Trainspotting

Rating:
Summary: a humorless novel about a group of Scottish drug addicts
Review: The hype this novel recieved was way overblown. I can imagine teenagers getting all pysched up about this, but if anyone has ever read James Kelman, Willam S. Burroughs and Samuel Beckett, then you may have some understanding as to what I mean. Basically, this book is a complete rip off of the three writers whom I referred to. Besides this fact, it is also humorless. But this is not say that Mr. Welsh isn't a good writer, because he is. It's just that he doesn't shine in this book. Try The Acid House.

Rating:
Summary: Pure dead brilliant Irvine ma main man!
Review: Brilliant book, I`m from Scotland so I understand the book 100%...I`m sure foreigners might have some trouble understanding the dialect but it shows poverty up in British cities for what it is...bleak with a sense of irony. Cheers Irvine! COLIN STEAD

Rating:
Summary: It`s in-fu**ing-tense
Review: I`m not American or Englishman,so please excuse my English.I`m from Czech republic(Central Europe),so respect it please.When I read this book for a firsth time,it was really hard for me to understand,because of that Scottish english.But then I understand to everything and could say it`s better then the movie.I don`t think that evryone could read this book.It`s hard to understand but awesome.Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Too true: Trainspotting extends beyond the ordinary
Review: A keeper has to whack you. A book you buy on a lark and then keep forever has to change how you think, how you see the world. Trainspotting whacked me. If it were only a description of the world as a "bog" (ie bathroom) it would be fascinating in a journalistic way. But it's a bog with a purpose, a challenge of morality turned sideways, weird survival in an unsurvivable world. The story is always >going somewhere<. That energy, that need to make something >new< happen, that's the whacking part. I was dragged along kicking and screaming. Also read this book and Sheperd's Bush will start to make a whole lot of sense.

Rating:
Summary: A teenagers look:
Review: TRAINSPOTTING: The controversial, humorus and inter-twined tale that perswades a demensional approach and a debut talent of British writing. The extended, confusing and astonishing character of Mark Renton delivers the emotion and shadowed struggle through a heroin addiction. With 6 lives in jeopardy, the reader learns and experiences an unforgettable story with the detangled answers to life's dead ends.

Rating:
Summary: Trainspotting only skin(pop) deep
Review: Welsh's use of dialect and the first person seem to immerse the reader at once into a strange and lurid new world, but his weaknesses as a writer are apparent if one looks for them. They are most prominent when he tries, and fails, to keep up the inertia in the third person, or even when he drops the slang (as in the tiresome "Bad Blood.") A closer examination of Trainspotting reveals just how much Welsh relies on the gimmick of dialect to keep the reader interested: "translate" a few sentences into plain english, and see how uninspired the prose is. Phonetic mispellings does not a masterpiece make; if Welsh's story was truly as universal as people say it is, it wouldn't need them.

Rating:
Summary: Trainspotting - F***ing brilliant!
Review: I love the film, but the book is so much more... It's blacker and it's got a lot more depth. It tells a story about young people's lives in so many different ways apart from the drug abuse angle of Danny Boyle's film. The technique with different people's viewpoints in the different chapters work really well and in my view adds a new dimension to the story. Though a couple of the chapters i Trainspotting read more like short-stories in their own right (e.g. the one about the guy who gets back at the bastard who's responsible for giving him HIV), Welsh still manages to hold the complex web of different impressions and viewpoints together. Since I don't have English as a first language (me being a Swede), I was a bit afraid I wouldn't find the Scottish prose compehensible. But after a short while I got the hang of it and stopped even noticing the awkward spelling. A lot of Swedes will undoubtedly read the book since the film was a big hit over here, and most will only come across the Swedish translation. That is a crying shame because the translation really sucks! If you love Trainspotting as much as I do, check out Irvine Welsh's latest book, Ecstacy. Three short-novels, one burlesque, one very violent and one a love-story. Renton and Spud make cameo appearances as a girl remembers her old days as a punk rocker in a filthy squat in London.

Rating:
Summary: A most harrowing, enticing, repulsive, addictive read
Review: How can self-abuse, masochism, obsession and addiction be related in such a way as to be a totally compelling read? If it is written by Irvin Welsh it is all of the above. This novel thrilled yet sickened me and in the darker recesses of my mind I wished I could experience what these "victims" went through. Welsh's characters are wholly authentic, pathetic and pitiable individuals. The authenticity is heightened due to the novel being written in dialect. This is not a book to be skim-read; it requires concentration and a strong stomach.

Rating:
Summary: A great book that I could not put down.
Review: I just got done reading the book & it is now one of my favorites. Along with Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," this book is a search for your place in life & the friends that travel with you. If you ever wanted to open a window to the thoughts, ideas & dilemmas of an idealistic junky then this is the book for you. It also opens up the world of today's youth. Very entertaining

Rating:
Summary: Trainspotting deserves as many thumbs up as you can find.
Review: Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is seen as two things, depending who you ask. Anyone over 30 will say it is a controversial cult novel. Any one from Gen X will tell you it is a guide to well-being. Wheither you find it down right smut or holier than thou, godly material, you'll always find it interesting. The motion picture screen doesTrainspotting little justice because the contents that make this the "feel nothing" book of the era, also ban the true feel of the novel from any screen. And that my friends is a shame, because so few bask in the glory of literature anymore. This is, in my opinion, the best book in history since the Bible, maybe better