Glue by Irvine Welsh Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Glue
Book Review: Outstanding
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read all of Welsh's books and they certainly can go off on some bizarre tangents, but Glue is tour de force. Its a simple story, forcefully told.The Scots dialect may be difficult to understand for non-Scots, but put in the effort as you will be well rewarded.
Everything about this book is superbly written: From the descriptions of the seventies tenements, to the football violence, to the ageing process. What differs from most of Welsh's other books is that although there is his customary despair and nightmarish scenarios, there is a heavy dose of comedy and the dialogue is absolutely incredible.
The book's main conclusion is redemption and is ultimately uplifting.
Quite simply the most aggressive, funny, outlandish and uplifting book I've read in many a year.
Good work, chap.
Book Review: Pretty Good, but No _Trainspotting_
Summary: 4 Stars
I can't understand the complaints of English native speakers that this book is unreadable. Even for me as a nonnative speaker, the language was not too difficult, even if I dinnae want me bairns to pick it up. I disagree that the novel would work as well or better if it were written in "proper English". Like some other authors (e.g. Franz Xaver Kroetz in German), Welsh derives some of his power from the interplay of "proper" language and dialect.Overall, I did not find his novel as enjoyable as _Trainspotting_, Welsh's best known (and, in my opinion, his best) novel. On the other hand, one quality of _Glue_ that _Trainspotting_ does not have is the long term portrait: Instead of a snaphot of hooligan/junkie life, you get to see where these young men and women come from, how their attitudes change over time, and how their life choices play out some years later.
Book Review: Pretty Mundane
Summary: 3 Stars
Welsh has finally dropped the ball. After putting out a seemingly endless string of amazing material, "Glue" is a fairly major disappointment. Basically a near-500 page character study, Welsh seems to have lost the plot, or at least forgotten to include one here. The characters are fairly interesting, and there is plenty of memorable dialogue, but unless you're someone who is fascinated by endless descriptions of attempts at getting a shag, binge boozing, or silly football fights, you'll probably be disappointed with this one. It's all a bit too mundane.
If you're looking to get into Welsh, you would be better served with any of his other work (Trainspotting, Marabou Stork, Filth). Long time fans may be disappointed as well..at least, this one was.
Book Review: Read this book, ya wee radge
Summary: 4 Stars
The first Irvine Welsh book I attempted to read was Acid House. I was annoyed with the Scottish dialoge and through it against a wall. Then I read Trainspotting. I toiled through twenty pages and the dialect finally grew on me. Persever through the dialogue. You'll get it eventually and actually enjoy it.The story itself is about four "schemies" from Edinburgh, bound by the scheme, "fitabe" , and the new ten commandments.
Through a haze of drugs, sex, alcohoil and violence, we watch Gally, Carl, Billy, and Juice Terry eventually turrn into their fathers and realize that friendship is everything.
If anything, Welsh really nails the club scene and ravers extremely well.
Even though it may not seem to go anywhere, persevere. You won't be disappointed.
Book Review: Sticking together while falling apart
Summary: 5 Stars
In his past works, Scotland's dark son Irvine Welsh explored some of the themes most predominantly found in the most renowned literary works of our time. Friendship, loyalty, drugs, death, despair and redemption- all those who merely thought that all Welsh had to show for himself was a grasp of working-class Scottish brogue and a brutal, severely sick sense of humor (both of which he does have a stranglehold on) are missing the point. His novel "Glue" is his most edified and mature work since "Trainspotting", kicking up dust in the face of critics who blew him off after the muddled narrative of "Marabou Stork Nightmares" or the repetitious crulety of "Filth". Both those books had their disturbing charms, and yet they were missing the vitality, vigor and heart of his earlier work. Well Welsh is back, with a vengeance, and "Glue" is one harrowing, powerful, sucker-punch of a book.
The story spans over three decades, following the misadventures of four best mates- sex-crazy, skirt-chasing layabout "Juice" Terry Lawson, politically conscious, drug-addled DJ Carl "N-Sign" Ewart, focused, intense boxer Billy Birrell and luckless, smacked-out wee Andrew Galloway. We follow their lives from their rough-and-tumble beginnings in the bleak schemes of urban Edinburgh- their earliest days of shagging lassies, starting fights, raving, and hanging around with the wrong crowds. As their lives change, so do the circumstances surrounding them- punk becomes electronica, alcohol become ecstasy, single and loving it becomes married with childen, and the heedless abandon of youth becomes suicide, drug overdoses, and AIDS. All the while, they stick together, even while falling apart, all the while keeping to a strict code of conduct set forth at a very young age by Carl Ewart's dear ol' dad: Never hit a woman, always back up your mates, never let a week go by without investing in new vinyl, never cross a picket line, and never snitch on friend nor foe.
"Glue" is a lengthy book that covers the boy's alternatingly bleak and bleakly funny lives from the schoolyard into suburbia, and for old-school Welsh fans, the humor is black, bitter and very, very funny. There's a lengthy section on the torturing and rape of dogs (!) as well as a very funny set piece involving a misread of the Nazi salute, in addition to countless talks of "gettin yir hole", all spoken in Welsh's inimitatable Scottish dialect. For all its humor, however, "Glue" is also a very sad book and the vivid accounts of one of the main character's hopeless, drug-addled demise and eventual death will stick with one long after the reader is through with its 300-plus pages. Overall, "Glue" is a grown-up book about growing up and the bonds of true friendship, the loyalties that hold it all together, and escape- from your parents, from your surroundings, from the rules that bound you, and from yourself. Welsh has written another masterwork.