Cheap Morvern Callar (Book) (ALAN WARNER) Price

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Customer Reviews of Morvern Callar

A Distant Portrait
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.

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Maybe you should just see the movie
The following is a synopsis of one of the scenes in _Morvern Callar_. It doesn't involve major characters and it doesn't reveal a plot point, but it does give something of the book's tone.

It's Hogmanay. The narrator and her social circle have gathered in a local hotel. Midnight passes, then closing time, so the police come to make them leave. One man buys several whiskies and wants to take them with him but the police won't let him, so he pours the whiskies down the throat of his fish, takes the fish outside, and drinks the whiskies out of the fish's mouth.

If that baffled you, you should probably skip the book entirely. In short, it's so Scottish it probably won't travel well.

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A lame attempt
It's a weak attempt at writing something that would be a mix between Albert Camus' "Outsider" and Irvine welsh's "Trainspotting". I kept on reading hoping that it might get better but it didn't. There is no storyline, there are just clipped futile descriptions of nature and party scenes... The lack of proper dialogue makes this even more distant. I was left with no feelings of sympathy towards the protagonist whatsoever. I completely agree with the other reviewer who said: 'A bloke can't do a woman', it's just lame. And amazon.com should be careful about tossing recommendations based on earlier readings and ratings. This is nothing compared to Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting.