Morvern Callar

I absolutely loved this book, probably because I come from the town it is set in, Oban, and recognise quite a few of the characters. But apart from that it really is a good book as Alan Warner totally lets you into the mind of this character, we see everything exactly as she does. It does get confusing sometimes when you're reading it, but do stick with it!

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.

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