Alan Warner's Morvern Callar: A Reader's Guide

Continuum Contemporaries

by Sophy Dale

The "Continuum Contemporaries" series is designed to be a source of ideas and inspiration for members of book clubs and reading groups, as well as for literature students at school, college and university. The series aims to give readers accessible and informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series all follow the same structure, which features: a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the important themes and ideas; summaries of how the novel was received upon publication and how it has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations and literary prizes; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites; and a list of questions for reading groups or students to discuss.

88 pages, Paperback

First published July 4, 2002

Reviews

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a reader's guide, this one opened up new views on a book I already love even more, and made me want to read it again. The rest of my observations I'll put like this:

- this book talks about the movie made on the book, which wasn't really that successful in the end... however reading the book is quite enough
- the story is continued on "These Demented Lands", which is also talked about a bit.
- Dale interviewed Warner, quotes of which are used in the book very well
- the influences part was good, made me want to read Gogol again, and some Scottish writers
- it *did* make me side-eye John Banville, especially his snobbishness towards what sort of language books should be written in - proper, grammatically correct and "civilised" (no dialect, slang, etc.) writing that those in power would approve (it is said better in the book than I can descirbe here, but basically: snobbery) :P
- I realised how taciturn, a person of few words Morvern is, how she doesn't share her emotions easily, and that the book talks through her and you just have to join the dots to fill what's not mentioned
- realised how Morvern lives on a level of only being able to afford "little things", not "big things", and that's one reason why she takes all out of times when she can enjoy using money, like all those holidays. She also names all those things (the makeup, cigarettes, the music etc.) to feel secure, to exist, to belong
- on how Warner writes Morven's (female) POV: some have said it feels sometimes unrealistic - same said about the mildy lesbian-feeling moments which seem to fulfil male fantasies, but NOT really - in my opinion I didn't get the feeling anytime I read it that things felt unrealistic... Morvern is very introverted and the situations don't change this.
- there's finally also talk of how well the novel did, and about the movie, but that's not really important to me

And finally I can say: "These Demented Lands" kind of sees Morven's fate turn a bit better; she's less in the front, but the end made it seem that she was on some level happier and more satisfied IMO.
I bought "Morven Callar" mostly based on the music compilation lists in the book, the cover and what the story seemed to be like, loved the book and now like how this book opened up things even more which makes this recommendable. :)

[Domiron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff. It turns out that any criticism of Morverb Callar can be explained by the fact that the criticiser hates poor people. Same if they like use grammar rightly
Also anyone that does like Morvern Callar but also likes Trainspotting is a disgrace to both Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh alike