My review of 'Morvern Callar', by Alan Warner.

'Morvern Callar', by Alan Warner, initially intrigued me in many ways; not only is the main character 'immoral', but she acts in a way which is not expected. However, I really found this book difficult to read and by that I mean Morvern's narrative is rather monotonous. Although I have explained further on in my review why I believe he chose to write the book the way he did, overall, it just wasn't for me.

Nevertheless, I did rather enjoy the slang in the book, as I am from the North-East I recognised some of the language as we too use similar words to Morvern; 'tatties' is Scottish slang for 'potatoes' and 'mortal' is slang for being extremely drunk.

The beginning of 'Morvern Callar', really enticed me to read on, but after the first page I didn't particularly enjoy the book; I don't know whether or not it was because of the immoral, unchanging tone of the narrator, as I mentioned before or because I didn't enjoy the storyline itself. However, there are some interesting elements within the novel, which I have explored in my review of 'Morvern Callar.'

Warning: Spoilers!

Although the novel can be viewed as having a cliché beginning, as we are introduced to a dead body, Warner breaks this supposed rule of literature by introducing us to Morvern Callar and her boyfriend, who is lying dead on their kitchen floor lit by the lights from their Christmas tree flashing on and off. The gruesome and violent description of his suicide are rather unnerving, he had cut his throat and slashed his wrist so venomously that he near chopped his hand off. Morvern unexpectedly seems unfazed and monotone, with no real sense of intense emotion; she even opens up the Christmas presents he bought her and goes off to work.

Her nights are filled with drugs, alcohol and recounting stories about the glitter in her knee with her friends at the local bar, at a club or all-night party. She refers to almost everybody by a nickname and speaks in slang, for example she called her foster-dad 'Red Hanna', his girlfriend is 'Vanessa the depressor'. Since I am from the North-East I understood most of the slang in the book as we also use similar slang, even I use the word 'mortal' which means really, really drunk.

She steals her boyfriends novel and publishes it under her own name and goes on an 18-30's holiday paid for with the money she earned from the novel, with her best friend Lanna.  At the time are initially aren't speaking because she revealed she had slept with Morvern's boyfriend, but Morvern appears to forgive her a few pages on and they both seem relatively back to normal. 

When she arrives at the hotel, the attendant notices that she has a rather unusual name and when Morvern asks what'Callar' means, he replies, 'ah, it means, ah, silence, to say nothing, maybe.', even the meaning of her name emphasises her silence in the company of others; She withdraws and witholds her emotions by writing about what is happening around her, by describing elements of the landscape, for example, instead of informing the reader of how she is feeling at the time.

She leaves Lanna to go up to the North of the island alone, until she returns to visit London with the publishers of her new book deal. 

Morvern doesn't seem to understand publishing terms such as 'material' or 'royalties', the clear distinction in language may highlight her social-economic background, actions and accent in comparison to Tom and Susan, the London publishers. For example, in one extract Morvern shoves cherries from cocktail sticks into her mouth one after the other, whilst Tom and Susan just watch her. Another instant, is when Tom attempt to hail a taxi, but Morvern states that they should get on the double decker bus because she has never been on one before; Tom and Susan say that they never use the bus because they have a taxi card which means they could use the taxi at any time without even having money.

When she returns home, she notices that the Summer heat has began to increase, as she realises her boyfriends body has begun to rot and she can smell the decomposition from the attic. She decides to hack up her the body and buries the pieces in the mountains, '[she]cut away the still-hanging hand and sliced into the first arm', and informs us that 'what you do is divide the limbs and wrap them in a good few layers of bin liner and absorbent hessian sacking bound again and again with strips of thick parcel tape'; Morvern describes the event with the same apathetic language as her day at work, what clothes she was wearing or her nights out.

She returns home and inevitably gets sacked from her job at the supermarket, while Lanna informs her that her grandma has died and states that she should've been there for her,Morvern replies 'that's just awful' and that 'I can't explain over there it's queer.' She visits the local, to see Lanna and her foster-dad, 'snogging' each other, after she already admitted to sleeping with Morvern's boyfriend the night before he killed himself. Lanna is her best friend and work colleague, not only do workmates form the most common social bonding among the working class citizens of the port, the two girls are both open-minded about sex as they engage in a threesome at the start of the novel. Although both the girls have tarnished morality, you also have to question 'Red Hanna', Morvern's foster dad, who is currently with a woman named 'Vanessa the depressor'; when questioned by Morvern he replies that she never liked Vanessa any way, in other words, why should she be bothered?

Morvern then finds a letter which states that her boyfriend's inheritance will be left to her, so she packs her suitcases, types a letter on the computer for her foster-dad and Lanna to find and takes a four year trip around the Mediterranean. The fact that she types a letter instead of speaking to them is of great significance as the novel is narrated by a character who is deeply uncomfortable with communication and the written word, this is shown through her typed sentences which are in block capitals, which distinguish her from the rest of the text, even though ironically the whole book is about her.

When Morvern returns she not only notices that the place has changed, but she too has changed. There is a blackout in her town and as she reaches a bar, she asks the occupants if there are any jobs available, as long as it's not in the port, to which the men reply that she will have a difficult time finding work in anything other than the port. 

Morvern asks the girl if she can stay in the bar for the night, since it is snowing outside, which she refuses leaving Morvern to hitch hike. She begins to sob because it is so cold as she crosses a road untouched by cars, once she reaches a church by stepping over graves she is sick. At this point the reader is enlightened to what has happened to Morvern; she is pregnant and calls the unborn baby a 'child of the rave.'

At the beach in the Mediterranean she describes the glitter embedded in her knee as 'fading', maybe this suggests that her immaturity too is fading, as she returns home and looks for a job, presumably to provide for the child she is carrying. However, the fact she calls the unborn a 'child of the rave', could suggest that she is still immature, as she may or may not know who the father is and frankly she doesn't seem to care. She engages in immoral debauchery with no remorse for her actions, which may be due to the impersonal style of her  narrative.

I immediately found Morvern a rather difficult character to like, not only is her tone lacking in empathy, it seems numb. The tone of the novel really lacks in any form of emotion whenever Morvern is speaking, she narrates and describes scenes and events in short sentences, which at times I feel the novel seems dense and is challenging to continue, however, I believe Warner deliberately wrote the narrative of 'Morvern Callar' this way to encapsulate Morvern's own monotonous boredom of her life, which overwhelms the whole novel itself with a detached and impersonal narrative.