I only found this because it’s referenced in Pale Fire; leave it to Nabokov to recognize it for the genius work it is. McDiarmid’s Loch-Earn exists in the shadow of the Ossian controversy as a work of Scottish meta-fiction, and while it could be read as a snide attack on rural Scottish intelligence I prefer to interpret it as a tract on the unsuitability of the English language to describe the Scottish experience of nature and folklore. because of the complicated and absurd use of language there are many phrases (like the “incoherent transactions” which Nabokov liked) that are strikingly poetic in their novelty. the only worthwhile literary curiosities are the ones like this that lodge in the brain and stay there.