Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Trainspotting
Book Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
See the movie or not, but you've got to read the book. Welsh is brilliant in his gritty, yet all-too-real, portrayal of the disaffected, heroin-addicted, corrupted, conniving, comical youth of Scotland. Welsh gets criticized for glamorizing heroin, but it's just honesty. There's got to be a reason, or multitude of reasons, why people shoot up and Welsh tells it like it is. No more no less. Shades of Burroughs' 'Junky' and Johnson's 'Jesus' Son' are here. Just different faces and places.This isn't a "Go out and try heroin now!" book, it's a fascinating glimpse into the life of a junky, and if it's too real or too right on for the mass media than Welsh has done his job. Read it. Love it. Savor it. Books like this don't come along that oftenBook Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
It quite hard to read this book in the beginning, but then you just love the language, the dialect. Read it in it's original language, scottish.AND READ THE BOOK BEFORE SEEING THE MOVIE!
Book Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't think anyone could truly explain how amazing this book is. It is a fast paced, extremely intense look into the lives of junkies. Once you start reading this book it is impossible to put down. Trainspotting is beautifully written. Irvine Welsh is a genius! I am hooked (notice my email).Book Review: Brutally, disgustingly, hilariously disturbing.....
Summary: 5 Stars
Irvine Welsh's blistering debut novel hit the literary world like a meteorite on first publication, spawning a deluge of pale imitators seeking to reveal the seedy underbelly of society to a readership fascinated by the junkies, hooligans and losers that Trainspotting had brought to life so vividly. Welsh's book is the genuine article though, a fragmented collage of tales based around the lives of Renton, the anti-hero, cod philosopher and sometime heroin addict, Sick Boy, the Don Juan with a heart of stone, Spud, the gormless, animal loving humanitarian (and the only genuinely sympathetic charcter in the book), and Begbie, the psychotic thug whose twisted logic all bow down to through motives of self preservation. Those who have seen Danny Boyle's excellent film adaptation will know that Trainspotting's plot (in the loosest sense of the word) concerns the highs and lows, the thrills and despair of living on the Edinburgh schemes during the 80s, and Renton's attempts to escape the life he has built for himself. The film omits large chunks of the book out of the necessity to boil down the plot for the shorter attention span of cinema-goers, but the essence of the book is still captured admirably. The moral neutrality of Trainspotting is a huge positive for me. There is no sermonising here: Welsh makes no bones about the fact that using heroin is seductively pleasurable, but equally he paints a grim picture of the downside - Renton's attempts to give up the skag are particularly stomach churning. However, the book is exuberant in its appetite for life, and those living on the edge of it. The anti-right wing politics are present but not especially overt, and accountability is never shifted from the shoulders of the individual. The novel's shifting narrative, together with Welsh's decision to write in the Edinburgh dialect, is initially disorienting, but ultimately reveals events from several different perspectives - illuminating more than would otherwise have been possible. The language is visceral and pulsing with life - not for the faint hearted (you may well find yourself reading in a Scottish accent in your head!). Some of the episodes, such as the toilet scene and the bedclothes scene are brutally, disgustingly hilarious: Welsh shows no regard for the finer sensibilities of his readers and occasionally I found myself squirming in my seat!
A certain amount of moral outrage has dogged Trainspotting since it's birth, but this has not prevented the novel from building a formidable reputation as an acute, funny, disturbing and painfully honest novel that is not afraid to confront its subject matter unflinchingly. It is one of my favourite books. If you can take it, it may well become one of yours.
Book Review: Buy this one (if you haven't already got it)!
Summary: 5 Stars
Welsh wrote this one while he still was a member of a writers' group in Edinburgh.
You can tell. It's a page turner, episodic and full of gallows humour, twisted morality and ultrabathos. The film won't prepare you for even a fraction of it. This and The Acid House are Welsh's finest works in my opinion (excluding his early b-sides, hem-hem).
Even Scots readers often have problems with the language at first. Try reading aloud. If you enjoyed A Clockwork Orange, you'll have no problems, however, as even sans glossary, you can work out most of the slang... for anything else, go online. Resources on this book are extensive, and it is widely held to be one of the most popular literary books of this centuary.