Trainspotting [Hardcover]

Irvine Welsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

"The best book ever written by man or woman...deserves to sell more copies than the Bible."—Rebel, Inc.

Brace yourself, America, for Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting—the novel and the film that became the cult sensations of Britain. Trainspotting is the novel that first launched Irvine Welsh's spectacular career—an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating episodic group portrait of blasted lives. It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn did for his. Rents, Sick Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Seeker are as unforgettable a clutch of junkies, rude boys, and psychos as readers will ever encounter. Trainspotting was made into the 1996 cult film starring Ewan MacGregor and directed by Danny Boyle (A Shallow Grave).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect--essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

“A novel perpetually in a starburst of verbal energy – a vernacular spectacular…the stories we hear are retched from the gullet.”
—Scotland on Sunday

“One of the most original writers in Britain. He writes with style, imagination, wit and force.”
— Nick Hornby, Times Literary Supplement

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393057240
• ISBN-13: 978-0393057249
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (200 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting, Ecstasy, Glue, Porno, Filth, Marabou Stork Nightmares, The Acid House, If You Liked School, You'll Love Work, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs and Reheated Cabbage. He divides his time between Florida, Ireland, and Scotland.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Welsh's masterpiece of contemporary British literature November 22, 2003

By Johnny Sideburns

Format:Hardcover

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. Read more ›

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Harshly entertaining. March 20, 2000

By "gwynyfar"

Format:Paperback

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars More Whacked Out + Rough Than the Film September 9, 1999

By A. Ross HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant May 24, 2004

By Colleen

Format:Hardcover

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. Read more ›