Milena Kalicanin

Faculty of Philosophy, Nis

“Other Spaces are Still Possible”1: A Vision of Future Scotland in Andrew Crumey’s
“The Last Midgie on Earth”

Abstract. The paper first draws on Marcuse’s lecture “The End of Utopia” (1970) and
then on his famous study Eros and Civilization (1966) whose common guiding principle
is the “Great Refusal” of the imagination to accept “as final the limitations imposed upon
freedom and happiness” (1966:49). Marcuse’s theory that artificially imposed limits to
the imagination represent mere mechanisms for maintaining the status quo of modern
culture has lately been devoutly accepted by Jameson (2009), who applied it to the
alienated way of life in the postmodern, capitalist and globalized society. By ruthless
criticism of the currently popular lifestyle, Jameson suggests the contemplation of an
alternative utopian world where “from time to time…we are reminded that Utopia exists
and that other systems, other spaces, are still possible” (2009: 632). Relying on
Marcuse’s “end of utopia” and Jameson’s “other spaces”, Tally suggests a new theory of
spatiality, whereby he perceives an author as a literary cartographer who is in quest of
developing new ways of mapping spaces. These theoretical insights are applied to
Crumey’s vision of future Scotland in “The Last Midgie on Earth”. As a result of global
warming, Crumey’s Scotland has become a tourist paradise for etiolated dome-dwellers
that view its natural beauty, lustiness and greenness as rare, almost extinct qualities in the
post-modern world. The mere existence of such a revitalizing spatial unit in the
predominantly apocalyptic global scenery confirms the validity of Marcuse’s, Jameson’s
and Tally’s theories which fervently suggest that new spaces of liberty may (and must)
still be found nowadays.
Key words: utopia, great refusal, other spaces, spatiality, the last midgie.

One of the most inspiring definitions of the imagination has definitely been
coined by Northrop Frye in his influential study, The Educated Imagination (1963). In
the chapter entitled “The Motive for Metaphor”, Frye claims that the imagination
represents “the power of constructing possible models of human experience” (1963: 22)
that enable us to “recapture, in full consciousness, the original lost sense of identity with
our surroundings” (1963:29). In the attempt to clarify the significance of the imagination
as one of the greatest human faculties to his students and prospective readers, Frye was
actually guided by the urge to answer the following questions: 1. what good is the study
of literature?; and, 2. what made man invent his first story?. Of course, Frye’s initial
1
The title was inspired by Jameson (2009) and Tally’s article Other Spaces are Still Possible: Marcuse,
Theory and ‘The End of Utopia” Today.
desire in raising these issues was to identify an archetype behind the creation of myth and
literature, as well as to merely dwell on the relevance of imaginative ability in the process
of cultivating the threatening natural world and transforming it into modern civilization,
or, better to say, humanizing it.
In order to find valid answers to the aforementioned questions, Frye tells us a
story about a man, shipwrecked on an unidentified and uninhabited island in the South
Seas, the sole survivor who, due to a rationally inconceivable natural catastrophe, finds
himself on an intimidating quest to recreate the lost civilization. Constantly wavering
between reason and emotions, reality and desire, Frye’s shipwrecked outcast ultimately
experiences three indispensable levels in his cultivating activity. The most primitive level
is that of consciousness and awareness, in which a difference between man and nature is
most vividly present, whereby the language of self-expression (based mostly on
adjectives and nouns used for naming the unknown natural surroundings) is primarily
used. Then, there is the level of social participation that coincides with the occurrence of
the language of practical sense (e.g. the verbal expression of teachers, preachers,
politicians, advertisers, etc.) and last, but not, least, is the level of imagination that
actually produces literary language. Frye insightfully claims that “they’re not really
different languages, but three different reasons for using words” (Frye 1963: 22, 23).
Therefore, unfortunately prompted by the unexpected loss of his world and
creatively guided by the imaginative vision of a desirable, future civilization, Frye’s exile
gradually transforms the outside alien environment into a home. However, the fortunate
movement from an initial state of insufficiency and frustration to a subsequent condition
of fulfilled desire is only possible if all three levels of human activity exist. Frye, of
course, emphasizes the paramount importance of the third level of the human mind in
which the final reconciliation between desire and reality is successfully achieved with the
indispensable guidance of the imagination that ultimately results in the creation of works
of art (essentially literature, reflecting Frye’s personal interests). Frye indirectly suggests
that it is a regrettable fact that nowadays the modern civilization abounds in examples of
a supreme imaginative faculty reduced to its crude adversary – the imaginary (false,
phony, unreal) and its commercial trivialities.
It can rightly be asserted that Marcuse, a key representative of the Frankfurt
School tradition, found Frye’s definition of the imagination rather stimulating in his
work. Popularly nicknamed a champion of utopian thought among philosophers and
literary critics, Marcuse sincerely believes that the imagination represents a potent power
of resistance to the postmodern condition that Frye poignantly criticized in The Educated
Imagination (1963). Through a vivid description of a typically futile and alienated
lifestyle in a technocratic, capitalist society, Marcuse particularly emphasizes our genuine
desire to escape from its bleak, mundane reality. In his memorable lecture, ‘The End of
Utopia” (1970), Marcuse fervently suggests that the power of “the productive
imagination, of the aesthetic…in its original sense, namely as the form of sensitivity of
the senses and as the form of the concrete world of human life” (Marcuse 1970: 68) may
and must enable us to perceive reality clearly, which represents a crucial condition for
envisioning radical alternatives to it.
In his insightful study, Eros and Civilization (1966), Marcuse refers to this
creative process as “The Great Refusal” of imagination: the refusal “to accept as final the
limitations imposed upon freedom and happiness” (1966:149). Thus, Marcuse revealingly
concludes, the limits to imagination are artificially imposed by repressive forces in
society or even broader historical constraints and, as such, they unfortunately represent
mere mechanisms for maintaining the status quo of modern culture. He fully discloses his
personal belief in the indispensability of the utopian impulse in An Essay on Liberation
(1969) and convincingly argues that it is of vital significance to acknowledge the
existence of the space, both physical and mental, for building a realm of freedom which
is not that of the present” and “which necessitates an historical break with the past and
present” (Marcuse 1969: viii).
However, although this utopian realm of freedom needs to be imagined as a sort
of a creative and necessary opposition to the postmodern lifestyle, Marcuse states that
“we can actually speak of the end of utopia” (Marcuse 1970: 63, 64). The crucial reason
for this claim is based on the fact that utopia in general is supposed to denote a historical
concept that basically refers to projects for social change that are nowadays considered
impossible. Nevertheless, Marcuse proposes another, rather revolutionary, idea. Instead
of concentrating on what Leavis critically terms the “more jam tomorrow” policy2 which
has gradually become a dominant principle of the postmodern culture, Marcuse wants us
to imagine a totally different world, where the needs for food, shelter, leisure etc., are not
just met, but where new, more humane needs are created (for example, the need for
peace, pleasant company, beauty, happiness, etc.). In order to achieve this utopian
perfection, a new form of human being is required. Accordingly, Marcuse urges for the
required change to be made within an individual, and not in the surroundings. Viewed
from this perspective, Marcuse boldly asserts that, technically, utopia is still possible, in
the sense of a radical break from the current state of affairs, rather than relying on an
embellished vision of its resolved future state. 3

2
Leavis’s formulation and definition of the “more jam” policy actually represents his critical reply to C.P.
Snow’s pamphlet Two Cultures and Scientific Revolution (1959). In this pamphlet, Snow gives primacy to
science rather than to arts, because, as he explains, it is scientists, and not poets, that have the future in their
bones. In the age in which science has improved the material conditions of life and, as a result, the rational,
pragmatic, empirical view of existence is valued more than intuition, passions, creative vision, and arts in
general have thoroughly been marginalized. Arts do not operate and thus cannot compete with the material
domain, solely concentrated on trivial personal gains. This is, according to F.R. Leavis, a glaring example
of spiritual blindness. To propose that ‘more jam tomorrow’ is the crowning purpose of human life, its final
hope, betrays an inability to distinguish between wealth and well-being; it is a failure to develop one’s full
imaginative potentials. Instead, Leavis raises the following questions – what do people live for, what,
ultimately, do they live by? – that indirectly, but rather effectively, spurn the prevailing supremacy of the
material sphere in the postmodern culture (Leavis 1972: 39-75).
3
It was in the early 1960s that both Frye and Marcuse recognized that the aesthetic sphere was under threat
in the “one-dimensional” societies of the post-war West and both expressed concern that the individual’s
life in such societies was becoming increasingly meaningless. According to Robert Tally, Frye’s and
Marcuse’s critiques seem to be rather timely if applied to the postmodern culture that he perceives as “the
new Gilded Age of conspicuous consumption, astonishing disparities in wealth, globalization of capitalism,
and the permeation of mass media into nearly all zones of everyday life” (Tally, 5). In the article Power to
the Educated Imagination: Northrop Frye and the Utopian Impulse, Tally approves of Frye’s and
Marcuse’s idea regarding the power of imagination as a potent revolutionary force and validly concludes
that it is seriously in demand at the present moment:
For Frye and Marcuse, the imagination, nourished and instructed by literature and the arts,
operated as a force that opposed the basic banality and drab thoughtlessness of the era’s
mainstream culture…Perhaps it seems overly optimistic to say, but the idea of imagination as a
revolutionary force retains value in an era in which real alternatives to the status quo are taken to
be, not just impossible, but unimaginable. (Tally 5)
 Fredric Jameson, Marcuse’s student and disciple, passionately embraces his
teacher’s theory on utopia and, in his contemplation of this issue, goes even a step
further. He wittily remarks that nowadays it is much easier to imagine the end of the
world than the end of capitalism. Although humorously expressed, it is exactly in this
statement that the end of the utopia matter is to be traced – the problem solely lies in an
individual’s inability to comprehend the systematic totality of the capitalist mode of
production. Unfortunately, as Jameson claims, the postmodern condition, that he
straightforwardly terms late capitalism or globalization, is characterized by the lack of
capacity to imagine, let alone create, any alternative, except for the apocalyptic vision of
the end of the world. This is precisely the reason why Marcuse’s theory of the function of
imagination and critical theory as an inevitable aspect of any effort to alter the existing
world are of vital importance.
Thus, in Jameson’s opinion, though condemned to inevitable failure, the mere
process of imagining a possible rupture within the present system of values and its radical
alternatives symbolically represents the power of the utopian impulse today. This form of
utopia, “by forcing us to think the break itself, and not by offering a more traditional
picture of what things would be like after the break” (Jameson 2005: 232) offers a valid
example of critical thought, urgently in demand at present. The mere fact that individuals
with a lifelong commitment to the indispensability of the utopian impulse actually exist is
nevertheless essential to “rattle the bars” (Jameson 2005: 233) of the current state of
affairs and preserve the possibility of imagining creative visions for the future. More
recently, Jameson has suggested a more ruthless criticism of postmodern culture and the
necessity to imagine a utopian world where “from time to time, like a diseased eyeball in
which disturbing flashes of light are perceived or like those baroque sunbursts in which
rays from another world suddenly break into this one, we are reminded that Utopia exists
and that other systems, other spaces, are still possible” (Jameson 2009: 632).4

4
For a more detailed account of Marcuse’s and Jameson’s theories see Tally’s article, Other Spaces are
Still Possible: Marcuse, Theory and ‘The End of Utopia” Today. Tally’s insightful comments on the
current relevance of the utopian impulse represent the key guiding line of this paper’s theoretical
framework.
 Relying on Marcuse’s “end of utopia” and Jameson’s “other spaces”, Tally
suggests a new theory of spatiality, whereby he perceives an author as a literary
cartographer who is in quest of developing new ways of mapping spaces. Primarily a part
of Geocriticism, a relatively new critical stance describing a vivid interaction between
literary studies, on the one hand, and geography, urbanism and architecture, on the other,
Tally offers a theoretical framework for spatiality in relation to literature with the aim of
highlighting a strong interrelation between literature and space:
Literature functions as a form of mapping, offering its readers descriptions of
places, situating them in a kind of imaginary space, and providing points of
reference by which they can orient themselves and understand the world in which
they live. Or maybe literature helps readers get a sense of the worlds in which
others have lived, currently live or will live in times to come. From a writer’s
perspective, maybe literature provides a way of mapping spaces encountered or
imagined in the author’s experience. Completely apart from those many literary
works which include actual maps, the stories frequently perform the function of
maps. (Tally 2013: 2)
Obviously, the notion of literary stories that perform the function of maps seems
to be of great relevance to Tally. Though wrapped in a multidisciplinary robe, Tally’s
theory of spatiality basically represents a current (anti-postmodern!) version of Frye’s,
Marcuse’s and Jameson’s ideas regarding the utopian impulse and its omnipresent need
to imagine radically alternative spaces. In the interview symbolically entitled “To Draw a
Map is to Tell a Story” (2015), Tally claims that literature is indispensable in the process
of imagining spaces since it genuinely represents a form of mapping:
Literature is not the only way to imagine spaces, of course, but insofar as the
literary is peculiarly attuned to matters of interpretation, figuration, and
speculative thinking, literature is well suited to the task. The point is that space
and place are understood through imaginary or figurative means (the map being
one of the most evocative figures), and to the extent that literature is a
fundamentally imaginative “science” (I use this in the broadest, nineteenth-
 century way), then literature becomes a privileged medium through which we can
perceive, understand, and explore spaces and places, while also perhaps
projecting alternative spaces. (Tally in Darici 2015: 3)
Nowadays, “in the era of globalization, in which radical alternatives to the present
political-economic organization seems all the more impossible or inconceivable” (Tally,
Other Spaces: 1), Frye’s, Marcuse’s and Jameson’s arguments gain renewed relevance.
All these theoreticians believe that literature is essential for understanding the
postmodern culture, imagining its creative alternatives and, hopefully, transforming them
into desirable visionary models. The actual validity of the aforementioned theoretical
insights is further demonstrated in the paper through the literary analysis of Andrew
Crumey’s vision of future Scotland in “The Last Midgie on Earth” (2009).

***
Crumey’s story commences with the main character’s firm resolution to leave his
alienated urban surroundings, take a gap year before the beginning of his studies and get
a taste of the exotic, nomadic life in the north of the UK. The name of the main character,
as well as his urban dwellings, are purposefully left out from the story in order to denote
the author’s stance that this individual actually represents modern man, trapped in the
rigid mechanism of late capitalism and globalization. The only fact the readers are
constantly reminded of in the story is that our hero’s place of residence is frequently
referred to as the Dome, a name which adds to its unspecified traits.
If stories do perform the function of maps, as Tally (2013: 2) suggests, then
Crumey’s story definitely maps the realm of two spaces, the Dome and Scotland.
Although the main hero has never been to Scotland, he has often dreamed of its long,
sandy beaches and waves breaking gently on the horizon. It becomes immediately clear
that the Dome and Scotland stand in a complete opposition to each other – the former is a
place of estranged postmodern urban subsistence, whereas Scotland represents a vision of
the desirable utopian world the main protagonist genuinely craves for:
 This was Scotland: a peaceful, unhurried place where life was easy. There was
that movie about the guys who ran a little tavern, they’d sit around staring at blue
sky from under their broad hats, dreaming, philosophizing, falling in love. Sure, I
wanted some of that northern bliss, being able to stay outside nearly all of the day
and never burning too much, even with only low-factor protection. I wanted to
strum my guitar and hear cicadas chirping, watch pelicans alight on shore-side
gantries. (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 137)
In search of an island called A-Ran, allegedly good for full-moon parties, our hero
takes a ride in a sugar truck and gets welcomed to the Scottish rural paradise referred to
by its easy-going inhabitants as God’s own country. Apart from suggesting the religious
aspect of the Scots, the author intentionally describes Scotland as a postmodern utopia: as
a result of global warming, Crumey’s Scotland has become a tourist paradise for etiolated
dome-dwellers that view its natural beauty, lustiness and greenness as rare, almost extinct
qualities in the predominantly apocalyptic global urban scenery.
Unaccustomed to small-talk, the main protagonist gets surprised, but also pleased,
when Dizzie, the rider of the sugar truck, asks him personal questions. He disappointedly
talks about the lack of any genuine intimacy between the partners in modern urban
relationships, and explains that, though a love affair is not banned by law, it basically
boils down to a series of meaningless sexual intercourses with a myriad of individuals:
during their intimate encounters, all the people involved have to be covered up, so
sometimes it is very difficult to tell the difference among the individuals involved in the
process of lovemaking. It goes without saying that any trait revealing personal qualities is
preferably discarded. Crumey’s hero regrettably exclaims:
I thought of telling him about 27, my girlfriend. I could show him the picture on
my memory card, the one she zoned when we met on the interpoint. I thought of
the voice of her text and wondered if we’d ever get to meet each other in ambient
space, wondered what it must be like to live wholly in flesh and blood, like these
people not digitally enhanced. My world was artificial and theirs was real.
(Crumey in Kelly 2009: 139)
 Thus, Frye’s imaginative/imaginary dichotomy can validly be applied to the great
discrepancy between the Dome and Scotland: whereas the Dome belongs to the domain
of the imaginary (false, phony, unreal), Scotland undoubtedly belongs to the domain of
the imaginative (creative, visionary, real). The “real” quality of the Scottish world is
bluntly exposed when Crumey’s hero is approached by a girl in a small Scottish town.
She unhesitatingly offers him a handshake and hug, which in Scotland implies good
manners and social skills. The main protagonist’s initial and instinctive reaction is to
back away and put a hand over his mouth; however, the very next minute he reminds
himself that he is not in the Dome right now: “there were no viruses to worry about here,
only food poisoning and malaria if he didn’t maintain the standard precautions” (Crumey
in Kelly 2009: 140).
Though passionately craving for the experience of complete freedom, utopian
peacefulness and joy, Crumey’s hero cannot willingly and consciously disregard the
Dome’s strict rules and regulations. At one point, he even plays the guitar and sings the
Peace Song of the United Workers so that he can leave the impression of a witty, carefree
nomad on his quest for new exotic destinations to a group of his new female
acquaintances; however, amid the nonchalant and relaxed Scottish girls whose very
names, March and Purple, allude to the easy-going quality of the Scots and their
unhindered and undisciplined temperament, the song he chooses to perform sounds like a
catchy tune from Orwell’s famous dystopia, 1984.
It is quite obvious that Crumey’s hero spurns the “more jam tomorrow” policy of
the Dome and is on a spiritual quest for a utopian place where needs, much more humane
than mere material urges, can completely be satisfied. However, as Marcuse validly
observes, in order for utopian bliss to be realized, a significant change needs to be made
within an individual, that is, a new form of man is required, as previously discussed in the
paper (Marcuse 1970: 63, 64). At this point in the story, Crumey’s hero is still not ready
to break free from the prevailing restrictions of the Dome, or, better to say, his break is
only declaratively proclaimed, but not radically performed. He still relies on an
embellished vision of Scotland as a future utopian state rather than on his own active
engagement in breaking from the Dome’s intimidating prohibitions, directives and
prescriptions.
Other striking examples of the paramount discrepancy between these two places
are insightfully depicted in the story through the main hero’s contact with the locals, by
detecting their initial and genuine reactions to the foreigner’s inquiries and pleas. As a
foreigner in Scotland, Crumey’s hero finds that it is rather strange that the Scots are
obsessed with money, since, in most cases, it represents the sole topic of their
conversation. Purple explains: “thing is, we’re a poor country, backward, been like that
for decades, centuries, whitever. So we’ve got tae work hard if we gonnae catch up wi the
like o yous” (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 142).
A poignant dose of sarcasm is easily spotted in Purple’s words. In comparison to
the well-to-do Dome, Scotland obviously represents an undeveloped place whose
inhabitants are not disciplined, hard-working and law-abiding, so that the logical outcome
of the carefree lifestyle is to be traced in the lack of comfortable conditions and means of
living that the inhabitants of the Dome are abundantly endowed with. However, this is the
sole place where the hero feels at home, with no pressure whatsoever (concerning
business deadlines, health threats, meaningless sexual intercourses, and other stressful
aspects of life in the postmodern material paradise).
The fact that time means nothing to the Scots, unlike to the residents of the Dome
to whom it means pure money and profit, is easily proved when he randomly asks them
for directions that are always given in a friendly, helpful manner: in most cases, ten-
minute walks usually amount to twenty. On his journey, the protagonist stops at the
quayside to look at the shrine of a famous ancient poet, C. John Taylor, who best sums up
the spiritual effect of the Scots’ simple friendliness, as well as the country’s abounding
natural beauty, in a verse: “It’s nice to be nice” (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 143). But,
beneath the flair of simple friendliness and bluntness, he detects pride lurking in the
background of the Scottish stories about historical figures and national heroes, whereas in
the Dome patriotic feelings are entirely banned from the public domain, unwanted and
thus, literally non-existent.
 On the island of A-Ran, during his visit to Big Fella, Purple’s cousin, the great
dissimilarity between these two spatial units is made even more conspicuous: in the
Dome you only make contact by appointment, whereas Big Fella was treating him like
part of the family, inviting him to sit down, wanting to know everything about him, and
the Dome he had not visited in years. 5 Crumey initially depicts Big Fella as a collector:
symbolically, he collects all the material items and technological gadgets that represent
the pillars of modern civilization, as well as its highlights, and as such, these trinkets are
perceived as artifacts from bygone times on the part of the Dome’s residents. Amid the
collection of old coins, credit cards and an archaic microwave oven, there was an antique
device called an iPod, with parts a person would put inside their ears, whose witty
description again reminds us of Orwell’s 1984: “Something to do with telepathy or mood
control, and although it obviously no longer worked, he still wanted me to try… I thought
of all the infectious agents that could have accumulated on those porous buds over the
years and politely said no” (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 146).
A special part in the account of Big Fella’s collections is given to his most
precious relic, contained in a glass box whose tiny occupant was held on a gold pin. Since

5
But, at the same time, Big Fella asks him for a favour: to take a package for his friend containing some
medicine on his way back to the Dome, since, due to some stupid laws and regulations, as he casually
exclaims, he could not post it himself. In order to seal the deal, Big Fella invites him for a drink and offers
some beer. Although the main character knew about the guys drinking this old-fashioned beverage, it was
the first time he had ever tasted it. The experience was rather disappointing, to say the least:
Fancy a beer?
I didn’t know what he meant at first, then worked out he was offering me the same kind of
traditional beverage that was in his hand…He came back and handed me a chilled tin but it was
such an old-fashioned kind I didn’t even know how to open it. He helped me crack the lid and a
button of foam spat out…It tasted disgusting, like mouldy bread…I sipped the beer as slowly and
politely as I could, wondering what it was made from. In the movie they only ever drank stuff
called wine that was really grape juice, they pressed it themselves from the fruit of their own
vines…Beer must be a way of recycling bakery by-products. Might even have some religious
significance. (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 145)
Big Fella realizes his guest’s utter disappointment with beer, so he offers another beverage – the Scottish
national drink: whisky. Although it looks promising because the measure he poured was a lot less than
what was in the beer tin, Crumey’s hero exclaims that when he tasted it he could see why: “I believe they
make it by steeping chillies in oil for several years” (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 146). Crumey here
purposefully gives a rather humorous account of the currently most popular national alcoholic drinks in
Scotland – beer and whisky, in order to wittily suggest that an individual not acquainted with the nurturing,
healing and relaxing quality of these beverages should definitely seek his utopian paradise in Scotland
where binge drinking represents a prevailing way of life.
the main protagonist could barely bring it into focus beneath his eyes, Big Fella supplies
a magnifying glass. “It was the last midgie on earth” (Crumey in Kelly 2009: 146). It is
definitely not a coincidence that Crumey chooses the last midgie on earth, a transmitter of
the aforementioned infectious agents the main character is constantly on guard from, to
be placed in one of Big Fella’s collections. Symbolically, it represents the last remnant
and a potent reminder of the old world, the civilization that had an immense potential to
achieve the state of the utopian bliss, but was, due to the prevailing principles of
scientific reasoning and utilitarian ethics, reduced to the Dome, necessary for the
protection of its dwellers from global warming, but definitely not perceived by them as a
desired vision of home or a projected alternative space, as Tally would put it (Tally in
Darici 2015:3). It simultaneously represents a potent warning to Crumey’s readers, as
well, because he offers the worst case scenario of what might happen to the world
nowadays if we do not pay attention to the disadvantages of the overwhelmingly
problematic lifestyle we have willingly embraced:
A very long time ago, maybe hundreds or thousands of years, I don’t know
exactly, midgies were these creatures that gave you plague and made Scotland a
miserable unhappy place of war and famine. Kind of a symbol you could say,
symbol of a nation that was sick and needed healing. But now, the midgies were
gone and here were all these joyful, welcoming people, cured and free, and it was
places like my own that were sick, the Dome, with its endless artificial daylight
and sanitized air. And you know, that is so profound. It’s like in Scotland
everyone’s a philosopher, everyone’s a poet. So let’s do it, I thought. Let’s live a
little. Because when you really get down to it, it’s nice to be nice. (Crumey in
Kelly 2009: 148)
Crumey indirectly states that the modern world is basically sick and needs
healing. Modern men are mere automats, “living and partly living’, as T.S. Eliot would
say (1981: 22), with no freedom to make their life choices and joy to experience them.
However, the final message of the story is definitely optimistic, which can be perceived
in the final reasoning of Crumey’s hero. After this unexpected but valuable experience,
he finds himself on a beach with a group of other people, standing naked beneath the
bright round moon. It is at this moment that he is finally ready to consciously embrace
the spiritual freedom he gains in utopian Scotland and ultimately unveil and discover his
genuine self:
Here I was in the land of love and peace, the place I’d come in search of, even
better that a movie about the guys opening a tavern. Everybody gets Scotland
wrong, they think of beaches and hydrosurfing and they don’t realize it’s a state
of mind, it’s about having the freedom to discover who you really are…Scotland
is a land of spiritual freedom and in Scotland nobody says no to anything, only an
everlasting yes…never anything like that in the movie, I can tell you. (Crumey in
Kelly 2009: 147)
Thus, Scotland becomes Crumey’s synonym for a postmodern utopia that he
symbolically defines as a state of mind, a land of spiritual freedom in which everybody
says an everlasting “yes” to life, and a profound “no” to the postmodern capitalist system
of values. This description of Scotland completely coincides with Marcuse’s idea of the
importance of acknowledging the existence of both physical and mental space for
building a necessary realm of freedom, as previously discussed (Marcuse, 1969: viii).
Marcuse’s theory of the indispensability of the utopian impulse is thus potently depicted
in Crumey’s vision of future Scotland, which literally becomes his hero’s realm of
freedom. Simultaneously, Crumey’s hero becomes an embodiment of Jameson’s daring
individual who commits his life to the utopian vision of the future, which is in itself vital
to “rattle the bars” (Jameson 2005: 233) of the current state of affairs in the postmodern,
capitalist and globalized society.
Viewed from this perspective, “other spaces are still possible” (Jameson 2009:
632), indeed. The mere existence of such a revitalizing spatial unit (as Scotland) in the
predominantly apocalyptic global scenery (as the Dome) in Crumey’s story confirms the
validity of Frye’s, Marcuse’s, Jameson’s and Tally’s theories which fervently suggest
that new spaces of liberty may (and must) still be found nowadays.
 References

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Robert T. Tally Jr. On Geocriticism”. Revista Forma, Vol. 11 Primavera 2015,
27-36.
2. Crumey, Andrew. (2009). “The Last Midgie on Earth”. In Headshook:
Contemporary Novelists and Poets Writing on Scotland’s Future. Ed. By Stuart
Kelly. London: Hachette Scotland.
3. Eliot, T.S. (1981). Murder in the Cathedral. New York: Faber and Faber.
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