Book Review: "Morvern Callar" by Alan Warner

When it comes to Alan Warner, I have managed to stay away from his writing for so long, knowing it would not really rub me up the right way. For one thing, Alan Warner’s writing is not particularly my style - with my own preference being decadent and often over-the-top flowery descriptions lasting pages upon pages to take your breath away - Alan Warner’s writing is very dry, often almost too dry, I feel, for its purpose. I did not really find his female character very genuine in this book and it did not really sound like a female character had been initially planned. However, as the book progressed, it is not that which was my concern but the unfolding of events which seemed a bit too quick and simple - almost matter-of-fact - for my liking. Be that as it may, there were still some quotations in this book which are definitely worth a look at and the type of people who like these fast-paced novels with very little philosophical description would absolutely love this book - but I cannot say that I do.

Let us take a look at some key quotations that I actually think added something to the book that was normally not really present in the storytelling technique.

“He’d cut his throat with the knife. He’s near chopped off his hand with the meat cleaver. He couldn’t object so I lit a Silk Cut. A sort of wave of something was going across me. There was a fright but I’d daydreamed how I’d be. He was bare and dead face-down on the scullery lino with blood round. The Christmas tree lights were on then off. You could change the speed those ones flashed at. Over and over you saw him stretched out the the pitch dark with his computer screen still on. I started the greeting on account of all the presents under our tree and him dead. Useless little presents always made me sad. I start for me then move on to everybody when I greet about the sad things. Her from Corran Road with all sons drowned off the boats. She bubbled till she lost an eye. I greeted in heaves and my nose was running.”

This is one of the quotations and ironically the first paragraph of the entire novel, that I found was one of the best quotations from the whole book. Not just does it stick you in after a shocking event, but there is an uneasy atmosphere despite the fact it is never actually described. It is made out to be sad and angry rather than grieving and upsetting. This means that there is something definitely wrong if our character is not really all that surprised or shocked.

“It was a dead clear freezing day with blueish sky the silvery sun and you saw all breath. I walked by the Phoenix and the Bayview. Across the bay between the walls of St. Johns and Video Rental you saw snow on the mountains of the island where my foster-mother lay buried. Along at the seawall people were crossing the road into shops. All cars and buses had smoke showing round the exhaust. A man inside a car moved his hand at me from across the road. I waved back: it was just Ramraider my driving instructor giving a lesson. A fishing boat was coming in with a light on the mast. I stopped and watched the boat pass over to the railway pier. I took a big breath of the bright morning and used the goldish lighter on a Silk Cut.”

Another one of the early quotations that I found pretty atmospheric. This is pretty sporadic of the book which is why I could not find a reason for giving it any higher than I did. But in most of my analysis of this book I can also say that I did not enjoy the way in which the woman was written because of the fact that it just did not sound very authentic. There was nothing that drew me into her personality and honestly, he could have done a lot better with providing us with emotion and atmosphere. There could have been far more description than what I got here.