Customer Reviews

Morvern Callar

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Of all the "new" Scottish novelists, Alan Warner is absolutely the very best. This, his first novel, opens with the title heroine, Morvern Callar finding her boyfriend dead on the kitchen floor after slitting his own throat.

Morvern is someone no one would want to be, a member of the Scottish "working class," a woman for whom life holds no promise other than sex, music and liquor, and, in time, even those will fade. So, in a life devoid of hope, Morvern does what might seem illogical to someone not caught in her circumstances: she buries her boyfriend's body, cleans out his bank account and even submits his novel to a London publisher under her own name. All this before quitting her own dead-end job and heading down to the Spanish Mediterranean for more sex, music and liquor. That's all. There is no "hopefully more," in Morvern Callar's world.

Although Morvern may appear callous and amoral she is anything but. Warner, who captures the "voice" of his protagonists so perfectly (see These Demented Lands and The Sopranos) has captured the very essence of Morvern Callar. There is an inescapable sorrow in Morvern that all of her coolness and hipness cannot hide. This is a real person, one who is gentle and caring with her girlfriend's grandmother and her own foster father. Morvern sees herself reflected in the wrung-out lives of her elders. Her temporary escape to the warmer, more sunny climes of the Mediterranean are a desperate attempt to grab what little escape she can, and, because of this very desperation, these scenes take on a hellish, almost surreal quality. We know, as does Morvern, that whatever release she is feeling at the moment will only magnify the emptiness of her life in the long run. A clue to Morvern's personality is her favorite video: Antonioni's "The Passenger," a tale about a man who tries to make a new life by switching identities with a dead man.

A master writer, and a master at characterization, Warner never resorts to melodrama in portraying the bleakness of Morvern's life or in her reaction to it. He simply tells it like it is...exactly. And that is part of what makes this novel so perfect. Although Morvern's life is filled with hopelessness and despair, she, herself, is a woman filled with feeling, a true heroine in the finest sense of the word. Even though Morvern tries desperately to deaden the feelings that are killing her, she fails to do so.

Obviously, Morvern Callar is a character-driven novel and Morvern, herself, is fascinating enough to carry us along. There really is very little plot in the book to speak of, although Warner does hide some obtuse symbolism here and there. If Morvern, herself, weren't enough to intrigue even the most jaded reader, Warner's writing is so good that it alone makes this book worth reading even if, by some strange chance, you don't like Morvern.

Ultimately depressing and without hope, Morvern Callar will no doubt sadly appeal only to a very limited, and very literary, audience, those who read and love Irvine Welsh, for instance. This is too bad, since Warner is a brilliant and polished writer and one whose work deserves a much more widespread readership.

Everyone sees Morvern Callar as a singular tale of hedonism and the drug culture, but that's not quite it. I may be predjudiced by living in the town that the book is supposed to be set in but I see it being so much more.

The book has as much to do with the place as with the people - unless you've lived on the west coast of scotland all your life like I have maybe you don't get the point - Warner is trying to create the image of 'running away' that everyone likes to do up here. The book deals with Morvern's will to escape from her own mixed up, impersonal life there to the spanish costa's and the rave culture , a sterile but individualistic, contrast to the closely knit community she was brought up in. (A lot of the book mirrors warner's life - leaving home, living it up in the spanish raves for a few years and then back to the UK where he worked on the railways for a while)

So when you read it - look for the little things, the town, the people, the battle between the sterility but excitment of the 'outside world' and the friendly but mentally stifling small town.

Because I find it special that way the only score I could ever give it would be a 1

It seems that readers (see above reviews) saw the depressing table setting here and looked no further. Actually, the book is exhilarating. Morvern's tongue is a potent cocktail of Scots, slang, and autodidactic poetry, and it's more erotic in and of itself than anything since the motels sequence of Lolita. Her character, far from blank or emotionless, is wanton, savage, but with great depths of wisdom--she's a changeling, and her story is almost mythic, beginning with its premise. This book has a pulse you can nearly dance to, but, like some great undiscovered piece of trance dub, it has symphonic undercurrents, with a strange and terrible beauty.

I bought Morvern Caller in order to read a book with the flavor of the countryside I was to visit. I was hoping to get a feel for the people of the west coast of Scotland while I was enjoying its scenery. Instead, I found myself reading a book about troubled people, characters I could not imagine meeting in the real world. Morvern Caller is well written and very disturbing. It's difficult to "enjoy" the lives of its characters since they suffer from more than ordinary problems. It's also difficult to put the book down without finishing it. For enjoyment level, I wanted to give this book a one or two; for interest level, I had to rate it higher. And, then, I was compelled to read its sequel! You want to know what happens, all the while wishing you were reading something else!!

Morvern has a crappy wee job in the supermarket which she
hates, she's skint but her blokes got a bit more dosh and
so when he kills himself having jist completed a novel
Morvern firsts hides his body in the loft and raids his
bank account and then publishes his book under her name
and lives the high life off the proceeds partying on the
Spanish costas. Alan Warner has with this novel produced
an update on Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting; the heroin
culture in Scotland's inner cities is no more the drug
culture has spread to even the most rural towns of Scotland
but it has changed from the destructive heroin to the free
love of ecstacy. We also see the ravages of society
post-thatcherism; where Trainspotting's Rent et al knew
they were a subversive element in society Morvern ill-
educated and with weakened family links seeks only hedonism
and doesn't view herself as the destructive element in
society she is.
Warner has a new novel published soon and I look forward to
more from him and the rest of the rebel inc.crew.

Late one night I came upon the movie _Morvern Callar_ and wondered why it might be called Morvern the Silent. I watched the movie, stunned, but unable and unwilling to change the station even when I could barely understand the dialogue. The characters, aside from Morvern, were so like the ghetto people I've lived with much of my life. At the end of the film, I learned the movie was based on a book, and hurriedly ordered it thinking I would be able to understand the language better if I could read it.

I love the dialect...and Morvern. Many reviewers complain that we aren't privy to what is going on in her head. Truth is, there isn't much going on in there. She is not sophisticated enough to mull over her actions. She isn't educated, isn't well read or travelled. She simply acts accompanied by a soundtrack. She isn't overencumbered with religious guilt. In fact, she doesn't seem to be hampered by guilt of any kind. It is such a wasteful emotion and Morvern has better things to do with the squeezed emotions she does possess.

Morvy's got an eye for detail and an appreciation of nature that, for me, more than makes up for her "raving" behavior. The flatness of the dialogue, her affect, and the repetitive nature of her entire life, right up to the end of the novel when Morvern's life takes a turn, accurately depicts what life is like for anyone living in a small town, or a ghetto, with little hope of having a better life because of the lack of opportunities and the lack of self-preparation for anything better. Him seemed to have possessed abilities, education, financial resources, but he took his life by slitting his own throat and attempting to cut off one of his hands. What did his death tell Morvern about life when one is supposedly ready?

I thought what she did with is body was a tribute to him and her love of nature, but I may change my mind after thinking about this story a while longer. That is one of the great things about this book; it makes you reflect on the mechanical ways we usually respond to life and opens the door to living more innovatively.

I've always wanted to visit Scotland and because of Morvern's description of the countryside, I'll likely go, but I'll stay away from the pubs!

I enjoy the frothy use of dialect, but mostly it was the set-up of the story that kept me going. Her lack of any "normal" behavior in such a bizarre set of circumstances is refreshing and compelling. The character does come off as a bit flat after you realize that the reader is never going to be allowed inside her head. I was admittedly a bit disappointed by that. However, the rich use of language and the stark description of setting and action make this a lovely novel. I never particularly noticed that it was a man writing a female character. I think the author's awareness of the party lifestyle in a Scottish village made the character believable enough without regard to gender. Okay, maybe the bath scenes and the continuous references to toplessness were a bit unnecessary, but they did not come across as particulary masturbatory, either.

Another in the wave of new Scottish fiction that has followed in the wake of Irvine Welsh's success. Like "Trainspotting," this is a slang-laden, drug-assisted look at a modern Scottish youth--although in the country (Oban) and not the city, and the drug is ecstasy, not heroin. The Morvern of the title is a 20ish supermarket employee whose steady boyfriend has just committed suicide. Instead of reporting the death she covers it all up with great composure so she can use his bank account and pretend that he has left her. At first we get the some rather ordinary exposition of her and her friend partying and whatnot. Then a trip to a youth resort in Spain with all the attendant debauchery--sex, drugs, and raves--is given. It's very clear that her life is bleak, and she's out to grab what little pleasure she can. (A great non-fiction book which gives insight into how people like Morvern come into being is Nick Danziger's "Danziger's Britain.") It's a bit hard to identify with a character so totally alien to me, especially as the reader is not allowed into her head, and it's a bit hard to tell exactly what its all supposed to accomplish. I suppose the reader is supposed to key into the themes of alienation, confusion, running away, and soforth, but the deadpan prose somehow dulls one to the larger picture. Which is not to say it's bad writing, because it's actually quite good, but somehow the tone creates an emotional distance between the reader and Morvern. It might be one of those books that women are more likely to connect with. If so, the story continued is "These Demented Lands," which is even less compelling. Best to pick up Warner's "The Sopranos" instead.

I absolutely loved this book, probably because I come from the town it is set in, Oban, and recognise quite a few of the characters. But apart from that it really is a good book as Alan Warner totally lets you into the mind of this character, we see everything exactly as she does. It does get confusing sometimes when you're reading it, but do stick with it!

Morvern is a heroine and we want out heroines to be our friends. The single most depressing aspect of this novel is that it relates a tale about someone who isn't at all likeable and who wouldn't want to have anything to do with you.

Having said that it is a special book just don't read it if you are feeling a bit fragile about yourself.