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there. No bouncers either, just kangaroos.
ZS: You’re currently working on a novel called At A
Fair Old Rate Of Knots. How would you describe it
and when do you think it might be published?
AW: (First answer) SORR M COMPUTR HAS RE-
ALL ROKE DOW
(Later) Travelogue from the point of view of a homeless
guy who has no choice but to travel, and a critique
of past Highland/literary/historical landmarks. It could
end up with a shootout at Culloden battlefield! The title
is now The Man Who Walks. I don’t have a clue when
it’ll be published.
ZS: You’ve said that you really got into reading with
authors like Alan Paton and Andre Gide. Who or what
else inspired you to start writing, and who’s work really
excites you (intellectually or otherwise) at the moment?
AW: I’M SERIOUS THE KEOARD IS FUCKED
Then: Camus (see below), Sartre (ditto), Michael
Moorcock, Nietzsche, Herman Hesse, J.G. Ballard,
Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, the music of
Holger Czukay.
Now: Same writers and Mark Richard, Annie Proulx,
Juan Carlos Onetti and the music of Holger Czukay.
ZS: Morvern Callar sometimes reminds me a little
of Camus’ Mersault or even Sartre’s Roquentin, particularly
in terms of her connections with other people.
Were you self-consciously trying to explore existential
concepts or styles of narration?
BUY Alan Warner books online from and
AW: IT IS EITEITAIL E
You’re spot on, Nausea, The Roads To Freedom trilogy
and Camus’ work were awful important to me, especially
Nausea and The Outsider. I think Morvern Callar
is an existential novel … and one that taps into the
absurd, that whole opening sequence. I think Morvern
is outraged at the absurdity of death, the fact she has to
jump over the body to get to the sink, the fact that she
suddenly needs to take a crap, even though the man
she loves is dead there in the midst of their (former)
domestic bliss. The whole absurdity of having to get
dressed and put on makeup though he’s dead. I think it
metaphysically outrages her which is why she reports it
so exhaustively and perhaps that’s why she walks past
the phonebox. She’s rebelling against the absurdity of
death, in that way she’s heroic I think.
ZS: There’s quite a few university courses now on
creative writing as a discipline. Do you think that this
is a good thing or does it run the risk of reversing some
of the democratization of literature which has occurred
recently (perhaps particularly in Scotland with Canongate
and Rebel Inc), and putting literature back into an
academic context?
AW: SORR I’M REAKIG UP HERE
Well I feel guilty about my suspicions because many
good writers have come out of those workshops, especially
in the US where there seem to be millions of
them. But I’m secretly appalled by the concept, I think
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