Customer Reviews

Trainspotting

5 star:		(153)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Finally. I no longer have to worry about buying a new paperback copy of this book every three months or so; this has always been a book that I've frequently enjoyed going back to multiple times after finishing...and now we've finally got a version that is built to last.

Most likely you've already seen the movie before deciding whether or not to read the book. Be forewarned, however; John Hodge's screenplay is a masterful job of bringing continuity to a series of stories that are in fact only loosely related. The book "Trainspotting" is comprised of a series of short stories previously published independently in various periodicals over a stretch of time...the stories deal with the same core of characters, but that is really all that ties them together. You will probably find that Danny Boyle's job of directing the "Trainspotting" movie looks even more impressive after reading even a quarter of the book.

The book does focus on a set of wrong-side-of-the-track friends involved with drugs, alcohol, petty crime, and anything else they can find to take their minds off their completely unfulfilling lives. An added challenge (and a fair extent of the book's charm) is that the book's dialogue and first-person narrative are written in the author's native Edinburgh dialect, making the book perhaps more accessible to Robert Burns scholars than the average non-Scots English speaker. However, there is a glossary in the back of the book that is rather helpful...and my personal recommendation is to read the book out loud whenever possible (I don't know why, but whenever I did this, the written words made more sense when heard as an audible accent).

If you liked the movie at all, the book is for you. As with most books that are adapted to the screen, you'll find a level of depth in the book that the film simply could not attain due to time and budgetary constraints; Spud onscreen is presented as a cross between Spud and "Second Prize" in the book, and there are book characters who aren't even introduced in the film (yet who also bring added depth to a world that is portrayed as rather one-dimensional in the film). Choose life, choose a job, choose a career..but most importantly, choose this book. It will add a whole 'nother level of appreciation to the "Trainspotting" experience.

I'd seen the movie, but didn't know if I could bring myself to read the book. I had heard that it was even more graphic than the film, and was unsure of my capabilities to understand the Edinburgh dialect that Welsh had written the book in. However, after a visit to Glasgow, Scotland, I was reintroduced to the novel. I nearly bought it while I was there, but realized that it would not have the glossary that the American edition has. Upon my return, I immediately bought it, and finished it within days. The book is about a group of characters who are all somehow touched by the heroin culture of Edinburgh. Many are users, some are just friends of users. All the characters in the book are somehow linked together. They each tell at least one story through their own eyes. The reader is taken through a journey, shown the ins and outs of these people's addiction, attempts to kick the addiction, and their ultimate failures, either through death, or just through keeping on in their drug use. The characters are vivid and their situations are made quite real for the reader. By the end of the novel I was quite used to the Scottish dialect, and I was rather attached to the characters. I did not want the story to end. Though it is graphic at times, and the dialect is a challenge at the start, I definitely urge everyone to read this harshly entertaining and highly engrossing novel.

You've seen the movie, now read the book (or vice versa). Despite the phantasmagorical nature the film adopts at times, the book is even more whacked out--in a good way-- not to mention rougher in many senses. Although it flows chronologically, the novel is plotless, skipping from vignette to vignette, told by a wide range of people. The main characters from the movie are the main characters in the book, but there are a number of stories narrated by more minor characters as well. This makes the whole thing more impressionistic and loose, and of course, allows space for many more entertaining stories. There are a few scenes that get really nasty, such as a scene where Renton has sex with his just-dead brother's pregnant wife in a bathroom after the funeral. The guys are also a fair bit older than the movie makes them out to be, Begbie is a good deal nastier, etc... It's actually rather amazing they found a movie in all the stories in the book. In any event, don't be intimidated by the dialect and slang, it's great fun once you get into it.

This is, quite simply, the most brilliant book I've ever read. Here's why.

1. The Randomness. There is no plot. This is a book about real people, and real people have no plot in their lives. Especially not these people. And by switching POV, you get to see everything. The movie attempts this with Begbie's throwing-the-glass sequence, but it does no justice.

2. The Phonetic Spelling. Granted, this book is hard to read, incomparably. But this facet holds up the entire book. You can't get to know a person until you know how they talk - more than that, how they SPEAK each and every word. Also - the slang! You will talk better than any cat you ken, likesay?

3. The Personality. You really get to know at least 4 or 5 people in this book, and you like them. Renton the most, then probably Sick Boy, then Begs, then Spud, and the rest of the motley crew. The constantly-switching narrative never says upfront who's speaking, so you learn to identify the gang by speech tags - Hombre for Begbie, Catboy for Spud, the man Sean Connery in general for Sick Boy, and . . . well, let's just say that by the end of the book I could TELL when it was Rents talking. I knew his voice.

4. The Cult Nature. It's everywhere...underground. Lots of online fan bases. It's fun.

5. The Subculture. Face it, how many of us have shot up heroin in a moldy flat in the slums of Edinburgh? With a really intense accent? This book painstakingly shows you a whole new world, literally. And you come out knowing a lot more about drugs.

6. The Message. Trainspotting is a multiple choice question. Here's what happens if you do, here's what happens if you don't. The only judgements in the book come from the characters themselves. Irvine Welsh the author has successfully disappeared - if his skag boys are his "mouthpieces", then he's completely hidden that fact.

In conclusion, read it. This book is the face of modern literature and yes indeed, it deserves to sell more copies than the Bible.

Written in a phonetic Scottish-English hybrid, this book is a challenge on the reader and soon bogs down the eye-brain connection as we sound through words the same way we once did in Sister Mary-Elizabeth's kindergarten class. Although this is not exactly the dead-on same story as the movie of like name, anyone whose seen and loved Trainspotting on screen will be glad to find Renton, Sickboy, Spuds, the sociopathic Francis Begby, clean-living Tommy (and Lizzie!) and all the rest of the gang here in the novel that inspired one of the freshest, grossest and funniest movies of the mid-1990's.

For those who do not know, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is set in Scotland in roughly contemporary times, and tells the tale of Mark Renton, a twenty-ish philosophical junky and his band of mates, as they run, walk and crawl through a sometimes dismal, sometimes upbeat life in a post-industrial, pre-future society. Among their adventurous efforts to keep themselves in heroin (supplied by a colorful man called Mother Superior--on account of the length of his habit) Renton and the others joyfully rob American tourists, steal TV's from old age homes, and generally push onward through an existence that holds no promise of a tomorrow. Along the way, some extremely strange events come to pass. Renton unexpectedly finds himself with a thoroughly jailbait girlfriend who is roughly thirteen going on thirty; Begby goes on the lam after a violent crime goes bad; and as he passes thru a vicious episode of the DT's, Renton looks on aghast with horror as a dead baby slinks in accusatory fashion over the ceiling above his head.

In case you can't guess, this is one strange novel.

Trainspotting is worth the effort of dissecting the meaning of the odd, Celtic-flavored words Welsh uses to tell this tale of a crew of heroin-using Scotsmen in a pessimistic society that has seen better days. Like the film version, it's funny, it's imaginative (to say the least) and it's more than a little sick at times. It's a challenge to read, but hey, the road less traveled and all that, right?

I won't say this book is 'provocative' or 'thought-provoking' or 'harrowing' or even 'disturbing', because it's all been said before. Irvine Welsh is everything that hasn't been said before in a book, but what everyone knows already and realises in themselves after they read 'Trainspotting'. I won't say that this book 'deserves to sell more copies than the bible' (rebel inc.), like it says on the cover, because as far as i'm concerned the bible doesn't deserve to sell any copies. However, 'Trainspotting' is wickedly truthful, however psychotic it is. I won't say that 'once i picked it up, i couldn't put it down', because in fact, it was probably the strangest thing i'd ever read besides Shakespeare. It took my ages to figure out what all the 'bairns' and 'brars' and 'kens' actually meant. I bought the book, and after reading four pages, thought, 'what the hell is this??!'. I will say, three years later, that it's like a bible to me now. The bible of the youth voice. You can be forty and have the voice of the youth as long as you don't forget. The youth mentality won't change. It's always been about p****** people off and doing what other people won't. Welsh knows this deliciously. I have to say the movie was good, 'cos it gave Renton and Sickboy and Spud and Begbie a face, and a voice. The book was better because it gave all of them a personality that John Hodge didn't bother portraying i the screenplay, having to fit the entire saga into one and a half hours. I love this book because it's just pure fun and truth. But i love all of Welsh's other books because it's Irvine Welsh. Anyway, that's not the point. READ Trainspotting, and if you're a chick, you'll strangely fall in love with Renton, or even Sick Boy... and you'll miss them all after you turn the last page. But read Welsh's other books, and you'll find them again in great comfort. My point is, (if anyone is actually going to listen to anything that i've said), Get used to the dialect and read Trainspotting. 'Endy ****** story'. A telepathic note to Welsh: You write chicks like retards. Even the smart ones. To amazon.com: That wasn't a spiteful remark, I deeply feel that he should know this.

This is the story of Scottish heroin junkies and their friends. Drugs, HIV/AIDS, drugs, sex, drugs, welfare, drugs and more healthy fun is what you'll find in this exquisite novel.

Trainspotting is often compared to A Clockwork Orange... For one thing, they both write in slang (it takes a while to pick up but after a wee bit you'll find yessel typing the same wae, likesay... daft draftpaks) and are both very explicit. Still, they are different. Trainspotting is a little more "real," dealing with the present, while ACO warns us of the future. Trainspotting revolves around a group of characters while ACO is about one protagonist (who is actually an antagonist too, if you're keeping score). In any event, it's safe to say that if you liked one, you'll like the other.

For people who are familiar with the movie but not the book: A few years after I saw the movie for the first time, I decided to read the book... And I must say, the book is much better. If you enjoyed the movie, you will LOVE this. Granted, the book is harder to follow. It's written from different points of view (not just Renton's), and thus includes many scenes/characters not in the film. Don't say "I saw the film, let's move on to something else..." READ THE BOOK!

And when you read it you'll know why.

From the beginning you feel as if the characters were people you've known all your life. Regardless of whether you're for or against drugs, this book shows herion for what it is and does a real fine job of it too.

The book is written in "Scottish", which I personally found delicious, although some have commented it is difficult to understand (it isn't, really).

The book's strongest point, however, is that it portrays life in Scotland and Britain and the various mentalities of the people there. It's dead serious at times, hilarious at others, but intriguing throughout. Either you'll love it or you'll hate it. Probably the former, though.

As i live in the area this great novel is based i hav a better insight to how real it is. This novel held me from front to back, unlike most people who have written reviews i had no problem with the language(but i realise how much of a problem it could be). Trainspotting portrayed what my area WAS like perfectly, even the toilet scene.

One last thing to say, that novel is based in the 80's, my area has changed greatly since then. If someone was to set it nowadays they would have a hard time making it seem realistic.

However overall the best novel i have read............yet

As a reader currently accustomed to standard paperback
bestseller crap "Trainspotting" was a welcome change. I
admit, I didn''t discover this book in its obscurity but
was influenced to read it after the great media-hype
surrounding the film, but I still feel gratitude I read the
book before watching the movie. This book, unlike other
mind-numbing American novels later turned into films,
intrigues the reader and teases his thoughts and his
perception of border lines and what is acceptable and
unacceptable. The novel never urges the reader to try any
drug but rather shows the real side of drug use, the ups
and downs of mainly Heroine and alchohol, in a funny and
provokingly interesting way. With the use of intricate
scottish slang Welsh manages to expose the dark realities of
hopeless junkie lives and bring out the humor of those empty
lives, while still incorpporating hilarious sex scenes, harsh
violence and drug use. A definate must-read, this book will
hopefully open the minds of its readers, if there is any hope
in the youth of this great world of ours!