Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Alan Warner's Morvern Callar may be the first novel that deserves its own soundtrack. The music Warner's title character listens to as she drifts aimlessly through her sterile life may be the most worthwhile part of this depressing novel. Following in the footsteps of Trainspotting, another Scottish tale of anomie in the Highlands, Morvern Callar chronicles Morvern's dead-end existence--a joyless round of sex and raves punctuated by the music playing through her portable stereo.
Warner tells this dreary story from Morvern's point of view in a voice that is flat and affectless, as if the girl's soul had died years before though her body continues to function. Morvern Callar is a strange mix of shocking and banal, a mélange with appeal for a very specialized audience.
The New York Times Book Review, Jennifer Kornreich
While Morvern's opacity is obviously meant to convey hip disaffection, the novel's matter-of-fact amorality quickly grows tiresome. Mr. Warner's true forte is his deadpan rendering of the idiosyncratic trappings of Morvern's morbid world. Unfortunately, these appalling but convincing details never add up to anything in particular; ultimately, understanding their significance is as impossible for us as it is for Morvern herself.
Morvern Callar
Morvern Callar,Alan Warner,Anchor,038548741X,Europe,Fiction,Fiction - General,Literary,Popular English Fiction,Rave culture,Scots,Young women,Fiction / Literary,Reading Group Guide
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