Morvern Callar by Alan Warner Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Morvern Callar
Book Review: Too strange to put down
Summary: 3 Stars
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!!Book Review: Unlikable but interesting
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Book Review: Who Shall Cast the First Stone?
Summary: 5 Stars
_Morvern Callar_ brings up questions about morality. The affectless narrative, with no hint of emotion, neither pain or feeling, gives no clue as to how Morvern feels about her boyfriend's suicide. Her subsequent actions suspend any moral judgement or moral sense--seemingly. But what we have, in my opinion, is a blank slate for morality. It goes on like this throughout the entire novel. Only the ending gives some sort of a resolution: she is still hopeful, despite all.Book Review: Whoa....
Summary: 5 Stars
This book opened up SOOOOO many new doors for me. If I had never read this, I would not be a die-hard Alan Warner fan, nor would I have started reading again. I have been reading so much since this because I found out that interesting, and invigorating literature does exist.Book Review: You've missed the point!
Summary: 5 Stars
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