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| "The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling." |
Irvine Welsh's controversial first novel, set on the heroin-addicted fringe of working-class youth in Edinburgh, is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottishness. The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only "mind-numbing and spirit-crushing" alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit.
My Thoughts: Trainspotting is essentially a gritty collection of experiences through the eyes of various different people - laced with drugs and booze and sex and the blackest of wit throughout. I found myself alternatively repulsed and smiling right the way through to the last page.
And the characters are just brilliant, I don’t think that my
descriptions could do them any kind of justice; they are violent and dirty and obsessive
and I found them to be likeable and shocking at once. Each of them struggles
with addiction, their own moral conflict and with each other; some manage to
clean up and others don’t. I know that other readers felt differently, but they are relatable. I
love that each of the characters in this book has a saving grace no matter how
brutal they are.
The honesty with which Welsh writes is simply stunning
(quite literally: some of it I couldn’t believe he would put on to paper) he’s
obviously a talented observationalist with a lot of life experience under his
belt and the power to make us stop and think about our own actions and thoughts
towards society, class, gender and addiction.
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