Reheated Cabbage: Tales of Chemical Degeneration

Product Details

• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to opinion our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>
• Notes: Stamp New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Acclimatize: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780393338027

Description

Never-collected tales, including outrageous early stories from the Trainspotting years, plus a raucous new novella. Reheated Cabbage gathers stories showcasing Irvine Welsh’s trademark skills: vaulting imagination, brilliant vernacular ear, scabrous humor, and the ability to create some of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction. You can enjoy Christmas dinner with Begbie at his Ma’s and see how he greets his sister’s boyfriend and news of their engagement. You’ll discover in “The Rosewell Incident” why aliens speak hardcore Scots English and plan to put Midlothian roughs in charge of the planet. And you’ll be delighted to welcome back “Juice” Terry Lawson and now internationally famous DJ Carl Ewart, and watch them as they meet an old nemesis, retired schoolmaster Albert Black, under the strobe lights of a Miami Beach nightclub. These stories, most first published in small magazines and out-of-print anthologies, are all wildly offbeat and will delight both fans of and newcomers to Welsh’s world. .

---

Customer Reviews

If you care about Juice Terry, Begbie, Carl Ewart, and Blackie-- Then buy this book. Period!
Killer couple of stories here. There's only 1 or 2 that are kind of abstract little tales with no solid conclusion-- but even those are good. If you're thinking about this as a first read-- i would suggest something different.

Irvine Welsh is the greatest writer who ever lived. If you're interested in finding out why--- i suggest this order::: glue, trainspotting, porno, filth, crime, bedroom secrets----- and then check out the story collections.

If you're familiar with Juice Terry & friends-- then just get this. you'll like it.

2010-02-20 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

All around it isn't a bad collection
I first began reading Irvine Welsh when Trainspotting became super popular in the 1990s. What wasn't to love? It was gritty, foul, decadent, hopeless, and had fantastic music. Additionally, the story was all about that hidden, forbidden world of heroin and drugs, which enticed the teenager in me. I was completely sold when I saw that it was written in dialect, so the words are spelled as one would hear them, because my little language-loving heart was transported.

Strangely, all these elements are found equally throughout his books (Except the music, since I'm probably just imagining the Iggy Pop music in the background). Reheated Cabbage, too, channels all these things. In truth, Welsh hasn't changed much--or really at all--since his hit Trainspotting. Like Trainspotting, Reheated Cabbage tells its stories through the eyes of an individual who is usually pretty damned unlikable and worthless. (In fact, in one story, the protagonist is the young Begbie--who is quite possible the worst, meanest character ever created by Welsh, but a memorable one.) These worthless protagonists usually end up in severe trouble (young addicts carrying their dead friend around, Begbie ruining a family get-together, a homophobe trapped forever buggering his friends in a strange time loop, etc.)--but rarely realize that they're busily destroying their own life or how they ended up in such a situation.

The short stories span Welsh's career, but I'd find it hard to separate the new from the old. The themes, tone, and protagonist is almost always the same, even if the outrageous situations are different. In a way, this is exactly what hooked me on Welsh to begin with and I love it, but in another way, it makes most of the stories fade into the one after...

All around it isn't a bad collection. It's actually nice to see little snapshots of these protagonists, even if they all seem a bit similar. For those uninitiated in Welsh, I'll warn you that if you are in any way squeamish about anything at all (sex, death, rape, misogyny, idiots, cruelty, random violence, domestic violence, drugs, curse words) then I advise not picking up anything by Welsh because he engages every topic. And the "bad guy" is often the protagonist. A lot of the time the protagonist never figures out that he's a bad guy at all. For those initiated already: this is just more Welsh in the same line as all his other works and you shouldn't be surprised by anything here, so enjoy.

2010-02-18 | BookLoveAffair (California) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

---

Great collection of stories
I have read quite a few of Irvine Welsh's novels, and I have enjoyed every one that I've picked up. This collection of short stories is amazing. Quick read, each tale keeps you entertained. Good purchase for an avid Irvine Welsh reader.

2010-02-08 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Crime: A Novel

Product Details

• Shape: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Excess Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780393335507

Description

“[An] inimitable combination of dark realism, satire and psychological insight . . . complicated, unsettling and at times beautiful."--Publishers Weekly, starred review In the wake of a nasty child-murder case, Detective Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh PD has suffered a full-scale breakdown. He’s placed on leave for mental retuning and takes off for a few days of sun in Miami. From there, Crime becomes an unmistakably Welshian blend of the macabre and the psychologically astute, as Lennox faces a dwindling supply of antidepressants, a bridal-magazine-toting fiancée, and cokehappy locals who lead him back into old habits and leave him to care for a child. Is he really in the right shape to be playing knight-errant to a terrified ten-year-old girl? Will his best instincts and worst judgments get them both killed, or find him the redemption he seeks?

.

---

Customer Reviews

Good.
This book has the normal (for Irvine Welsh) themes of drugs, violence, and sexual wrongness - but in a more accessible and readable form than usual. It's severely Americanized, and not in a bad way.

2009-08-07 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

not welsh's best, but still solid
Irvine Welsh is by far my favorite author of all time. glue, which made me fall in love with his writing, is in his essential and gorgeous scottish tone. Crime, however, places the reader in boring old America (where i reside) and it's not terribly pleasant. i can read american authors if i like, but i like to read outside of the iron box if i can. read it if you're a huge welsh fan (i've even read his obscure screenplays, which were good!), but i can't give it five stars, malheureusement.

2009-05-29 | I. Welsh Fan (Denver) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

Hope in a Threatening Topsy-Turvy World
"Crime," a new novel by Scottish author Irvine Welsh, now comes to us in paperback. Welsh is the critically-acclaimed author of Trainspotting, (made into a movie of the same name, Trainspotting, by Gaelic director Danny Boyle, who recently won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire.) Welsh has also penned the cult classics Porno; Filth; and The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs: A Novel. In "Crime," Welsh seems to have borrowed a page from his best-selling countryman Ian Rankin, penning a British mystery/police procedural/thriller partially set in Edinburgh, Scotland -- as are Rankin's police procedurals -- and in glitzy, glamorous, and down-on-its heels Florida, U.S.A. Mind you, with his outstanding literary gifts, Welsh has given us far more than a police procedural here. Could it be characterized as tartan noir? Who knows. It's a British mystery as written by a Scot, perhaps tougher and more bloody-minded than the average run of mysteries; it does have that dark Scots humor; but he's certainly considered a higher-brow of author than a mere mystery writer...

Welsh gives us police detective inspector Ray Lennox, of the Edinburgh P.D., (as Rankin has given us John Rebus.) Lennox has recently solved a particularly ugly child kidnapping/abuse/murder; but has solved it too late for the child, Britney Hamil. Lennox, a brilliant cop, is physically and mentally exhausted; finding it far too easy to fall back on his favored crutches: alcohol, cocaine, and whatever else he can. His superiors put him on mental health leave. He and his fiancée Trudi jet to sunny Miami; but, while Trudi is poring over "Perfect Bride," nagging him to pick the date and the venue, Lennox is continuing to fall apart. They quarrel; he's off for a night, during which he hooks up with two desperate young women, Robyn and Starry: and follows Robyn home for a coke session, painted in dark realism. Robyn's 10-year old daughter Tianna sleeps in her bedroom off the living room as best she can. Two threatening strangers, who obviously mean Tianna no good, burst in. Lennox grabs the young girl, and, in an interesting reversal of Vladimir Nabokov's famous book Lolita; he rents a car and hits the road with the child - not to abuse her, but to try to protect her from abuse.

The author has crafted a book that I found thoroughly satisfying as a taut police procedural/thriller; but it's also a probing psychological evaluation of Lennox, and a scalding observation of the pedophiliac world. His descriptive and narrative writing are superb. His characters are carved to the life, off-the wall; their profanity-rich dialog is inventive. They interact in a threatening, topsy-turvy universe, filled with Welsh's well-known comedic absurdity and wit, in which Trudi's well-thumbed copy of "Perfect Bride" plays its - unexpected - part. And yet, he offers us hope.

2009-05-28 (Carolina Beach, NC USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Disturbing subject masterfully told
Mr Welsh at his best. His narrative of Florida and America was very insightful from the Scottish point of view he penned this novel from. I later found out he resides there. No wonder it was so good.

The plot moves back and forth between the past and it's ghosts to the present day and the pressing matter of saving a child from a gang of molesters. The characters were so vivid and the plot was paced such that I found I could not put the book down.

It comes across as a more mature read than the likes of train spotting. One of his best works I feel.

2009-02-18 (Tempe AZ) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---

Passable, just
But Welsh is out of his depth in theis genre, and should leave it to the professionals.

A quote from late in the book "It was nonsense of course, like most crime in fiction"!

2009-02-13 (Melbourne, Australia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

Ecstasy

Product Details

• Notes: Label New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Demand: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780393315813
• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to watch our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>

Description

A bestsellig romance author suffers a paralyzing stroke and her philandering husband wonders how this will affect his gambling and whoring budget; two young lovers must come to terms with their chemically induced deformity; Lloyd from Leith transfigures his passion for an unhappily married woman. These three tales confirm Irvine Welsh's position as a master of the "chemical" romance genre.

---

With three wickedly funny and harrowing tales of love and its ups and downs, the ever-surprising Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, virtually re-invents a new genre of fiction: the chemical romance. In "Lorraine goes to Livingston," a best-selling author of Regency romances, paralysed and bedridden, plans her revenge on a gambling, whoring husband with the aid of her nurse, Lorraine. In "Fortunes's Always Hiding," flawed beauty Samantha Worthington enlists a smitten young soccer thug to find the man who marketed the drug that crippled her from birth - in order to give him a taste of his own disastrous medicine. In the upbeat final tale, "The Undefeated," we experience the transfiguring passion of the miserably married young yuppie Heather and the raver Lloyd from Leith - a grand affair played out to a house music beat.

---

Customer Reviews

tales of love, drugs, and raves
this was an interesting book. it involves the lives of people what are into the UK club scene. there wasnt a ton of chapters about the partying, and thats why i gave it 3 stars. i expected a little bit more from it.

2007-06-27 | tolkien stalker | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

modern romance
Irvine Welsh takes the readers creature comforts and beats him or her over the head with them.
This book is divided into three short stories about chemical romance:
Lorraine Goes To Livingston - this story was just bizarre
Fortune Always Hiding - a tender story about backwards love and
The Undefeated - my favourite out of them all with a surprising ending.
Irvine Welsh delivers romance with urgency in this fast read.

2006-03-22 (UK) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

---

Written for the stonger stomached
when people speak of shock writers Welsh is brought up for good reson... his stories are like seeing a car accident... you don't want to look but something tell you that you must... his stories twist and turn, and so do the characters, through hospitals, clubs and the streets of England. Americans be warned this is a book sometimes hard to follow because of the diction... but as in all of his work, Welsh will leave you speechless in the end.

2004-07-25 | Student of Life (San Diego, CA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

---

Addictive
Irvine Welsh, of "Trainspotting" fame, delivers three edgy stories that are somehow related to one single element: ecstasy. In "Lorraine Goes to Livingston", the author offers a multi-layered, sometimes confusing tale about love and the twisted nature of some people. "Fortune`s Always Hiding" is a powerful and unsettling revenge story that resembles Quentin Tarantino`s movies at parts, due to its explicit violence, badass characters, non-linear storytelling and a very acid sense of humor. "The Undefeated" focuses on the relationship between a yuppie woman and a bohemian, messed up man. Altough far from a masterpiece, "Ecstasy" is a fun and enticing read nonetheless, presenting an author with a personal, recognizable, harsh, direct and gritty style. This book is not for everyone, but those who enjoy this kind of stuff may find it compelling.

Deserves a look.

2004-04-23 (Portugal) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

---

Three novellas - one drug
I am a big fan of Irvine Welsh so I was anxious to get my hands on ECSTASY: THREE TALES OF CHEMICAL ROMANCE. Sadly, I was left disappointed. The premise of each novella as described on the back of the book is excellent, but Welsh's execution was very poor. For example, in the first story, "Lorraine Goes to Livingston", Welsh was not consistent in his use of Scottish dialect for the main character which was more than distracting. Also, the idea of a mortuary worker having free sex with the corpses in full knowledge of everyone in the hospital is a little too far fetched, even for Irvine Welsh. I will not bother to continue with the shortcomings of the other two stories.

Although I was disappointed in ECSTASY, I will not give up on Welsh as I still believe he has an amazing talent.

2003-12-06 | rhymeswithorange (Chicago, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 2

---

If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

Product Details

• Form: NEW
• Notes: Trade name New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780393330779

Description

Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, is up to his old tricks with his new work of transgressive short fiction.

Irvine Welsh's first short-story collection since his debut work The Acid House presents five extraordinary stories, which remind us that he is a master of the short form, a brilliant storyteller, and—unarguably—one of today's funniest and most subversive writers. In "Rattlesnakes" three young Americans, lost in the desert, are accosted by two armed Mexicans. A Korean chef and a Chicago socialite find themselves connected through the disappearance of a pooch named Toto in "The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park." And in the title story, Mickey Baker—an ex-pat English bar owner living on the Costa Brava—tries to keep all of his balls in the air: maintaining his barmaid's weight at the sexual maximum, attending to the youthful Persephone, and dodging his ex-wife and Spanish gangsters.

In typically Welshian fashion, the characters and settings are anything but typical. These stories will make you laugh and gasp.

---

Customer Reviews

The Chemical romance on holiday, in concert, and at work.
Irvine Welsh is known for his chemical romance genre novels and short stories. These narratives are both tragic, comedic, and as strange as any trip taken by an unreconstructed hippie or soccer hooligan. Even if you are not familiar with the drug milieu, the detailed and developed characters will feel all too real.

Enjoy anything written by this author and include this work in your library.

2010-02-25 | zenflea (locum tenens) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Hodge meets podge
I've read pretty much every Welsh book, thoroughly enjoying them all (aside from Maribou Stork Nightmares, which despite repeated attempts I simply cannot get into, and cannot finish). While this collection of short stories is a quick-fire read, it reveals itself as more an effort to showcase (or test out) the author's abilities to capture voices and word patterns outside his familiar Scottish brogue. It largely doesn't succeed.

In particular, Miss Arizona is the most straightforward, predictable, plodding tale I've ever seen from Welsh. Even the opening story -- trying to capture American late-teen culture -- is somewhat predictable in its shockability.

Fortunately, the last -- and longest -- story in the book is back in familiar territory and rescues this hit and mostly miss collection. For Welsh collection completists only.

2008-12-28 (CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

---

The "air-con" thing really, really grates
The "air-con" mis-step appears in the first couple of pages of at least two of the pieces. I am writing this here because I specifically googled to see how many others had caught this howler.
This reader almost (ok, only almost) put the book down to email his mate in Scotland who's another Welsh fan to share dismay.
Irvine, Irvine, Irvine!!!
Please tell me this is your editor's fault!!!
This Haddie boy in the US didnae appreciate.
The subbuteo story's barry, but.

2008-05-29 (merix) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

Irvine, what happened to you?
Irvine Welsh means to shock, but usually there is a point to it all. Previously, he's written short stories about such cheery subjects as armless, grown-up Thalidomide babies using chainsaws to cut off the arms of the people that created Thalidomide, and a guy who, after he's been fired, his girlfriend has dumped him and his parents have at long last kicked him out, gets turned into a fly by God and as a fly wreaks revenge on those who have wronged him, along the way seeing such things as his mother doing unto his father with a strap-on. But even those stories contain Welsh's trademark humor and observations about society. So what has happened to Irvine Welsh?

The first story, about a road trip gone horribly wrong, is a set-up in search of a story. There's no point, there isn't an ending, and the racial stereotyping is offensive even for Irvine Welsh. The second story, about a bar owner in the Bahamas who treats women as disposable, is really long and has no apparent point. After that, I pretty much gave up. No humor, no real commentary on life... not even anything particularly shocking. More Howard Stern than Irvine Welsh and not worth the bother even if you're an Irvine Welsh fan.

2008-04-30 | jax76 (Los Angeles, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 2

---

Why So Harsh??? This Is Good!!!
I don't understand why there are so many negative reviews here, this is not bad stuff at all, it is typical Irvine Welsh work, not bad at all. If you know what to expect from Welsh, then you should be pleased with the works here.

These short stories are pretty fantastic, especially the opener "Rattlesnakes", a Welsh classic. As for the rest, I am partial to "DOGS of Licoln Park, because being from the Chicagoland area, he captures the setting phenominally, especially considering he is from over-seas.

Overall, this is not his best work (read "Filth", or "Trainspotting", especially if you are a Welsh virgin), but it deserves more acclaim than the harsh reviews laid out here. His novels are better??? Fact. But for 9/10 authors most reviewers will say the same thing. For some reason people just don't gravitate towards the short story anymore, and thats a shame. Give it a try.

2008-03-04 | Spin Doctor (Cavernous Churn, IL) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Glue

Product Details

• Requisite: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780393322156
• Notes: Stigmatize New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to see our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>

Description

An epic novel about the bonds of friendship from the author of Trainspotting. The story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, Glue is about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold friends together through three decades. The boys become men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally, exceedingly thin-skinned and vulnerable to catastrophe at every turn. We follow their lives from the seventies into the new century—from punk to techno, from speed to E. Their mutual loyalty is fused in street morality: Back up your mates, don't hit women, and, most important, never snitch—on anyone. Glue has the Irvine Welsh trademarks—crackling dialogue, scabrous set pieces, and black, black humor—but it is also a grown-up book about growing up—about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.

---

With a title like Glue, it would seem reasonable to assume that Irvine Welsh's fifth book is a meditation on the pitfalls of solvent abuse. In fact the word refers to the bonds that unite four boys, all of whom have grown up in "the scheme"--i.e., Edinburgh's slum-clearance flats, whose optimistic construction in the 1970s give way to the poverty, unemployment, and crime of the succeeding decades. It is the pervasive despair of these crumbling projects that defines the lives of the protagonists: budding DJ Carl Ewart, boxer Billy Birrell, work-shy, sex-mad Terry Lawson, and Andrew Galloway, a drug addict who has tested HIV-positive.

Recounted in the author's inimitable style, Glue is a grungy, Scots-accented bildungsroman. The novel follows the boys through their early forays into sex, drink, drugs, and football violence. Contemplating his erotic initiation, Carl Ewart poses such crucial questions as "How dae ah chat up a bird?" and "Do I wear a rubber johnny?" Here and there Welsh injects political commentary into the mix: Billy Birrell, for example, reflects that "having money is the only way to get respect. Desperate, but that's the world we live in now." For the most part, though, the author sticks to sex and violence and his famously offhand one-liners: "Guilt and shaggin, they go the gither like fish n chips." Fans of Trainspotting will love the book, even down to the brief appearance of Begbie and Renton. Others may feel that Glue is more of the same, and that, despite its graphic charms, the book finds Welsh stuck in a rut. --Jerry Brotton

---

Customer Reviews

Mair ay the same oany no sae guid
With "Glue," the fourth full-length novel ("Trainspotting," "Filth", "Porno") in which he mines the rich seams of low-level criminality and violence of the Edinburgh housing projects, Irvine Welsh has gone to the same well once too often, and this time the bucket only comes up half-full.

Focusing on a quartet of "schemies" or project-dwellers who have appeared as bit players in earlier novels, "Glue" has a wider scope, following the friends from adolescence through early middle age. As they come of age in the economically and socially devastating Thatcher years, we watch the friends struggle with the searing effects of institutionalized unemployment, omnipresent drugs, AIDS and serial, constant infidelity - growing older but not necessarily wiser in the process.

Unfortunately for what could have been a brilliant slice-of-slum-life story, Welsh has done this before, more than once, and he's done it better. As with "Trainspotting," different sections of the book are told from the perspective of each of the characters, in Welsh's trademark more-or-less thick Edinburgh dialect. However, the more equal parceling out of the narration actually serves to weaken the book, as we never get enough of a sense of the story from a unified perspective (such as Renton provided in "Trainspotting") to really hold all the different angles together.

The ending, in which a pair of deaths and an implausible deus ex machina involving a washed-up American diva pulls everyone back together, is redemptive in more ways than one - while re-sealing the bond between the men, it also gives us a glimpse of what "Glue" could have been if Welsh were more interested in telling a story than stacking up shock set-piece after set-piece. Sadly, it's not enough to pull the preceding 460 pages out of mediocrity.

2009-01-11 | Voracious reader | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

---

Scottish deadheads grow up the hard way
Irvine Welsh is certainly a unique writer. His prose is written in a language spoken by Scottish youth, which makes it barely understandable for most everyone else (at least in the beginning). And his knowledge of the Scottish youths lost to drugs is scarily in-depth. Unfortunately 'Glue' doesn't break new ground for the author. All the drugged out characters have already been hashed through in his earlier works. And 'Glue' doesn't have the sort of extra madness found in 'Filth'. But 'Glue' is an interesting story of four Scottish youths who fight drugs, alcohol, and each other until they reach their middle years. There is also a rather good, moving ending (no spoilers). So 'Glue' isn't special by any means. Just a fine read.


Bottom line: best left to those who've read better works by the author. Yet recommended nonetheless.

2008-01-07 (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Glue Is "Fasten"ating
This is my first Welsh novel. Written in a Scottish dialect, it takes time to understand what he has written. After the first 50 pages or so, you become accustomed to the style of writing. At times you feel you are reading another language. The dialect actually helps you become one of the onlookers and puts you right there with them, their "5th friend" in this group of 4. Others here have reviewed the "dog cruelety" scene. Bewarned, it is extermely graphic. But the scene is there for a reason showing the cruel and sadistic nature of one group outside of our bunch. This is one of the best books I've read and will definitely read Welsh again.

2006-09-14 | The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage. (Ann Arbor, MI) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

glue
A good read well written, but could do with shortening. And kind of clichéd; haven't we got passed the idea that the only way onwards and upwards for your urban poor is music and boxing? Stuck in the past.

2006-06-26 (Quebec) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

underrated
This story may not be as big a hit as Trainspotting, however the stories of the development of a group of friends from the schemie are worth reading. Featuring plenty of laugh out loud moments, and accurately protraying the work-shy and/or alcoholic lifestyles of the characters this is an entertaining and worthwhile read

2006-05-26 (Ireland) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

---

Porno

Product Details

• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to see our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>
• Inure: NEW
• Notes: Trade mark New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780393324501

Description

The Trainspotting lads are back...and in worse shape than ever.

In the last gasp of youth, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson is back in Edinburgh. He taps into one last great scam: directing and producing a porn film. To make it work, he needs bedfellows: the lovely Nikki Fuller-Smith, a student with ambition, ego, and troubles to rival his own; old pal Mark Renton; and a motley crew that includes the neighborhood's favorite ex-beverage salesman, "Juice" Terry.

In the world of Porno, however, even the cons are conned. Sick Boy and Renton jockey for top dog. The out-of-jail and in-for-revenge Begbie is on the loose. But it's the hapless, drug-addled Spud who may be spreading the most trouble.

Porno is a novel about the Trainspotting crew ten years further down the line: still scheming, still scamming, still fighting for the first-class seats as the train careens at high velocity with derailment looming around the next corner.

---

Porno, Irvine Welsh's highly entertaining--though completely unnecessary--sequel to his cult classic, Trainspotting, reunites the gang as they pursue another big-payoff scheme. It's been 10 years since Mark Renton walked away with the cash from a drug sale perpetrated by himself and his mates, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, Danny "Spud" Murphy, and Francis Begbie. The megalomaniacal Sick Boy has returned to Edinburgh, where stag film producer "Juice" Terry Lawson has given him the idea for a bold new scam: to locally produce a high-end adult film. Lawson introduces Sick Boy to the beautiful and egocentric Nikki Fuller-Smith, a student and aspiring star. Passivity and self-destructive tendencies have left well-meaning junkie Spud poor and alone, while time has only intensified the anger of the psychotic Begbie, who's fresh out of prison, back in Edinburgh, and obsessed with taking revenge on Renton. Sick Boy locates and persuades Renton, a successful club owner in Amsterdam, to help him steal money for his new production company. From the book's multiple points of view, it's soon clear that everyone's running their own scam, making conflicts--and long-awaited confrontations--inevitable.

Welsh's brutally honest prose and gallery of likeable ne'er-do-wells are in full display here, but the novel feels somewhat superfluous. Porno adds little insight into the characters or events of Trainspotting and fails to match its invention or sense of purpose. However, the author's obvious affection for these characters and dedication to authentically rendered dialogue and setting elevate Porno above mere slapdash reworking. As the novel builds momentum, Welsh wonderfully communicates the intense bravado driving his reckless characters. During such moments of vitality and humor, Porno is superficial but undeniably charming. --Ross Doll

---

Customer Reviews

Unrewarding
I know I'll get mostly negative reviews on my review, but I found this book unrewarding.

I've never read a Welsh book. I loved the movie Trainspotting, so, yeah, I got this looking for a sequel.

Did I finish this book? No. I in fact read probably only 1/5th of it. The reason I stopped is I found myself picking it up and constantly putting it down after a few pages. I tried, but I simply had no desire to read, it was like a grind trying to get through it. Ultimately I decided to not bother, and I felt free.

Presumably the gang from Trainspotting show up, but if they do it must be after quite a few pages, because all I got to were vague references to Begbie.

The main problem with this book was the narrative. It's 90% low-class slang and simply laborious to slog through. It's like reading an entire book in texting format; e.g. "IDK my BFF Jill, wud u lk 2 meet aftr werk 4 dinr?"

Obviously most people liked it, but just beware that this book isn't going to tickle everybody's fancy.

Perhaps if it was a movie a dullard like me could use the moving pictures to help with the dialogue.

2009-08-04 | ma_brooks (Hoover, AL United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

---

Barry sequel n aw, ken?
If you liked "Trainspotting", you'll probably like this. I enjoyed it all the way thru. I really began to marvel at Welsh's writing skills. This guy is considerably more than I thought he was when I first read him. He can do more than vividly describe the lives of working class roughnecks and druggies, use a lot of Scottish dialect, and do it all with humor and panache. Despite his ragged plots, Welsh is a first rate writer whose stuff hits home on many levels - as page turner, as social commentary, as a poignant look at ambitious young toughs, as shrewd interpersonal psychology, as macho soap opera, as very real-sounding dialogue-based narrative, and (very much) as humor. Who could you compare him to? Never mind that he is Scottish; no matter where he was from, he would be a genre unto himself.

Trainspotting ends with the main character, Renton, stealing his mates' money following a heroin deal, and taking off to start a new life. This book begins with a focus on Simon Williamson (a.k.a. Sick Boy). He buys a pub in Edinburgh, and soon gets involved in trying to make a porno flick. Simon is shrewd, manipulative, and totally selfish - but he has a weakness for cocaine. and eventually his ego begins spiralling out of control. The other major characters from the previous story begin to make appearances, along with some newcomers. Frank Begbie gets out of prison, and goes right back to his stupid, violent ways. He would love to get his hands on Mark Renton. Spud Murphy is off the heroin, but he continues to be lost, and a loser, despite his fundamental decency. There is a female this time too: Nikki Fuller-Smith, an English college student who gets mixed up with Sick Boy and ends up the star of his porno movie.

The whole book is in first person, split up into short sections. thus making it very suitable for today's short attention spans. The voices are all believably portrayed; each has their own character and style of speaking. Simon's smug arrogance, Nikki's lusty flightiness, Spud's kindness and foolishness, and especially Begbie's paranoid, vicious malevolence. In Begbie, Welch has created a heavy worthy of Dickens, an unforgettable working class nightmare of a man. Renton is the most complex of the bunch - suave, and with a light touch, but as capable of treachery as the rest, and in his case some brains come into the picture - and some guilt too.

Renton and Simon get to be friends and partners again, but their relationship continues to be full of tension and competition. Most of the suspense comes from whether or not Renton will run into Begbie, or whether someone will arrange a confrontation. The reader also has the humorous spectacle of Simon's attempt to make a porno movie with a motley crew of Edinburgh barflies. There are the usual pub scenes, fights, and one night stands, but drug use plays a far lesser role in this novel than it did in "Trainspotting". The ending is stranger, more random, and funnier than what one might imagine, and it sets up a third book in the series. This was a crackling good read, full of laughs, and worthy of the reader's respect as well. N.B. Look for the porno flick's website that gets mentioned in the book - surprise! - it's a real website.

2009-01-15 (New York, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Not Lost in Translation
Aye, this tirs oan bonnie buk. Nae tis izzy t'rid, n'aw, cooz is writtin' ina mad Weedgie brogue -- patois, argot -- tha' dinnae ken. Ays tryn tae git tru it anna fand ays cauld gate intae it bare ih ays riddin' alout. At wirks!

'Is Welsh ease oan mad buggare, ease. Ain't nowt writin' as gud as hee's -- nowt tha nonce Oopdyke, nair nunna aim Booger Prize wankers. Buh Welsh ease kinna Auld Skule, ken? Ease go'-a stoar t'be telt, anna punters innis tail is awl lak ril chariktairs tha ye noan. Anna struktoor oaf th'thin esses fine essa bonnie bridge oar th' Clyde.

Ahm imagin Welsh writtin oat this an ease larfin' alaut to hizzelf. Th' best, ahm tellin yas! Th' best!

2008-11-29 | Keith Otis Edwards (Dearbron, MI United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Spice ay Life
Welsh's novels have always been let-downs after the magnificent epic of Trainspotting. Though Porno has a smaller scope, it is a.) a longer book and b.) a showcase of a far more talented writer than the Welsh of Trainspotting. The first 100 pages had me feeling doubtful, could this really provide me with a satisfying conclusion (for now) of the lives of Rents, Sick Boy, Spud etc? In fact, the complex psychological undertones of the novel left me feeling both viscerally satisfied and amused at the antics of some of modern literature's best characters. If you've liked anything Welsh has written, read this!

2008-10-22 | Nobody (Nowhere) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

---

Porno is spot-on
As a sequal to Trainspotting, Porno is spot-on. All the characters are revisited, some have grow while others have merely grown older. How all those junkies came full circle was a little tough to swallow, but them all being dead or homeless jakeys would not a good sequal make. So, that being said, suspend logic a bit and you will enjoy the ride as all of them get what coming to them with lots of decadence, drugs, sex and other assorted filthy thoughts and deeds in abundance. Welsh is like good, nasty sex, with the inability to wash your doink off in the sink afterward....great high, but sticky and soiled after. Mmmm...maybe I should have found a wet nap!!

2008-06-11 | You Morbid Westphal (Evil Nerd Empire) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

---