But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.

However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that we think of as the ultimate, inner being—that was ineradicable Scottish. That part spoke with a Scottish voice; that part looked out through Scottish eyes; and it was that part that now welled within her as she gazed out through the window of the descending plane and saw below her the rolling Borders hills…

Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?"
Stuart closed his eyes.
"No," he said. "Au contraire." It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say it.
"Don't au contraire me," said Irene.
But it was too late. He had.

It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.

That knuckle-end of England--that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.

You do not have to ladle on the impasto to make a point about human frailty or ambitions.