From Powells.com
In the past decade writers such as A.
L. Kennedy, Iain
Banks, Alan
Warner, Michel
Faber, and Ian
Rankin have made Scotland one of the most talked about literary communities
in the world. No writer, though, has been more central to this "Scottish
literary renaissance" than Irvine
Welsh, whose books have not only sold millions of copies worldwide, but have
more closely associated Welsh with his native country than any other Scots writer.
In fact, it's impossible to ignore Welsh's nationality. This becomes clear in
the very first sentence of his spectacularly successful first novel, Trainspotting:
"The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling." Welsh's characters
speak the thick working class dialect of Edinburgh, which takes a bit of getting
used to. But once the reader has the hang of Welsh's language, it becomes apparent
that he is a writer of extraordinary talents. His dialogue is as witty and driving
as Elmore
Leonard's and as a linguistic innovator he rivals Anthony
Burgess. But Trainspotting is much more than literary pyrotechnics.
This story of a group of working-class junkies in Edinburgh Rents, Sick
Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Begbie is violent, rude, sexually
explicit, and very, very black. But it is also a novel with genuine heart. And
this, of course, is the key to its phenomenal popularity. Trainspotting
is both a spirited, raunchy tour of Edinburgh's drug culture and a serious work
of art that exposes the vulnerabilities and longings that unite all human beings.
Farley, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Trainspotting is the novel that launched the sensational career of Irvine Welsh - an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating group portrait of blasted lives in Edinburgh that has the linguistic energy of A Clockwork Orange and the literary impact of Last Exit to Brooklyn. Rents, Sick Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Begbie are as unforgettable a clutch of rude boys, junkies, and nutters as readers will ever encounter.
Review
"Irvine Welsh is the real thing a marvelous mixture of nihilism and heartbreak, pinpoint realism (especially in dialect and tone), and an archetypal universality." David Foster Wallace
Review
"Welsh writes with a wit that's calculatedly outrageous, and his main character, Mark Renton, can be winningly sarcastic, especially when he's in need of a fix; but this does not make the book an advertisement for drugs....To say that Trainspotting glorifies heroin is like saying that the Inferno glorifies hell....The careful manipulation of perspective is what makes Welsh's writing more than just a catalog of dead baby humor and drug lore. Through his use of vernacular and shifting voices, he stays close enough to his characters to get into their heads, but far enough away to show their self-delusion....The language in Trainspotting is alienating at first, exhilarating once you get the hang of it, and finally poetic in its complications. One of the most complicated things about the book is that it isn't written in one voice but in many. Each character has his own syntax, vocabulary and rhythm....This isn't just dictation on Welsh's part; it's literary in the best sense, using language at every level to tell a story." Jane Mendelsohn, The New Republic
Review
"Writing in a style considerably darker and more impenetrable than that of his Booker-Prize-winning countryman James Kelman, Mr. Welsh seems less concerned with developing a coherent narrative than with exploring his mob of resolutely nihilistic characters. Yet even with the help of a glossary that explains slang terms like 'barry' (great) and 'nondy' (stupid), American readers will be none the wiser when it comes to deciphering the significance of the title, which plays on the common ground between the self-absorbed worlds of railway enthusiasts and junkies....It's worth making the effort with Trainspotting not merely because relatively few writers have rummaged through this particular enclave of British youth culture, but because even fewer have dug there so deeply." Mark Jolly, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A jarring, fragmented ride through the dark underbelly of Edinburgh, the festival city. There is not an advocate, a festival performer or a fur coat in sight as, with bitter passion and rancid humour, Welsh lays bare the lives of this ill-starred bunch of addicts, alcoholics and no-hopers.
Synopsis
Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting on a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats yeve produced. Choose life.
About the Author
Irvine Welsh is the author of seven works of fiction. Film rights for Porno have been sold to the company that made Trainspotting. He lives in San Francisco.