Lanark: A Life in Four Books
E895762
Lanark: A Life in Four Books is a landmark Scottish novel by Alasdair Gray that blends dystopian fantasy with realist autobiography to explore alienation, politics, and art in modern society.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Lanark: A Life in Four Books canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10949352 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lanark: A Life in Four Books Context triple: [Alasdair Gray, notableWork, Lanark: A Life in Four Books]
-
A.
Morvern Callar (novel)
Morvern Callar (novel) is a 1995 debut work by Scottish author Alan Warner that follows a young woman in a remote Scottish town who makes a series of unsettling choices after discovering her boyfriend’s suicide.
-
B.
The Lie of the Land
"The Lie of the Land" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, featuring the character Missy in a story about a dystopian Earth under alien control.
-
C.
The Invention of Scotland
The Invention of Scotland is a historical study by Hugh Trevor-Roper that examines how many of Scotland’s traditions and national myths were consciously constructed in the modern era.
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D.
A Life at the Centre
A Life at the Centre is the political autobiography of British statesman Roy Jenkins, chronicling his long career at the heart of 20th-century British politics.
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E.
A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts is the autobiography of Diana Mitford (later Diana Mosley), in which she recounts her aristocratic upbringing, controversial political associations, and social life in 20th-century Europe.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lanark: A Life in Four Books Target entity description: Lanark: A Life in Four Books is a landmark Scottish novel by Alasdair Gray that blends dystopian fantasy with realist autobiography to explore alienation, politics, and art in modern society.
-
A.
Morvern Callar (novel)
Morvern Callar (novel) is a 1995 debut work by Scottish author Alan Warner that follows a young woman in a remote Scottish town who makes a series of unsettling choices after discovering her boyfriend’s suicide.
-
B.
The Lie of the Land
"The Lie of the Land" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, featuring the character Missy in a story about a dystopian Earth under alien control.
-
C.
The Invention of Scotland
The Invention of Scotland is a historical study by Hugh Trevor-Roper that examines how many of Scotland’s traditions and national myths were consciously constructed in the modern era.
-
D.
A Life at the Centre
A Life at the Centre is the political autobiography of British statesman Roy Jenkins, chronicling his long career at the heart of 20th-century British politics.
-
E.
A Life of Contrasts
A Life of Contrasts is the autobiography of Diana Mitford (later Diana Mosley), in which she recounts her aristocratic upbringing, controversial political associations, and social life in 20th-century Europe.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Scottish novel
ⓘ
autobiographical novel ⓘ dystopian novel ⓘ novel ⓘ |
| author | Alasdair Gray ⓘ |
| contains |
authorial interpolations
ⓘ
self-referential commentary ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Scotland ⓘ |
| describedAs |
cult classic
ⓘ
landmark of Scottish fiction ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | hardcover ⓘ |
| genre |
autobiographical fiction
ⓘ
dystopian fiction ⓘ fantasy fiction ⓘ metafiction ⓘ political fiction ⓘ |
| hasDedicationTo | “For my parents” ⓘ |
| hasIllustrationsBy | Alasdair Gray ⓘ |
| hasParatext |
epilogue
ⓘ
index of plagiarisms ⓘ |
| hasPart |
Book Four
ⓘ
Book One ⓘ Book Three ⓘ Book Two ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Franz Kafka
ⓘ
James Joyce ⓘ William Blake ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | Scottish literature ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Duncan Thaw
ⓘ
Lanark ⓘ |
| narrativeStructure | nonlinear ⓘ |
| notableFor |
blend of dystopian fantasy and realist autobiography
ⓘ
innovative typographical design ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1981 ⓘ |
| publisher | Canongate Books ⓘ |
| setting |
Glasgow
ⓘ
Unthank ⓘ |
| theme |
alienation
ⓘ
art ⓘ identity ⓘ mental illness ⓘ modern society ⓘ politics ⓘ social critique ⓘ urban life ⓘ |
| timePeriodDepicted |
mid-20th-century Glasgow
ⓘ
unnamed dystopian future ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Lanark: A Life in Four Books Description of subject: Lanark: A Life in Four Books is a landmark Scottish novel by Alasdair Gray that blends dystopian fantasy with realist autobiography to explore alienation, politics, and art in modern society.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.