Character Description: Duncan Wedderburn

Duncan Wedderburn is a 'smooth, handsome, well-groomed, plausible, unscrupulous, lecherous lawyer’ (p57). Or at least according to McCandless’ version of events. Wedderburn, as Godwin (via McCandless) tells us is employed to write the Doctor’s will. It is in this capacity Wedderburn first meets Bella. The pair continue to meet in secret. As Bella later informs us in her letter home, during these meetings Wedderburn he tells her of his debaucherous past lying to and lying with many women. Wedderburn claims he wants to be better for her. Despite her being engaged to McCandless and not believing Wedderburn’s change of heart, Bella runs away with him; this allows her to experience the world without Godwin’s protection. In a letter to Godwin (pp.77-98), Wedderburn claims that he was exhausted by Bella and slept for most of their travels, and that Bella spent all of his money. He even accuses her of being the legendary 'White Daemon who destroys the honour and manhood of the noblest and most virile men in every age' (p94). After arriving in Paris, Wedderburn claims he has no money left and so Bella paid for his travel home alone. However, Bella also writes to Godwin to tell him about her travels (pp.105-189) and presents a different side to the story. She explains that Wedderburn lost his money through gambling, and that shehad to send him home as he appeared to be suffering a mental breakdown and exhaustion, in part due to Bella’s incessant ‘wedding’ (sexual intercourse). His weakened state of mind is also demonstrated through the distraught tone of his own letter to Godwin. During their travels, Duncan’s reluctance to mingle with others allows Bella the freedom to meet new people without his, or Godwin’s, interference. By the time they part ways, Bella has matured and learned a lot more about the world.

Written by Alex Compton

You’ll shortly be confronted with ‘the worst man possible — a smooth, handsome, well-groomed, plausible, unscrupulous, lecherous lawyer’ (p57). That’s right, it’s Bella’s ex-lover, Duncan Wedderburn with whom she eloped, refused to marry, and ‘wedded’ to the point of his mental collapse (resulting in his sudden devotion to Catholicism). Coincidence? I'll let you be the ruler on that one...

If you were foolish enough to hit the beating heart you see before you RIGHT NOW, you’d be swiftly conveyed to the letter this slimiest of lawyers sent Godwin Baxter shortly after the former discovered Bella’s Frankensteinian origins (her previous identity as Victoria Hattersley, wife of General Blessington). As the address on the letter shows, Wedderburn sent the letter from his mother’s home in Aytoun Street, Glasgow. As its content shows, Wedderburn is a MANIC with a penchant for religious fundamentalism and gendered stereotypes. My advice is that you DON'T GO to the letter straight away but FIRST READ THE WARNING BELOW.

It is not only the garish content of Wedder’s letter that you need to read with caution. His artful manner of arranging the text on the page has its own story to tell. BE WARNED that Wedderburn’s typography, be it line spacing or CAPITALISATION, cunningly operates to elicit certain emotions or convey messages that try to corroborate his 'truth'.

Before you read the letter, I STRONGLY ADVISE YOU to learn more about Gray’s attentiveness to the layout of text within his written output.

Gray: A Tale of Typography

Alasdair Gray’s distinctive, experimental typography is a prominent feature in his nine novels, five short story collections, and two verse volumes in addition to his non-fiction prose work The Book of Prefaces (2010).

In Poor Things, Gray’s typographic decisions typically function as a way of authenticating the viewpoints of the novel’s various narrative voices. It is through typography (in addition to narrative voice) that Gray distinguishes the letters of Bella, Wedderburn, and Victoria from the narrative provided by McCandless in his memoirs, Episodes from the Life of a Scottish Public Health Officer. Gray's typographical choices include: using contrasting typefaces to that of McCandless, drawing handwritten scripts, using italics and creating distinctive 'letter-like' layouts. Each typographical decision helps to position the letters as authentic documents composed by their respective authors.

Ironically, the creation of seemingly ‘authentic’ documents in Poor Things further exaggerates the novel’s concern with the complex nature of truth-telling. The letters of Bella and Wedderburn bear the typographical markers of authenticity noted above: italics, letter layouts, handwritten scripts... We might then agree that by incorporating these documents into his own memoirs McCandless shares viewpoints and perspectives other than his own - viewpoints that are consequently truthful, authentic. At the very same time, however, knowing (as we do) that McCandless' memoirs are fabricated by Gray (and disputed by Victoria McCandless), the typographical markers adopted to demonstrate the legitimacy of the letters are the very elements that foreground their illegitimacy. We know that they have been created (painstakingly) by Gray.

A particularly potent example of this dichotomy can be found in the calligraphic forms in Bella’s letter written shortly after her first experience of intense human cruelty in Alexandria. Beyond the meaning of the words, her emotional state is conveyed through the formation of the text on the page. What does her scrawl say to you? How far do you believe it is Bella and not her maker, Gray?

Poor Things (1992) pp.145-150, courtesy AGA

For Lynn Diamond Nigh, Poor Things' typography is particularly effective in its conveyance of the ‘personal and the subjective’ (Diamond Nigh 1995, p182). In other words, by reading the characters' letters and being attentive to “their" use of typography, we get a strong sense of each letter writers’ distinctive voice, their point of view and their unique perspectives on the events that bind them.

You might agree that Bella's letter from Alexandria offers a resonant example of Diamond Nigh's ‘personal and the subjective’, particularly as Gray's heroine rips the pages from her personal diary to send to her guardian in Glasgow. At the same time, doubt about its authenticity creeps in. Speaking directly to his future readership about the letter, McCandless states: ‘I give the pages here as they were given to me. They are printed by a photogravure process', he adds, ‘which exactly reproduces the blurring caused by tear stains, but does not show the press strokes which often ripped right through the paper’ (p44). The character seems determined to prove that, yes, this letter is a bonefide document written and sent by Bella. Is he trying too hard to convince us? Surely McCandless wouldn’t go to the length of faking the letter by scribing it in a false hand – or collaborating with another scribe ­– then adding a liquid solution, say, water, to mimic tearstains?

Such a story is not as far-fetched as it seems. In a note held by Glasgow University Special Collections, Gray explains how Bella’s tear stained letter was produced: ‘The 15th chapter of Poor Things contains 6 pages, supposedly copied from the heroine's tearstained diary when she was writing it in a state of shocked frenzy. The originals were written in ink with a knibbed pen by the author's wife, Morag McAlpine, very fast, her husband scattering waterdrops as she worked’.

Ink drawing for chapter 15 of the novel Poor Things (1990-92), GLAHA:51831, courtesy Glasgow University Special Collections

The fact is that, as readers, we know great care has been taken to make these documents seem authentic, and the more we discover about them, the more lucid their inauthenticity becomes. Despite this, Bella's letter arguably still feels authentic to the reader. You may perhaps feel closer to the precise moment of the character's emotional outpouring owning to the dried tear stains you see on the page. Perhaps you feel closer to her after reading the text which works hard to capture her idiosyncratic speech patterns.

As a consequence, it is hard to argue that McCandless' account of his life as a Scottish public health officer isn't polyvocal (Latin: 'consisting of more than one voice'). After all, McCandless allows both Bella and Wedderburn to narrate their own stories in their distinctive styles (or at least takes great lengths to make it seem as such). Now, you might think all this to-ing and fro-ing about the true identity of the letters' authors is null and void. The architect behind the novel's multiple voices is, of course, Gray (as we have established several times). Let me be clear, I say 'to-ing and fro-ing quite deliberately. Part of the enjoyment of Gray's novel is the push and pull we feel as readers vacillating between the desire to believe in its premise (and therefore connect on a deeper emotional level to key characters like Bella), and the pleasure of marveling - perhaps somewhat wryly - at Gray's skill and cunning.

Gray's typographical adroitness is a practiced art. And since you've followed me thus far, let's take a look at some further examples. In 1982, Janine (1984), Gray achieves the novel’s polyvocality (multiple voices) by creating a density of voice within single textual blocks. In A Life in Pictures (2010), Gray confirms this: ‘The earlier chapters of 1982, Janine have two alternating voices, both the narrator’s, until chapter 12 when they are joined by additional voices talking simultaneously’, Gray explains. ‘God and Satan alternate in the small print to the left, his poor old body complains to the right, while masturbatory fantasy alternates with true memory between these. The babble ends in some blank pages representing welcome unconsciousness’ (LIP, p220).

Janine 1982 (1984), chapter 12, LIP p182 'hate sex hate', LIP p183 'braver girls', LIP p184 'uncoil a thick black whip', p185 'floating in your endless blue', reprinted in A Life in Pictures (2010), courtesy AGA

The blank space on the page, which you can see at the end of the fourth image 'BOAK', is a typographic trick that Gray replicated from his first novel, Lanark (1981). If blank spaces fill your mind with wonder, you may wish to head over to Book Four of Gray: Beyond the Horizon to discover more. Alternatively, if you've got the spine to stick with our Tale of Typography, scroll below to for the epilogue.

In keeping with Lanark's epilogue, where the protagonist meets his author, our epilogue does not appear at end of the tale. Look below at the extract from Gray's novel. Can you spot how the writer achieves multiple voices through the layout of the text on the page? How many voices can you find?

Lanark (1981) p.492 (Epilogue), courtesy AGA

The use of a marginal gloss (as seen above in the left column) is a technique that Gray repeats in the aforementioned The Book of Prefaces (2000). The anthology, which provides a history of how literature developed throughout the Western world presents annotated prefaces of major writers from Caedmon (of Whitby) in c.675 to Wilfred Owen in 1920. The annotations are written by equally major writers and edited by Gray. Below you’ll find an entry dated 1831. It’s titled FRANKENSTEIN or The Modern Prometheus, MARY SHELLEY, LONDON. Read it and be sure to take note of how the annotations in red shape the reception of Shelley’s original text.

The Book of Prefaces (2000), p. 490-495, courtesy Bloomsbury

Prometheus (2014), screenprint published by Glasgow Print Studio, courtesy AGA

Unlikely Stories Mostly, illustration (1983), courtesy AGA

Gray’s homage to Shelley’s Modern Prometheus – evidenced in the coloured screenprint directly above – was produced in collaboration with Glasgow Print Studio. As the studio’s manager Claire Forsyth notes in a video for The Alasdair Gray Archive, screenprinting is a complex and laborious physical process: ‘it’s very hands on […] We’re working with screen mesh [and] photo exposures, working through each colour printed one at a time. It can take many months sometimes to print one in multiple colours’. (Claire Forsyth Gray Tales, Day 3, 2022).

The process of delivering complex typographical designs also comes with its own set of challenges. Gray’s long-term typesetter Joe Murray explains.

Gray Tales, Day Seven (with Joe Murray) (2022), Filmed by Kevin Cameron with thanks to Creative Scotland and D8. Design by Neil McGuire, courtesy AGA

END

O

ur Tale of Typography has come to an end. It was a tale that promised to offer valuable pedagogy regarding Gray’s attentiveness to typography. But did it? I feel no shame in saying that that remains to be seen. You will no doubt have noticed that the tale offered few definitive answers. Rather it posed several questions and ideas that, with any luck, offered you the opportunity to compose your own perspectives about the effects of Gray's typography. It is this enterprising and enquiring mindset that I would encourage you to utilise as you (finally) read an extract of the letter of lecherous lawyer, Duncan (MANIAC) Wedderburn.

You’ll soon be confronted with ‘the worst man possible', the 'smooth, handsome, well-groomed, plausible, unscrupulous, lecherous lawyer', Duncan Wedderburn (p57). If you were foolish enough to click one of the hearts above and IGNORE the warning signs, you'll be given ONE FINAL FINAL FINAL CHANCE to redeem yourself. To learn about Gray's typographical tricks hit the upward arrow NOW.

If you happened to be less foolish than the heart hitters (MANIACS!) scroll below…

BEFORE YOU GO READ THIS FINAL FINAL FINAL FINAL WARNING

Watch out for Wedderburn's rhetorical tricks. Don't forget what you've learned about Gray's typographical wiles. The typography on the page is equally (if not more...) persuasive than the text itself. Ask yourself: how far does it make me believe Wedderburn's truth? Hit the heart below to decide for yourself.

To read the letter alongside narration from Michael Pedersen recorded live for Gray Day 2023, click the playbar below.

Recording from Gray Day 2023 Live featuring Michael Pedersen, 25 February, Òran Mór, Glasgow, courtesy AGA

41 Aytoun Street, Pollocksheilds. November 14^th.

Dear Mr. Baxter,

Until a week ago I would have been ashamed to write to you, sir. I then thought my signature on a letter would convulse you with such loathing that you would burn it unread. You invited me to your home on a matter of business. I saw your “niece”, loved her, plotted with her, eloped with her. Though unmarried we toured Europe and circled the Mediterranean in the character of husband and wife. A week ago I left her in Paris and returned alone to my mother’s home in Glasgow. Were these facts made public The Public would regard me as a villain of the blackest dye, and that, until a week ago, is how I viewed myself: as a guilty reckless libertine who had ravished a beautiful young woman from her respectable home and loving guardian. I now think much better of Duncan Wedderburn and far, far worse of you, sir. Did you see the great Henry Irving’s production of Goethe’s Faust at the Glasgow Theatre Royal? I did. I was deeply moved. I recognized myself in that tormented hero, that respectable member of the professional middle class who enlists the King of Hell to help him seduce a woman of the servant class. Yes, Goethe and Irving knew that Modern Man — that Duncan Wedderburn — is essentially double: a noble soul fully instructed in what is wise and lawful, yet also a fiend who loves beauty only to drag it down and degrade it. That is how I saw myself until a week ago. I was a fool, Mr. Baxter! A blind misguided fool! My affair with Bella was Faustian from the start, the intoxicating incense of Evil was in my nostrils from the moment you foisted me onto your “niece”. Little did I know that in THIS melodrama I would play the part of the innocent, trusting Gretchen, that your overwhelming niece was cast as Faust, and that YOU! YES, YOU, Godwin Bysshe Baxter, are Satan Himself! ... AT FIRST SIGHT I knew this was a woman to whom class distinctions were meaningless. Though beautifully dressed in the height of fashion she looked at me as gladly and frankly as a housemaid who has been tipped half a crown and chucked under the chin behind her mistress’s back. I knew she was seeing and welcoming the natural Wedderburn inside the solicitor. I hid my confusion under a chilly mask which may have struck you as bad manners, but my heart beat so hard that I feared you might hear the pounding. In matters of the heart it is best to be direct. When left with her I said, “May I see you again, soon, without anyone else knowing?” She looked startled, but nodded. I said, “Is your bedroom at the back of the house?” She smiled and nodded. I said, “Will you put a lit candle on the sill tonight when everyone else here is in bed. I will bring a ladder.” She laughed and nodded. I said, “I love you.” She said, “I’ve got another lad who does that,” and was prattling about her fiancé when you returned, Mr. Baxter. Her guile astonished and excited me. To this day I can hardly believe it.

By an iron exertion of will-power and continual cups of strong black coffee I rushed her daily by train, riverboat and cab to and in and out of the most tumultuous hotels, theatres, museums, racecourses and alas alas gambling casinos on the Continent, covering four nations in a single week. She enjoyed every minute of it, and with bright glances and light caresses promised she would soon show her gratitude in private acts of love. My one hope became this: that though the public transports and giddy whirl of the day did not reduce her to unconsciousness when she got to bed, they might do it for me. Vain hope! Between Bella and the natural Wedderburn — the lowest part of Wedderburn — was a sympathetic bond which my poor tortured brain COULD NOT stupefy or resist. Again and again I fell into bed as into the sleep of death and woke soon after to find I was pleasuring her. Like a victim of vertigo flinging himself FORWARD over a precipice instead of backward away from it, I CONSCIOUSLY embraced the dance of love [...] In Venice I collapsed, rolled down the steps of San Giorgio Maggiore into the lagoon, thought I was drowning and thanked God for it. I woke up in bed with Bella again. I was seasick. We were in a first-class cabin of a ship cruising the Mediterranean.“Poor Wedder, you have been forcing the pace!” she said. “No more casinos and café dansants for you! I am your doctor now and I order complete rest, except when we are cosy together, like now.” From then on until the day I escaped I was a man of straw and her helpless plaything. But by staying prone whenever possible during daytime I at last began to slowly recover some strength.

I know who your niece is now, Mr. Baxter. The Jews called her Eve and Delilah; the Greeks, Helen of Troy; the Romans, Cleopatra; the Christians, Salome. She is the White Daemon who destroys the honour and manhood of the most virile men in every age. She came to me in the guise of Bella Baxter. To King Louis she was Madame de Maintenon, to Prince Charlie she was Clementina Walkinshaw, to Robert Burns she was Jean Armour et cetera and to General Blessington she was Victoria Hattersley. Does that name make you tremble, Lucifer Baxter? The General’s matrimonial disaster was not noised aloud by the newspapers, but we lawyers have other sources of knowledge and through these I have penetrated your secret. FOR THE WHOTE DAEMON IS IN EVERY AGE AND NATION THE PUPPET AND THE TOOL OF A VASTER, DARKER DEAMON!!!!! Eve was ruled by the Serpent, Delilah by the Philistine Elders, Madame de Maintenon by Cardinal Thingummy and Bella Baxter by YOU, Godwin Bysshe Baxter, Arch-Fiend and Manipulator of this Age of Material Science! Only in Modern Glasgow – the BABYLON of Material Science – could you have gained wealth, power and respect by carving up human brains, prowling through morgues and haunting the death-beds of the poor. You would have been burned as a warlock for that when Scotland was a Spiritual Nation, GOD-SWINE BOSH BACK-STAIR, BEAST OF THE BOTTEMLESS PIT!!!!! You probably do not know you are the antichrist, for none are as deluded as the damned.

The letter continues...

THE COMING OF THE BEAST

BIBLE PROPHECIES

MODERN FACTS

1. The number of the beast is 666

You live at 18 Park Circus which number is the 6+6+6.

2. The Beast supports a Woman clothed in scarlet.

Bella is very fond of red

3. The Beast is called Babylon, because that city ruled the biggest material empire on the ancient world, and persecuted the children of God, the spiritual people of that day (Note that the Protestant fanatics say Rome is the modern Babylon and the headquarters of the Beast, but remember that Roman Catholicism – with all its flaws – is nowadays a wholly spiritual empire.

The British Empire is the largest Empire the world has ever known. It is wholly material, being based on industry, trade and military might. It was invented in Glasgow. Here James Watt conceived the steam engines which drive the British rail trains and merchant fleets and battle fleets, and here the best of these locomotives and ships are built. Here Adam Smith invented modern capitalism. Here Sir William Thomason devises the telegraph cables binding the empire together over the ocean floors, also the diesel electric engines of the future.

4. The Beast (and the woman he supports) are also called Mystery.

Chemistry, electricity, anatomy et etcetera are Mysteries to nearly everybody – except you!

5. The Beats is worshipped by all the kings of this earth.

Though Queen Victoria prefers Edinburgh to Glasgow, Balmoral to the rest of Scotland, the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Tsar of Russia, called Glasgow “The centre of intelligence of England” in his speech at the launching of the Livadia last year, built for his father at Elder’s Shipyard.

6. The Beast has seven heads – seven bits sticking up. (Protestant fanatics say it must therefore be Roman because Rome us notoriously built upon seven hills).

But Glasgow is built on seven hills! Golf Hill, Balmano Brae, Blythswood Hill, Garnet Hill, Partick Hill, Gilmore Hill crowned by the University, Woodlands Hill crowned by Park Circus where you sacrificed me to the Scarlet Whore of Modern Babylon!

7. The Scarlet Woman on the Beast’s back holds a golden cup full of abominations.

I do not exactly know what the cup is nowadays because Bella disliked wine and spirits, but if you and I meet and discuss the matter calmly surely we can find something?

Postscript: Sorcha Dallas

Portrait of Sorcha Dallas (2009), courtesy AGA

Hello! I'm Sorcha Dallas, custodian of the Alasdair Gray Archive and long-term manager of Gray's visual art. Thank you for reading A Tale of Typography and taking what you learned, considered or concluded into your reading of Wedderburn's letter. The Alasdair Gray Archive would absolutely love to hear your responses to the letter. Be they creative or critical, filmed, written or drawn, tag your contribution @thealasdairgrayarchive #PoorThings to share!

Character Prompts

How does Duncan Wedderburn’s portrayal as a character change throughout the story?

How does Bella’s character develop through her relationship with Duncan?

Get involved! Share your response to the promts using #PoorThings

Prompts written by Grace Richardson and Janaki Mistry

Attention!! You'll soon be met by another of Gray's villians, General Blessington who, alongside his loyal posse of 'parasites', will try to stir up some trouble. Enter their world (with caution) by clicking on the General's portrait...