girly’. The Scots language, such as the constant scolding of young Janet by her nannies, is excellent . Were these Scots lines narrated by another narrator?

Needs to be better known!

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I love O’Caledonia. It is a beautifully written story, darkly funny and delicious to listen too. The narrator wouldn’t have been my choice, I think her voice is a bit too bright for telling Janet’s tale, but it is still a lovely listen.

Darkly funny and beautifully written

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Wonderfully eccentric family, living in a castle in Scotland’s E. coast highlands with a motley collection of others. This book is beautifully and originally written in a very colourful style. Very descriptive of the difficulties of growing up if you are unconventional .

Extremely funny

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This is the vanishing act of esme Lennox by Maggie o’farrell plus I capture the castle by dodie smith in one book. I didn’t expect to even like this book but it’s ok maybe need to re read again.

The life and times of Janet

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