The Sopranos (Harvest Book): Amazon.de: Alan Warner, Warner, Andre Bernard: Englische Bücher

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Taschenbuch, August 2000

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If there's any justice, Alan Warner's third novel, The Sopranos, will lead to a sudden fad for artificially shortened kilt skirts, bright shoelaces, and flaming sambuca shots. As it is, we might have to settle for the sopranos themselves, six memorably vile-mouthed Catholic schoolgirls sent from their drab port town to "the big, big city" for the Scottish national choir finals. There Warner follows them as they shop, smoke, eat Big Macs, consume staggering amounts of alcohol, and pay no attention whatsoever to the competition. Winning, after all, would defeat their central goal: returning in time for the slow dances at the Mantrap and the promise of submariners on leave. In the end, it turns out that the nuclear submarine has stopped in their harbor only to unload a dead sailor, and the girls must console themselves with alcohol, sex, a veritable inferno of fireworks, and even one heartbreakingly courageous kiss.

By turns bawdy and tender, funny and sad, The Sopranos faces adolescence head-on, without sentiment or false hope. Youth, for these girls, is precious precisely because they have so little to look forward to. When their friend becomes pregnant, she's already "devoured the few opportunities for the wee bit sparkle that was ever going to come her way." When the nuns' parrot--who likes to spout Spanish obscenities during Mass--escapes from the school, his bright colors are "like a happiness that wasn't allowed below such skies, against these curt roof angles of slate and granite." Theirs is a grim, circumscribed world, but the sopranos shine like tropical birds against the background of gray. --Mary Park -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

From Kirkus Reviews

A defiantly abrasive tale by Scots author Warner (These Demented Lands, 1998, etc.) chronicles the misadventures of a sextet of teenaged Catholic schoolgirls seeking excitement and dissipation. The Sopranos, were told, was a commercial hit in England, and its easy to see why: the Belles of St. Trinian's were obedient angels compared with the foulmouthed malcontents from our Lady of Perpetual Succor, where 27 girls got pregnant in one year; distracted Father Ardlui (a lapsed novelist) avoids unpleasant realities by distractedly imagining miracles; and much-despised Sister Pagan (``the Pagan'') and Condron (``Sister Condom'') strive womanfully to keep their disrespectful charges pure and holy. A group of the latter bond uproariously when the choir in which they sing travels to ``the big, big city'' for a musical competition. Warner nicely characterizes the girls in boisterous accounts of R-rated shopping trips, furtive boozing (they imbibe ``alcoholic lemonade''), and heated pursuitprimarily at a disco called the Mantrapof available men, whose shortcomings they nevertheless assess in high obscene style (`` . . . AIDS is the least of your worries wi those two dicks, more like Mad Cows Disease''). The novels tendency toward monotony is relieved by its roving fragmented structure (e.g., a long drunken conversation between Kay, who fears she's pregnant, and Fionnula, who's discovering she's gay, both quickens the storys pace and broadens its scope) and by several flashbacks that vividly personalize such otherwise blurry characters as (Ra)Chell, stunted by a legacy of incest, Kylah (singer with the rock band Lemonfinger), and Orla, whose grimly funny failed attempt at sex seems to embody the frustrations they're all kicking back at. A little of this goes a long way, but Warner ends things smashingly with a seriocomic ``all-nighter'' featuring fireworks in toilets, ``snogging'' and ``shagging'' enough for all, followed by a happily unrepentant journey home. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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Good but not as good as Morvern Callar 11. Februar 2000

Von Chris Williams

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Although his second book was better written, it did not have the same feeling as Morven Callar. I enjoyed The Sopranos, but if you are a first time Warner reader I would have to suggest Morvern.

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A study in dispair 4. Mai 2000

Von David Garfield

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This work is as poignant a social comment as any I have recently read.

This novel turns an intimate spotlight on the plight of bored, rudderless Scottish schoolgirls trapped in a featureless port town whose only respite from the numbing drudgery of their existence is achieved through an astonishingly excessive alcohol intake and sex acts devoid even of affection.

The British quality press all say how funny this book is, with epithets like "wickedly funny" (Independent) and "riotously funny" (The Times). Yes there are some amusing slapstick scenes but this book is not purely a comedy.

This in an excellent novel. One starts with a certain mild distaste as one is introduced to the main protagonists but as time and the story progress one is drawn in to a realization of how these girls have been abandoned by our social culture and put-upon by their draconian and misguided school. This leads to a certain affection for these individuals, and their dispair (though most do not acknowledge it) becomes very tangible.

Perhaps the most telling observation is from a young lad who befriends one of the girls whose thought is "These chicks are the damaged goods."

Through the use of quirky spelling and a startling lack of punctuation (which take a little getting used to), the author captures with remarkable accuracy the girls' brash but amusing dialogue and the reader is left in no doubt that he is absolutely in touch with the sub-culture of that environment. The girls meet their situation with riotous rebellion and a dry humour that is very amusing, if not touching.

Especially well drawn is the discovery of a true sense of love in one of the girls, an emotion clearly previously unknown to her and one which leads her to a very courageous public stance.

This is the first book by Alan Warner that I have read. It certainly won't be the last.

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A Brutally Truthful Masterpiece 14. M�rz 2000

Von Lindsay

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Warner has written teenage girls better than any other flimsy novelist out today! He goes into the deepest, darkest corners of the teenager's mind to explore sex, lesbianism, death, pregnancy, poverty and disease. His humour brightens the pages of angst and makes the book a wonderful read. A grand mixture of drama and comedy! I reccomend this book to ANY teenage girl who thinks she is 'the only one'.

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