arts TNT
13th April 2004
Warning signals Kate Hartnoll catches up with novelist Alan Warner.
I
approach my interview with Alan Warner with a certain amount of trepidation, having heard some odd rumours out there on googlesearch. Interviews featuring journalists who have met him in a pub and are having obvious difficulties remembering a word said after the first ten minutes, for instance. Indeed, after asking around, I do get one piece of direct advice: "If youâre meeting in a pub DON'T GET TOO DRUNK. By all accounts he can down a pint or two." As I'm not meeting him, just calling, this problem seems sorted. But then I run into a journalist from the Irish Times whose wife interviewed Warner. Apparently, he asks journalists for a list of their ten favourite books before agreeing (or not) to talk to them. "But I'm sure you'll do fine", he says, with a smile that exhibits a lot more confidence in himself than in me. Now, I don't like this man from the Irish Times -he is smarmy and patronising in a way only opinion columnists and professional critics can bebut he does get me thinking. Despite having spent the last three and a half years studying the damn things, I suddenly can't remember a single book I've read since I was seventeen. So I am pleasantly surprised when I do call Warner and find that the only uncomfortable thing about the interview is the technology-inflicted cramp induced by having to hold a tape recorder over my head and aimed at the ear piece of the telephone receiver for forty minutes. And although this really is uncomfortable, it doesn't overshadow the fact that the interview is highly enjoyable. Warner not only has a lot to say and the articulation to say it very well, but, perhaps most noticeably, an interest in almost everything. âCuriousâ or âcuriouslyâ are words that I am to hear repeatedly throughout, in an odd assortment of contexts. "It was a curious exercise for me" (writing his new novel, which is narrated from the point of view of a man whose first language is not English). "Curious quest novels" (a tendency in his work) "Itâs curious you should mention that..." and so on and so forth. It's a word that suits Warner's writing as well: somewhere between odd, existentially questioning and driven by a desire to always investigate new perspectives. For despite being set mainly around a single small community in a tiny
port town in the Scottish highlands, Warner's four novels show a remarkably daring interest in the world in all its bizarre, twisted, no-holds-barred glory. So one minute singing, sexobsessed schoolgirls are given his full attention, then one-eyed travellers, Scottish history, the dubious rave scene in Benidorm and death. And all told in a style that mixes social realism, high poetry, stream of consciousness and good ol' fashioned storytelling. In fact, the only constant that binds his characters is a sense of indefatigable curiosity to know and under-
selves as humans and the world we live in. Critics have often concentrated on this darkness, especially when talking about âMorvern Callerâ, Warner's first and best known novel, filmed two years ago by Lynn Ramsey. Perhaps this is not surprising considering the plot. Narrated from the point of view of its elusive title heroine, it tells the story of a woman who wakes up one morning to find her writer-boyfriend has committed suicide, leaving her his credit card and unpublished novel. She grieves, empties his bank account, publishes the novel under he own name and spends the money clubbing in Spain. It is a plot that raises both moral questions and morPortrait by Jerry Bauer
Alan Warner, author of âMorvern Callerâ and âThe Sopranosâ stand more. Erratic, yes. But in the best possible way. If I were to sum up Warner's style, without resorting to the lists of adjectives which up until now seem to be characterising this article, it would be thus. The illegitimate love-child of Joyce and Camus, writing on the alluring but potentially disastrous cocktail of LSD and Speed. The switch between feel-good and violently dark can come any time. He aims to "create worlds", not necessarily realist or even reliable ones, but which ultimately tell us something about our-
bidly hilarious incidents, but I find Warner more keen to talk about the characters. He talks about his characters as if they were real people he cares about, and I begin to realise that it is this humanism, this absolute lack of cynicism that illuminates his work, even when it gets seriously twisted. "A lot of people strangely went on about her (Morvern Caller's) coldness", he muses. "I was always astounded by that because she cries and she prays and she's clearly in shock. I think people confused a char-
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acter who holds back feelings with coldness. But you don't want to lapse into sentimentality either... Everyone has their reasons, even the most terrible criminal." And then the mission statement: "Novelists are usually kind of poking a bit at the reasons people are what they are". So there it is. After three and a half years some one has finally given me a answer to what the actual point of books are. However, the question is complicated somewhat when "what they are" are travellers obsessed with carrying water in plastic bags, with a physical inability to walk up slopes when drunk (âThe Man Who Walksâ). Or even female. Does he think that it is ever possible for a man to capture a female voice? "Yes... Novels are acts of imagination and to try and branch out into characters who are other than you seems fundamental to what a novel is. Its about the result, the end product, if the end character isn't believable than the writer shouldn't have written from that point of view. For instance, I don't think Martin Amis can write working class criminals at all". I agree with his point, but even if I didn't, slagging Martin Amis in a lovely soft Scottish accent is a sure way after my heart. So what does he like in a novel? Or a film? "When I saw the film of âMorvern Callerâ, I thought 'that would have inspired me when I was eighteen. I think that's a great yardstick...I've always been terrified by novels that bore me, so I've always wanted to draw people in (to my writing) When I was younger I was often very scared of a novel. Especially very intellectual ones. They felt intimidating and they felt cold." This statement at first seems slightly amiss, coming from Warner, an author who is not easy to read and whose style can be as dense as Joyce's at times. And yes, the dreaded adjective âpretentiousâ has been applied by the occasional critic. But âaccessibleâ does not necessarily mean âeasyâ or âsimplisticâ. And as the popular success of Warner proves, a challenging book is not necessarily by definition an elitist or âintimidating oneâ. In âThe Man Who Walksâ, Warner makes the statement: "along with pot, intelligence should be legalised." With more writers such as Alan Warner, it might just be. (Intelligence, that is. Not pot). Alan Warner has written four novels; âMorvern Callerâ, âThese Demented Landsâ, âThe Sopranosâ and âThe Man Who Walksâ. He is currently working on his fifth, the story of a Spanish man who believes he is HIV positive and attempting to track down the women who gave him the infection, to warn her and perhaps also for some darker reason. Filming for âThe Sopranosâ will begin next year in Scotland.