Irvine Welsh - the original grimdark

[Iskaral Pust]

I was surprised that a search turned up no thread dedicated to the literary champion of Edinburgh heroin addicts.

I just read Skagboys and have previously read Trainspotting, Filth and Glue. His characters, tone, themes and style are remarkably consistent but he writes what he knows and writes it very well. His novels tend to be very dark and depressing (Abercrombie is sunshine and puppies by comparison) but with enough dark humor, insights on humanity and society, and character development to make them worthwhile. I also find that his books are largely confined to a time bubble of the 1980s and early 1990s, when working class Scotland was especially suffering from socioeconomic problems. That specific setting, and writing the Scottish accent phonetically, may make the books less accessible to a global audience.

In the background there seems to be an overarching sentiment that young men will do stupid destructive things out of boredom and disenfrancisement but then eventually grow out of it -- somewhat echoing Clockwork Orange (depending on which edition).

While I appreciate the quality of the novels and always find myself fully immersed and finish them quickly, I also find that immersion leaves me with a darker, depressive outlook that feels very remote from "straightpeg" mores and norms. He's quite like Chuck Palahniuk in that way. So I need to take a long break between his books.

Any other readers out there who'd like to discuss some of the characters and recurring themes?

[TheGoodShipAlbion]

Irvine Welsh is among my favourite writers. The characters of Rents, Sickboy and Begbie, along with Juice Terry from Glue, are different class, and no matter what lows they sink to, as Welsh illustrates the dark side of human nature, you can't help but laugh and revel in the brutality of it all.

Growing up in working class, Thatcherite repressed Edinburgh, he just wrote about what he knows (although he now appears to be writing from a Miami perspective in new novel, which I have not yet read), and his works have an authentic and very real feel to it. Basically, I have never witnessed an anti-hero written better by any other writer.

[Iskaral Pust]

Yes, his work is all about the anti-hero. And he writes it really well. During Skagboys I was concerned that Renton became a bit of a self-insertion, but I was surprised by how far he was willing to take Renton and Sick-Boy in that novel. He feels no compunction to keep them sympathetic or to redeem them at all. In fact, most characters are never redeemed, they simply are, and the reader has to learn to accept that. It flies in the face of the ambition of fiction to witness a journey (refer to Joseph Campbell) and instead shows that for most people their journey is a circle, if not an actual downward spiral.

And yet, his characters have intrinsic motivation and agency. They aren't bad or puppets to the plot. They act in a way that is internally consistent with their nature and environment and, for most of them, we can imagine that in a different environment they would fall well within our everyday experience.

[Mathis]

I agree with you about the time bubble point. His best work all comes from the heroin boom and the acid house era. I've read most of his work and the only books I've ever gone back to is Trainspotting. He captured the zeitgeist with that one.

[BigFatCoward]

for me the linked books referred to above skagboys, trainspotting, porno and glue are far and away his best, though i also enjoyed filth. i don't feel he especially set out to be dark, he didn't really have much choice when writing about what he knew. heroin addiction, football holiganism, unemployment and aids don't allow for much cheer (though they do allow for some banging dark humour). i think if he released non phonetic versions he may have a much bigger audience.

[MisterOJ]

Wasn't Glen Cook pretty much the original grimdark?

[Iskaral Pust]

Wasn't Glen Cook pretty much the original grimdark?

Lollipops and butterflies compared to Irvine Welsh.