The House with the Green Shutters is a novel by the Scottish writer George Douglas Brown, first published in 1901 by John MacQueen. Set in mid-19th century Ayrshire, in the fictitious town of Barbie which is based on his native Ochiltree, it consciously violates the conventions of the sentimental kailyard school, and is sometimes quoted as an influence on the Scottish Renaissance. The novel describes the struggles of a proud and taciturn carrier, John Gourlay, against the spiteful comments and petty machinations of the envious and idle villagers of Barbie (the "bodies"). The sudden return after fifteen years' absence of the ambitious merchant James Wilson, son of a mole-catcher, leads to commercial competition against which Gourlay has trouble responding. After the arrival of the railway, Gourlay's position worsens and he begins to invest his hopes and money in his neurotic son, John, who cannot live up to his expectations. His scatterbrained wife and daughter live in terror of his ferocious temper and take refuge in novelettes and daydreaming. The symbol of the family's prosperity is their expensive house in the middle of the town: "Both in appearance and position the house was a worthy counterpart of its owner. It was a substantial two-storey dwelling, planted firm and gawcey on a little natural terrace that projected a considerable distance into the Square. At the foot of the steep little bank shelving to the terrace ran a stone wall, of no great height, and the iron railings it uplifted were no higher than the sward within. Thus the whole house was bare to the view from the ground up, nothing in front to screen its admirable qualities. From each corner, behind, flanking walls went out to the right and left, and hid the yard and the granaries. In front of these walls the dwelling seemed to thrust itself out for notice."

Criticism

A great deal of the success that the novel enjoyed was the result of its sheer novelty. It was said to be the first "truthful" picture of Scottish life since the death of John Galt, and a welcome antidote to the so-called kailyard school of writing which described rural Scotland sentimentally as a group of peaceful and harmonious communities helping one another through difficult times. The novel is filled with interesting people, described without much sympathy, and is well-stocked with the author's musings on life and the Scottish character. Most adverse criticism focuses on the book's tendencies towards melodrama. The positive reaction greatly encouraged Brown who planned another novel called The Incompatibles and a book on his "rules of writing"; however both were never to be finished, due to the author's death. It was an inspiration to Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Hugh MacDiarmid, and many other writers of the next generation. Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview that it was the first English-language novel he ever read, and that after reading it he "wanted to be Scotch." Its wisdom and scepticism retain interest for modern readers.

Plot summary

Prosperity

The interloper

John's career

The end

List of characters

Nesty bodies

Harmless bodies

Minor characters

Dramatisation

An adaptation of the novel for the stage by Gerard Mulgrew was produced by Communicado at the Lyceum Studio Theatre on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1989, with Sandy Welch in the role of John Gourlay.