Sunday, April 23, 2006

Alan Warner

is a particular favorite of mine; he's got a new novel coming out shortly, so Hephzibah Anderson interviews him in the Observer and Aidan Smith has a good piece in the Scotsman. (Thanks to Sarah for the links.)

The new book's called The Worms Can Carry Me To Heaven but unfortunately (expensively!) is only showing up on Amazon UK for now (I'm going to have to get it anyway, I think, along with that Jenny Diski one I covet); meanwhile if you have not read them, do check out Morvern Callar and The Sopranos (nothing to do with the TV series), which are both absolutely delightful in surprisingly different ways.

2 comments:

  1. Alan Warner is, to use a word my mother likes, 'dreamy'. He also has lovely manners when he's being interviewed.
    When I was covering the Edinburgh Book Festival for a free Fest paper back in 2002 I actually wasn't allowed to interview him, as my lit.crush on him was so severe that they didn't think I'd manage it. I watched him in a panel on modern scottish fiction, though, and decided that it was a very worthy crush indeed!
    Marina

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  2. I read Morven Caller and I did enjoy it, though it lost me towards the end when it went into a more surrealistic mode. I have to admit I found the main character eventually unsympathetic, having identified with her for about the first half or two-thirds.

    The reason I actually read this book was because someone gave me his follow-up while I was in hospital. I read the follow-up, whose title I forget exactly but it was something like "these strange lands". And I am very ashamed to admit I did not understand a word of it. It was about people on an island, but I read pages without knowing what I was reading. Someone said, maybe on the blurb, that the book was supposed to represent a drug experience. But I just could not make head or tail of it.

    Now, reading your comments, I feel very stupid. I just could not appreciate or understand this book. I don't mean this in a negative, critical way, but literally. I could not process the information in a meaningful (to me) way. I found this a very disturbing experience, and not one familiar to me -- I think I understand most things I come across in life, beign of reasonably average intelligence. What is wrong with my brain?

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