Trainspotting

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Summary: The ups and downs of being a herion addict!
Review: Figured I'd write that title so people would know what this book is about because I certainly didn't with a title like Trainspotting! Firstly, I read a couple of customer comments and noticed a lot of customers complaining about the Scottish 'lingo'. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the accent being British with Scottish grandparents but even so, my book had a translation list in the back so I'm wondering why people didn't use this as a guide? Anyway, Irvine Welsh has written a riveting book about heroin addicts and their everyday life. Wow! Talk about a hard-hitting book! The characters were quite vivid in my mind throughout the book as the narrator, Renton, tells his account of life in a junky existence. The energy pouring out of each page is riveting! I was actually bouncing off the walls along with the addicts at some points. The parts I really found interesting and amazing were the accounts of how they 'scored', how they paid for their drugs and all of the different drugs they would use for a high! The toilet chapter was vivid too. This book is intense and is not what I'd recommend for a lot of people I know, but if you like reality books and can manage the Scottish dialect then I'd recommend this book. Beware; it's graphic in some spots.

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Summary: Funny and frightening
Review: I came to this novel after seeing the film. I read it, enjoyed it, and didn't think much else of it. I reread the novel in an English Lit class wherein we dissected the use of dialect, the choice to not have a central character, and the somewhat unredemptive closing. Trainspotting's tough going for the first few pages, but once you're accustomed to the varying dialects represented, you'll find yourselves entertained and shocked by the stories within. This novel is gritty and uncompromising in its representation of contemporary, Scottish, working-class youth, so if you're unfamiliar with the subject, or with Welsh's other works, take warning.

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Summary: Harshly entertaining.
Review: 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.

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Summary: More realistic characters than Coupland's!!
Review: It's not a book for everybody.

Yes, it was dark. Yes, it had naughty, naughty language. Yes, parts of it depressed the hell out of me. But parts of it also touched me and even made me cry....

The characters were more real than those in any other book I have read to date. I have finally found an author who can rival Douglas Coupland at people-making! Mr. Welsh deserves a hurrah for his incredible talent for seeing and writing people as they truly are. Everybody knows somebody from Trainspotting, whether or not said someody is a heroin addict.

I think that, for many, the attraction to this book lies in the fact that we are all addicted to something...people, places, books, love, hate...and we have all been "kicking" something. Therefore, this novel can speak to anybody...if you listen to it.

Oh, and it's the first time I have actually been attracted to a literary character. C'mon, ladies, wouldn't Renton be just the IDEAL man if he'd just kick that nasty habit of his???

Read this book! If nothing else, you will feel that you are prepared to travel to Scotland and talk with the natives.

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Summary: Welsh creates original and unpredictable work
Review: When I bought my copy of Trainspotting it was a few months before the film came out. I read it with such (I hate to use the trite term) passion; it is really rare that a book grabs me so quickly and keeps me there for hours on end. However, I must admit there were several times during the book that I cursed it for being so damned unclear. Sometimes I wouldn't know what character was speaking until the middle or end of a chapter. Still, I thought the book was amazing ly original and extremely clever. Trainspotting had a very good continuity to it; but, there were some chapters, namely "Bad Blood", that had basically no relavence to the rest of the story. "Bad Blood" in particular was not only completely out of context, it was also thoroughly disgusting until the very end when the reader finds it was all an evil plot of revenge. Even so, Trainspotting was still the most unpredict able book I have read all year. The ups and downs of the drugs and the characters lives are very entertaining and al ways surprising (especially the shit-caked breakfast scene). In comparison, the movie is more outstanding than the book is. The film combines all the humerous and surprising elements with astounding cinematography. At the end of the book, one almost feels something similar to relief. At the end of the movie, one is saddened that it is over so quickly. --TD

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Summary: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh: More than the movie.
Review: With the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel set to arrive in American theatres July 19th, and especially given the buzz and controversy the film raised in Britain, expect more than one feature article in newspapers and magazines to take up the obvious and play up the heroin use angle that both the film and book share. See the movie: it's quite good and dares to show people who, despite the detriment clearly shown, enjoy using heroin. See a slice of British life captured effectively in images and music.Then read the book and see all that fantastic stuff the filmmakers were forced to leave out. The film of Trainspotting is the story of Mark Renton. The novel takes on each of the films' characters and allows them, in their own words and dialect, to tell their stories. While many of the stories are told with a thick Scots dialect, readers will soon catch the flow of the language and settle in fine (I'd compare it to reading Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha...). From the ultimate revenge a waitress can show, to the harrowing incident in which an AIDS victim draws justice from the person who passed him the virus, this is truly a novel of the Britain the guide books or casual tourist will never see. It's one of the best books of the ninties to date. And you will want to re-read it with a pen and paper to jot down many of Mark Renton's incredibly on-target observations on life.