My Trainspotting experience was one of the few times that I saw the film before I read the book. And it is also one of the incredibly few times that I consider both items of equal high quality.
Irvine Welsh, for my wager, is as good a writer alive today. Although his settings are fairly specific (in this book it all takes place in the Leith district of Edinburg, Scotland–I assume Leith is a district, please correct me if I am wrong), he has a keen and wide world view. Any type of person can be profound; few are, but never should one think like the Baconites v. Shakespeare. No fancy degree certifies human depth. You would think we would have moved away from such limiting prejudices, but there they still are, all over and just as specious and snobbish as ever.
The structure of the book is a series of short vignettes featuring various people, but it all weaves together brilliantly into one complete tale. The heroin world is a peculiar hell along the border of heaven place, a strange DMZ in which the highest and lowest actions of our race happen simultaneously. There is no bottom floor in that world. The glory of heroin, and the need to at least have enough in you to escape the singular monstrosity of withdrawals make it the Only Thing that Matters. Sure, it’s terrible that the baby is dead in his crib, but give me a hit before I deal with it. And everyone involved understands that way of thinking without question (the baby in the book–apparently–died from SIDS, not neglect–but that is probably not how the Law would look at it.)
And although Welsh gives you a wonderful array of solid characters and harrowing scenes, two things set him especially up on the high. He writes completely in the local idiom, yet even an American such as I am able to get with it. He has his own lilt, like Mr. Shakespeare. And he is goddam funny. His wit flies off his work like gamma rays bursting from a super novae. You cannot create a Spud or a Begbie without a sense of humour, and Mr. Welsh shows that quality with tremendous zeal–and do not get me started on “the worst toilet in Scotland.”
I’m a fairly tough person and grew up with a view from the bottom, but you can see a lot from the low and I feel that anyone should be able to share in Welsh’s wisdom, even though it is most decidedly not Disney.
Image: An old, overcrowded bookshop with higgldypiggledy shelves loaded with volumes. From Pixabay.com
literally stories 