JENKINS, (John) Robin 1912-

PERSONAL: Born September 11, 1912, in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland; son of James and Annie (maiden name, Robin) Jenkins; married Mary McIntyre Wylie, 1937; children: Helen, Ann, Colin. Education: University of Glasgow, M.A.(honors), 1936. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, golf.

ADDRESSES: Home—Fairhaven, Toward, by Dunoon, Argyll, PA237UE, Scotland.

CAREER: Ghazi College, Kabul, Afghanistan, teacher of English, 1957-59; Barcelona University, British Institute, Barcelona, Spain, lecturer in English, 1959-61; Gaya College, Sabah, Malaysia, lecturer in English, 1963-65. Writer.

MEMBER: Society of Authors, Educational Institute of Scotland.

AWARDS, HONORS: Frederick Niven Award for Scottish literature, 1955.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Happy for the Child, Lehmann, 1953.

The Thistle and the Grail, MacDonald & Co., 1954.

The Cone-gatherers, MacDonald & Co., 1955.

Guests of War, MacDonald & Co., 1956.

The Missionaries, MacDonald & Co., 1957.

The Changeling, 1958, with an introduction by Alan Spence, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1989.

Love Is a Fervent Fire, MacDonald & Co., 1959.

Some Kind of Grace, MacDonald & Co., 1960.

Dust on the Paw, Putnam (New York, NY), 1961.

The Tiger of Gold, MacDonald & Co., 1962.

A Love of Innocence, J. Cape (London, England), 1963.

The Sardana Dancers, J. Cape (London, England), 1964.

A Very Scotch Affair, Gollancz (London, England), 1968.

The Holy Tree, Gollancz (London, England), 1969.

The Expatriates, Gollancz (London, England), 1971.

So Gaily Sings the Lark, Cedric Chivers, 1971.

A Toast to the Lord, Gollancz (London, England), 1972.

A Far Cry from Bowmore, and Other Stories, Gollancz (London, England), 1973.

A Figure of Fun, Gollancz (London, England), 1974.

A Would-Be Saint, Gollancz (London, England), 1978.

Fergus Lamont, Taplinger (London, England), 1979.

The Road to Alto: An Account of Peasants, Capitalists, and the Soil, Pluto (London, England), 1979.

Willie Hogg, Polygon (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1993.

The Thistle and the Grail, Polygon (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1994.

Just Duffy, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1995.

Leila, Polygon (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1995.

Lunderston Tales, Polygon (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1996.

Matthew and Sheila, Polygon (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1999.

Poor Angus, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2001.

Childish Things, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Robin Jenkins, who has written Scottish classics such as The Cone-gatherers and Fergus Lamont, was quoted in Contemporary Novelists as saying, "You must write about people you know best, and they are the ones you were born and brought up with." Drawing upon his Scottish heritage, Jenkins has produced a written body of work that spans several decades and enters the twenty-first century. His novels explore such issues as Calvinism, loss of innocence, poverty (both spiritual and material) and the frailty of the human character. Commentator Trevor Royle in Contemporary Novelists summarized Jenkins' style as being "capable of ranging easily and fluently over a wide range of social backgrounds, his vision of the demonic state of the world and the salving balm of love remain the central motifs. Anger, sexual disappointments, the betrayal of innocence are emotions never far from the surface, and . . . Jenkins is aware of the fall from grace and the widening gulf between [humanity] and Eden."

According to Paul Binding in Times Literary Supplement, Jenkins often focuses on male characters who are "imaginative, sensitive to suffering, [who] find themselves sooner or later having to recognize the terrifying bleakness of a world in which the human and non-human alike can be possessed by forces impervious to reason or benevolence. If they are to survive at all, they will have to fall back on a stoicism shaped or developed by their own Scottish culture." Binding saw this theme at work in Leila, a love story set in a fictional South Asian Malay-speaking kingdom where a revolution is brewing. Andrew, a teacher from Scotland, falls in love with Leila, a lawyer whose ancestry is Scottish and Suvuan. The British community there disapproves not only of their mixed-race marriage but also of Leila's attempts to bring democracy to the kingdom. Though Leila is killed trying to lead a political revolution, Binding found that Andrew's love for her and for their children "gives meaning and a kind of redemption to ugly times in an ugly world." Leila, the critic added, shows Jenkins to be "a major novelist not only in his themes and the brooding power with which they are treated but in the taut, concentrated artistry of each of his fictional venues. Let us hope that Leila wins him the wide recognition his work deserves."

Similar praise greeted publication of Matthew and Sheila, which Binding, in another Times Literary Supplement review, deemed "an intellectually controlled, taut novel" that "amounts to an act of spiritual liberation." Its theme is the emergence of good in the confrontation with evil. Protagonist Matthew is a good soul, kind and cheerful though lacking close friends, and wanting the best for everyone. He is puzzled by his schoolmate Sheila, who is widely popular yet boasts of her capacity for evil, confiding that she once killed a baby in a stroller and even caused her own father's death. When Matthew's widowed father marries a Mexican woman, Sheila urges Matthew to destroy his new stepmother. Jenkins's "extraordinary literary sureness, his unswerving fidelity to his own vision and his ability to embody it in fiction," wrote Binding, "are the characteristics of the major writer. His people exist in depth, their social context has a marvellous solidity, and they reflect metaphysical concerns of great audacity and power."

Jenkins's first two novels to be published in the twenty-first century are Poor Angus and Childish Things. In Poor Angus, a Scottish painter returns home after spending years working—painting, teaching, and loving—on a south sea island and buys a home near the place of his birth. Having left an exotic beauty behind on the island, he quickly meets another spellbinding woman back in Scotland. What he encounters upon making this homecoming is termed "magic" by Times (London) reviewer Alex O'Connell from "a remarkable writer whose gentlest touch induces the greatest of pleasure."

Childish Things, Jenkins' thirtieth novel, introduces the reader to a recently widowed and retired headmaster, Gregor McLeod, who travels to California to live with his daughter and her family. But, rather than a restful retirement lifestyle, McLeod begins editing the memoirs of an aging film star and soon moves into her home. In the resulting situation, Jenkins examines the "childish things" of life such as love, sex, and money. As Times (London) reviewer Ross Leckie explained, "this subtle novel . . . is also a gentle satire on America and Scotland, old age and youth, Calvinism and consumerism." And through all of this, Leckie continued, "Jenkins' prose still shines." Michael Kerrigan, writing for the Times Literary Supplement, compared Childish Things to Jenkins' classic The Cone-gatherers, which explores the emnity between a physically deformed cone-gatherer and a local gamekeeper: "After a work of such searing moral force [as The Cone-gathers] . . . a spry comedy like Childish Things may seem slight, yet it reaches just as deep into the Scottish psyche." Jenkins, the critic added, "deserves our admiration for creating a novel which, though a delight to read, is a good deal more serious than it may immediately seem."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Novelists, 7th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2001, p. 519.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 14: British Novelists Since 1960, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1983, pp. 433-438.

PERIODICALS

New York, June 29, 1981, John W. Donohue, review of A Would-Be Saint, p. 523.

New Yorker, April 13, 1981, review of The Cone-gatherers, p. 162.

Publishers Weekly, January 16, 1981, review of The Cone Gatherers, p. 63.

Times (London, England), May 30, 2001, Ross Leckie, review of Childish Things, p. 10; June 14, 2000, Alex O'Connell, review of Poor Angus, p. 19.

Times Literary Supplement, July 29, 1988, Christopher Hawtree, review of Just Duffy, p. 830; March 1, 1996, Paul Binding, review of Leila, p. 25; December 18, 1998, Paul Binding, review of Matthew and Sheila, p. 20; July 21, 2000, Carol Birch, review of Poor Angus, p. 23; June 8, 2001, Michael Kerrigan, review of Childish Things, p. 21.*