Trainspotting

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Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: Definately worth a read, if you are into reading about Heroin addiction. It is written in Scottish dialect, so you may need to read it twice to actually get what's going on in the beginning.

Rating:
Summary: A genre-defining, modern classic
Review: This is one of the one hundred greatest fiction works of the twentieth century. I'm not joking. This is the book that launched Welsh as a prominent author. It spawned heroin-chic. They even made a great movie out of it.

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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.

Rating:
Summary: One of the few
Review: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, is one of the few instances in literature where the movie is actually and truthfully a lot better than the book. While the movie by Danny Boyle is a condensed version of the book with some things changed, it's a lot better than the book by not trying to cram in a whole bunch of things.

Another thing (and this is mainly just a squabble from a boy raised on the English language) is that there is too much usage of Scottish slang and after a while it gets hard to follow the story AND be able to decipher the sometimes confusing dialect from the Scotts, in particular the narrator Renton.

However, I can highly reccomend this book to those looking for an experimental story structure- this book is told entirely in the first person but not all from Renton, which is intriguing that Welsh decides to give the other characters a voice alongside. Even if it's not intelligible all the way, it never slants in its fascination.

Rating:
Summary: Didnae understan a woord!
Review: I picked this book up second hand with some notion of what it was about--I had seen the movie. Whatever energy the movie had was nothing compared to the raw edge of Welsh's novel. The dialect, which is at first hard to follow, becomes easy to understand and adds a huge measure of authenticity to the pages. While I don't think that this book "should sell more copies than the bible," it is successful on a number of points: 1)drug addicts aren't monsters 2)escape,escape,escape 3)drug addicts are monsters 4) no escape, no escape, no escape. Forget the film, read this book and enjoy the ride.

Rating:
Summary: Life, skag, and the people around it....
Review: What an abosolute delight from Welsh. I think the movie didn't do it justice at all. Trainspotting had a distinct vibe throughout the whole book. It had a sense of anarchy, distortion, and a little bit of righteous sense. The characters had excellent personalities and attributes. All of them were diverse in their own way, but most of them shared something in common, skag(heroin). It's quite a shame that I saw the movie before I read the book. I think the movie simply just summarized the book in a short method and changed some scenarios. Also, it took me about an hour just to get used to the dialog but that's just another reason why the book is outstanding. Welsh actually wrote it from a prospective of a person. Trainspotting is now one of my favorite books. I recommend this to everyone or to the ones that want to read about reality through the point of view of an addict.

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Summary: Mind-blowing stuff!
Review: I read Trainspotting after watching the film, and although the film was brilliant, I think the book is superior to it.I was gripped by it and couldn't stop reading until it was finished.It is a masterpiece of bitter humour and harsh scottish vernacular;it brims with energy,poignancy,mordant wit.The dialogue is so powerful and the characters so believable and real,they are vibrating and reverberating in your mind long after you have finished it.Welsh gives voice to the downtrodden and invisible, living in the dumps of our modern,affluent western societies as they stammer,whisper and shout out their amputated dreams and their aborted hopes with aggressive tenderness and incendiary violence.

Rating:
Summary: New voices, A modern classic!
Review: Irvines Welsh's, Trainspotting, is by far one of the best books I have read to date. Welsh is able to take a simple plot, but still hold a readers attention. He has a wonderful way of making the reader feel for his charaters. No matter how demented and perverse they are. He writes about the darker side of human nature. The parts we all have, and don't admit, or refuse to ever put into words. At least not as fluidly as Welsh.

I poured myself into this book. So much so, that I had to read the screenplay for movie, and the screenplay for stage. Each is a remarkable peice of literature. Dare I be bold as to say, a modern Sakespeare. If you have only seen the movie, then you are missing out. The wonderful use of scottish slang, the charater interaction, and pure morbity make this read a must for anyone who is sick of popular fiction. This book is a part of a new wave of literature creeping over from the U.K. In particular, Scotland, and Welsh is just a part. I don't suggest for the light hearted, and the weak stomached. It does have that happy ending we all like though.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Review: In Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh explores the lives of several heroin-addicted friends from Scotland. There's Rent Boy, the main MAIN character. He's just your ordinary junkie. Then there's Sick Boy. He's a junky pimp. Spud is another ordinary junky. Bebgie, grrrrrrr, I hate Begbie. He's an a$$hole. There are several more peeps, but I don't have enough time to talk about em. This book tells about their lives, the things they do to score drugs, women, everything. Irvine Welsh spares no expense.

This is Irvine Welsh's first book, and I can't decide whether this or Filth is his best. This one was a little harder for me to read because it is written in a total Scottish accent, using the slang and everything, and it took me a little while to get used to. I almost quit reading it, but now I'm glad that I didn't. It has a glossary in the back and after you read it for a while, you kinda get used to it. This book is probably the best book I have ever had the immense pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: amazing contemporary literature!!
Review: It is no lie that I am usually untouched by contemporary literature, but this is an amazing book. I have read it several times, which is unique in itself. Although I love the movie, the book is more indepth. A lot of this book is written in a phonetic Scottish accent/dialect, including slang. This may be a little confusing at first, but it does not take long to adapt. And it adds so much to the novel.

The characters are so vivid and this book is just fascinating. I reread it after I understood the slang and the accent so that I could get as much out of it as possible. If you love the movie, I urge you to give the novel a try.