‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh
About forty-eight hours ago I was waist deep in a spot of web-aided procrastination when I happened upon an article detailing Elmore Leonard’s ‘top ten rules for writing fiction.’ Most of these were a given: do not open your novel with the weather, avoid using multisyllabic alternatives to said, adverbs are the work of the devil, etcetera, etcetera. It was number seven on the list, however, which really held my attention - 'use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.’ I for one am thankful that Irvine Welsh chose not to pay too much attention to this particular pearl of wisdom, for if he had his cult first novel Trainspotting would likely only be around ten pages long. It is therefore true that, although lists such as that compiled by Leonard may be useful for fiction writers as a reference or a framework of sorts, certain rules exist only because they beg to be broken.
Trainspotting was first published through Secker and Warburg in 1993. The novel, Irvine Welsh’s full-length fiction debut, also landed itself on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize that year, but it was rejected from the shortlist for allegedly 'offending the sensibilities of two judges.’ Being spurned by the Booker did little damage to Trainspotting’s profile, however, and the huge critical and commercial success of Danny Boyle’s 1995 screen adaptation only bolstered its cult status, though it is probably safe to assume that most people, myself included, read the book only after seeing the film. But given that the film grossed $72 million at the box office, not to mention its ranking as the tenth best British film of all time by the BFI, I imagine that a hell of a lot of people must have gone back to the original source material, which is, after all, what I’m supposed to be talking about here…
While Trainspotting is at 344 pages long considered to be a novel, it is technically a collection of short story-like vignettes involving the same core cast of characters. The majority of these vignettes are narrated by Renton, the antihero. A vegetarian/heroin addict and lifelong Hibernian FC supporter who describes himself as being unattractive - impossible to fathom if your mind irrevocably conjures up a young Ewan McGregor as mine does - Renton is at once hopeless and very street-smart. He is seemingly able to talk himself out of anything, even life itself, and yet even when he is fucking his dead brother’s pregnant wife, something which definitely does not feature in the film, you cannot help but root for Renton.
The novel is loosely centred around Renton’s efforts to kick heroin, plus the inevitable relapses and all the hilarity, depravity and misfortune which unfolds along the way. Along with Renton there is Simon 'Sick Boy’ Williamson, a serial ladies’ man and occasional pimp who is both Renton’s closest friend and his principal antagonist. Then there is Spud, a harmless halfwit, also a junky, who lands himself in prison for a spell on account of petty theft. But perhaps most interesting of all is Begbie (Beggar, Franco, General Franco), a violent sociopath who abhors heroin but advocates the use of most other narcotics and who will quite willingly pulverize someone if they look at him the wrong way. Hell, even looking at him the right way would probably do it. Welsh’s characters are at once convincingly sketched and oddly complementary of one another, and though in theory not one of them should elicit any sympathy, somehow they all do.
Much like A Clockwork Orange before it, Trainspotting is an electrifying riot of language - a 'vernacular spectacular’ as one early review so expertly put it - as well as a seminal work of literature. By calling upon his experiences growing up in Edinburgh’s most impoverished housing schemes and choosing to write predominantly in Scottish dialect, Irvine Welsh eschewed any William S. Burroughs/Hubert Selby Jr. 'junk novel’ associations and instead wrote a novel that only he could have written. Regardless of what the likes of Elmore Leonard might suggest, there’s no harm in breaking the rules when you can do so with as much aplomb as Irvine Welsh.
Trainspotting has become a cultural institution for good reason - it is bloody brilliant, no two ways about it. Furthermore, the copy pictured is a special edition issued by Vintage Books to coincide with their twenty-first birthday, and from a certain distance it resembles a brick of Red Leicester cheese. Basically, it’s a win-win situation.
This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in April 2012.