Trainspotting (Paperback)

by Irvine Welsh (Author) "The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling..." (more)
Key Phrases: shitein cunt, cunt sais, tae git, Sick Boy, White Swan, Billy Boy (more...)

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.

Review
Blisteringly funny ... don't abandon everything for the movie. It's worth making the effort with Trainspotting not merely because relatively few writers have rummaged through this particular enclave of British youth culture, but because even fewer have dug there so deeply. -- The New York Times Book Review, Mark Jolly

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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 3rd Printing edition (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393314804
• ISBN-13: 978-0393314809
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #110,125 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Brent A. Anthonisen "Johnny Sideburns" (Alpharetta, GA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Trainspotting (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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	"gwynyfar" (Storrs, CT United States) - See all my reviews

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.

8 of 8 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 (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.