Irvine Welsh

[Macklunkey]

Had the pleasure of meeting him today and getting his new book signed. Not something I'd generally do but I've always been a fan of his works.

Anyone else? Is he generally only popular in the UK?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I have read two of his novels.

Trainspotting and the sequel Porno 

At some point I lent my Trainspotting copy to a friend, with whom I lost contact subsequently, and he still has the damn book. 

Thus the old rule: never lend money or books to people.
I enjoyed the books, though I remember it took me a while to adapt to his Leith dialect writing. No, idea whether English native speakers suffer(ed) from the same problem.

[Macklunkey]

12 minutes ago, Notone said:

I have read two of his novels.

Trainspotting and the sequel Porno 

At some point I lent my Trainspotting copy to a friend, with whom I lost contact subsequently, and he still has the damn book. 

Thus the old rule: never lend money or books to people.
I enjoyed the books, though I remember it took me a while to adapt to his Leith dialect writing. No, idea whether English native speakers suffer(ed) from the same problem.

It's not something I had a problem with as I'm Scottish. I've often wondered how other nationalities, unfamiliar with the dialect would manage!

[Iskaral Pust]

We had another thread on him at some point.  I've read Filth, Glue and Skag Boys.  I've enjoyed them all and I like the dialect.  My only criticism is that his characters, plot and setting are very repetitive and pretty depressing, so I need a long break between his books.

I saw Trainspotting as a film before I knew the book existed, so I never went back to read it.

[sologdin]

trainspotting definitely worthy of one's attention.  is filth the one

Spoiler

with the tapeworm narrator intruding across the page? if so, is that kickass, or just labor intensive?

 

[The BlackBear]

Seen trainspotting and Filth, been meaning to read them. Filth does have a tapeworm who is (probably wisely) not in the film except for a cameo.

[Jo498]

It took me fairly long to get the thing with the tapeworm in the book although it is typographically interesting. The book was very hard to read for me because of Scottish slang and also some local customs. It is also fairly disgusting and contains lots of brutality, rape etc.

Trainspotting and Filth were enough for me. The former somehow made some of the addicts sympathetic (although I don't care for "addicts chic" that was somewhat en vogue in the mid/late 1990s and applies to several books and movies), "Filth" relied mainly on the shock value of an incredibly amoral, flithy and disgusting protagonist.

[Iskaral Pust]

Solo - yes, that's Filth.  It's a slightly weird device but novel and the growing symbiosis eventually makes some sense.  It was an enjoyable read, albeit true to its name. 

[The Killer Snark]

He stopped chatting with me on Twitter many months back no doubt because of a conflict of political persuasion. I've long admired him as a writer, though. I'll be getting the next book, but I'd really rather see him write a novel about Sick Boy trying to track down Renton. REnts was a character I really went off at the end of Porno, though Sick Boy is truly odious in Skagboys, so you can understand why Renton did what he did.