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March 29, 2024, 11:06:35 AM

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Alan Warner

Started by holyzombiejesus, April 03, 2021, 12:06:01 AM

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holyzombiejesus

Morvern Callar is great, as is it's sequel and The Sopranos. Not enjoyed the last two I finished (Deadman's Pedal and Their Lips Talk Of Mischief) as much. Just started his most recent book and, so far, it's really boring. Cheers.

holyzombiejesus

Feel bad about that. This interview with him is really good.

QuoteRoy Wilkinson talks to author Alan Warner about his new book 'Kitchenly 434' – and about prog rock, the Scottish Highlands and gypsy cream biscuits.

https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2021/03/an-interview-with-alan-warner/

Has he changed or have you changed?

I really liked Morvern Callar when it came out, but there's things about it that are maybe more appealing to younger readers, so I don't know how I'd feel about it now, or how I'd feel about a new book in a similar style.

Three aspects on my mind about MC are:
1) whether the blankness of the heroine and the prose style, which seemed quite cool and existentialist when I was younger, would now seem a bit boring and unambitious.
2) He found a really good plot device for dropping in nuggets of record-collector knowledge in MC, but he was unlikely to be able to repeat that trick as deftly, and from that interview it looks to me like the new book is going to be a bit slowed down or made less emotionally involving by asides on Van de Graaf Generator et al.
3) It was really exciting in the nineties that you would hear about books through the music press and through things like Will Self's book reviews on Mark Radcliffe's show, but it was a really limited number of authors that ever got covered, (writing on a limited range of themes), and so I tended to read them all a bit uncritically, just because that was the most accessible way of getting into new fiction.

I feel a bit guilty about writing that too!

holyzombiejesus

The new book is so boring for the first 100 or so pages but then becomes really funny, a great example of an unreliable narrator really fucking things up. Got a bit bored of the endless details about air bridges and Uriah Heap t-shirts in the first bit but enjoyed the rest as the plot moves a bit quicker and less prog.

I'm not sure about MC as not read it in years but might give it a go soon. I think it will stand up though. Can't remember a thing about These Demented Lands. I think The Sopranos is due out, either as a fim or TV series quite soon, although seem to remember Irvine Welsh may have something to do with it and he's fucking shit. The last two I read by him before Kitchenly were enjoyable enough but nothing you'd ever consider re-reading.