Why I love the universe he’s created and you should too
Whenever anyone mentions Irvine Welsh, the first thing that probably springs to mind is Trainspotting, followed by Ewan McGregor crawling out of a dank dirty toilet bowl along with a pulsing pounding beat of ‘Lust for Life’ by Iggy Pop (fun fact also features backing vocals, and was co-written by David Bowie) followed by people sprinting down a high street. This imagery is striking, and even the mention of Trainspotting to anyone who has seen it will have them think of a ton of imagery audio or dialogue that comes from the movie. However, like all great movies (in my opinion) they are based on books.
An insight into the type of person Irvine Welsh is….
Welsh was born in the Leith area of Edinburgh in 1958, his dad a dock worker (who died from poor health when Welsh was 25) his mother a waitress. later his family moved to the housing schemes of Muirhosue. He left school at the age of 16 and enrolled in a city and guilds course, and became a tv repairman, later he moved to London during the punk scene of the late 70’s and played in bands. He later returned to Edinburgh after a brush with the law which encouraged him to change his ways, and working for the London council while completing a course in computing. While returned to his home city, he worked for the council again before going on to further study a MBA at Heriot-Watt University.
Choose life.Choose a job.Choose a career.Chose a family.Choose a fucking big…..
Trainspotting published in 1993, is most probably his most well-known work. It tells the loose story of a bunch of friends in Edinburgh during the mid-80s, of what happens in their life set against the backdrop of a Thatcher lead Tory government and the social economic pressures happening in that time in Scotland. Irvine started work on it during the early rave scene of the 90’s, which Welsh himself was enjoying to the max. Based on some earlier work he had wrote in diaries during his time in London, when he would ride the tube, people watching and making up back stories for the people he would see, he took this and used it as the basis of his first draft. Exerts and chapters where released in several magazines of the time, as well as in literary circulations as well as story collection type novella. It was picked up by Secker and Warburg, although the editorial director believed at the time it wouldn’t sell very well. When the book landed it caused Irvine Welsh’s star to rise, the book was meet with lots of praise, being turned into a movie of the same name in 1996, the rest as they say is history.
A small selection of his 15 books
Intriguingly however the rest isn’t history, since that first book release 27 years ago he has written 11 more novels, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Filth, Glue, Porno, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, Crime, Skagboys, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, A Decent Ride, The Blade Artist and Dead Men’s Trousers. 4 collections of short stories, The Acid House, Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance: Three Tales of Chemical Romance, If You Liked School You’ll Love Work and Reheated Cabbage along with several screenplays and theatre productions. He has also written various journalism pieces, which can be found on his website. So all in all a very prolific writer, with some novels coming out every year or 2 apart.
Therefore to define him only for one of his books being made into a movie is extremely unfair. Indeed some of his other works have also been giving the movie treatment, The Acid House was adapted in 1998 with 3 stories from the original novels 22 short stories being used. Filth came later in 2013, starring James McAvoy as Detective Bruce Robertson, it’s probably after Trainspotting the thing that comes to mind when people think of Irvine Welsh. The most recent adaptation was T2 in 2017, a semi-sequel to the original Trainspotting, it incorporates elements from the books Porno and Skagboys. Still not bad a writer having 4 of their book’s adapted into movies. However the real beauty lies not within the movie adaptations but in the books themselves. Yes they are great, and worth seeking out if you haven’t seen them (be prepared for The Acid House, it’s out there, as well as being scary and thrilling in equal measure) but the books are far superior.
Classic Begbie, or Beggers to his mates
Within novels Welsh creates an extremely rich world, inhabited by characters that are completely believable no matter how far out their they seem at times. No one is ever cast entirely in the role of hero or villain, instead they are a mixed up, ambiguous, often confused mess of human emotions. One moment a character like Francis Begbie (AKA Begbie, General Franco, Beggers) can appear to be a raging psychopath, ready to destroy everyone in sight with violent rage, before sliding into a well mannered and respective member of society at the mention of a hello from a friends mother. Other characters get a similar treatment in other books, Detective Bruce Robertson comes across as a self-centred, crazy, horrible person who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. However he cares deeply for his family, but buried deep within him is darkness and damage caused from events which took place in his young life that would test anyone to remain human or ‘normal’ afterwards. Terry ‘Juice’ Lawson from the novel Glue (and later Porno and A Decent Ride) is another example, a strong and loyal friend to all his friends. However he is incredibly sexist and views women only as a game (the type of guy to tell you a really inappropriate joke in the staff room at work), he has no love for his father after walking out on the family when he was young, he also harbours a borderline alcohol and cocaine addiction. These are all characters we can empathise with, or know people similar in our real lives to some degree or another. Similarly so the way characters interact with one another in the books is incredible, and after a while you’ll feel like you really understand, maybe not always entirely because of agreeing with them, but because you ‘know’ them.
Novels which take place within this wider universe
The 3 characters mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg of characters written by Welsh, some defy logic, others are absolute scum, while some are innocent bystanders who get dragged into dark worlds with tragic consequences, but all feel original, complex, and genuine. They also grow over the course of individual and multiple novels, sometimes after decades of in book time becoming different characters to some degree, while some remain the same but more refined and comfortable at who they are. Begbie is a character worth considerable note, who exemplifies this, he appears in Trainspotting, Porno, Skagboys (technically a prequel to Trainspotting) and Dead Men’s Trousers, plus his own spin-off novel The Blade Artist. Over these books he commits robbery (maybe also murder), gets almost killed after being hit by a car and comatose, ends up in jail, meets a woman and falls madly in love. He then reforms his life and becomes a famous sculpture living the life in California (maybe another murder or 2 thrown in for good measure as well) before returning to Edinburgh to finally sort out aspects of his old life. Far fetched as that might all seem, read the books and its completely believable and a brilliant journey to go on with the character. Welsh also does some of his other major characters the same service over several books, and everyone’s lives move on and evolve to some degree or another.
Probably give Usain Bolt a run for his money….
This idea of a broader Trainspotting-verse I introduced at the start of the article, becomes more apparent the more of Irvine Welsh’s book’s you read. They all take place in the same ‘world’. Characters from one book will make reference to some from other books or will just appear in another novel all together. In Filth Bruce Robertson refers to the boy Francis Begbie and his knowledge of his petty Crimes, while investigating a murder. In Glue while the main group is attending a football match, they mention how in the stand across from them they spot Renton and Spud, then again later in the book also encounter several of the cast of Trainspotting in an Edinburgh nightclub. Minor characters from previous books also go on to appear in later novels, as more advanced and prominent figures. Larry from the ‘A Soft Touch’ short story in The Acid House (who also mentions Begbie and being involved in Crimes together) appears later in The Blade Artist having risen to become quite high-ranking member of Edinburgh’s criminal underworld. Irvine Welsh really kicked this idea of overlapping and linked worlds off to a large degree when he wrote Porno. A sequel to Trainspotting, while also being a semi-sequel to Glue it combines many of the characters from these books and sets the story several years after both books. The main reason I refer to it as Trainspotting-verse, is that the group of characters in Trainspotting are the ones that most often reappear across Welsh’s several books, and it’s the one with most books in its collection. Trainspotting (1993) Porno (2002) Skagboys (2012) and Dead Men’s Trousers (2018) all follow the lives of Mark ‘Rent Boy’ Renton, Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson, Daniel ‘Spud’ Murphy and Francis ‘Franco’ Begbie and span a rough 20 odd years of character history. They weren’t however written in chronological order, so if you want to seek them out (and I encourage you to do so) then start at Skagboys, Trainspotting, Porno and Dean Man’s Trousers in that order. This collection forms the spine of this world, and all other books exist within its framework, however obscure a reference or character appearance may be across the board.
The core ‘Trainspotting’ series or quadrilogy
All of the above makes Welsh’s work worth reading, evening if starting with the core of Trainspotting ‘books’ then moving out across into his other books, or picking up his short stories to kill half an hour a day you won’t be disappointed. All this rich tapestry of Easter eggs littered across his books, and his excellent ability to write deeply interesting but ambiguous and flawed characters, who drift in and out of neighbouring books, makes it fun to connect the dots yourself. Like a Scottish version of the marvel movies at times with its own version of post credit scenes and nods. If like me you live in Scotland, you’ll maybe see perhaps a darker and more distorted version of the Scotland I or you inhabit, along with people who are eerily similar to ones we know as neighbour’s or family. Ultimately this is what, at least for me makes his books and this ‘universe’ Irvine Welsh’s created so enjoyable, at times it doesn’t seem so different from our own, in a slightly scary art imitating life sort of way, its equal parts enthralling and disturbing, but diverse, darkly funny, sad, bonkers and brilliant! As the famous phrase goes, Choose life…Choose a job…Choose a career…Choose reading books by Irvine Welsh…