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Irvine Welsh


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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2/3/2018 at 7:15 PM, DuncanEwart said:

I've been reading about his forthcoming novel "Dead Men's Trousers", out in March. I'm looking forward to reading it.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1115641/dead-men-s-trousers/

sounds promising but I am just a bit worried that he is milking it now and taking it too far with these characters, perhaps with Trainspotting 3 film deal in mind.

I will definitely read it though.

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23 hours ago, DuncanEwart said:

How so?

Mainly the weight of them makes them tricky to carry around and read on the bus/train. Also they tend to be more expensive. Of course there are some coffee table style books which are excellent in hardback but in the main I purchase books to read and not to display.

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  • 1 month later...

"Dead Men's Trousers" is the usual Welshian mix of black humour and outrageous sex and violence. The principal characters are all older but not necessarily any wiser. I like that they struggle to forgive and forget their shared past as old grievances and jealousies still influence their behaviour.  

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  • 6 months later...
On 10/21/2017 at 11:15 PM, historyman said:

A very important author in recent Scottish literature, certainly groundbreaking in the early 90s but not as good as James Robertson. That guy hasn't hasn't written a poor book as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm fast becoming a James Robertson fan myself, @historyman. I thought "Joseph Knight" was incredible and I've very nearly finished "The Testament Of Gideon Mack". "The Fanatic" is next.

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On 10/27/2018 at 7:07 AM, DuncanEwart said:

I'm fast becoming a James Robertson fan myself, @historyman. I thought "Joseph Knight" was incredible and I've very nearly finished "The Testament Of Gideon Mack". "The Fanatic" is next.

The Fanatic was the first one I read. I was living in Edinburgh at the time and that made it even more intense. It's another great read. 

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On 10/28/2017 at 10:02 AM, historyman said:

They are all very much worth reading so you may as well start with The Fanatic. And The Land Lay Still will probably be seen as his defining work. I loved it and raved about but you probably need to be a nationalist to fully enjoy it.

He has a new book out this year which is supposed to be a comic novel. I'm intrigued to see what that's like as I wouldn't have thought that was his thing. Looks like something Jonathon Coe might have written. 

Have you read "To Be Continued", @historyman? I have read the brief synopsis on Amazon, and it doesn't sound like something that would greatly interest me but I always like to get the opinions of someone who has read the book.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've just this morning finished reading "The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins" (the only novel of Welsh's I hadn't up to now read) and if nothing else, it again emphasised for me just how central the trope of the double is in Welsh's work. Lucy Brennan/Lena Sorenson, Danny Skinner/Brian Kibby, Bruce Robertson/Carole, Jim Francis/Francis Begbie- this fascination with the double is not only a theme of Gothic literature but we know it is also prevalent in a lot of Scottish writing. I think this places Welsh as working from within the Scottish literary tradition (albeit placing his own grotesque spin on it). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

" I Am Miami" in the same collection is also a very good read as Juice Terry and Carl Ewart encounter a hated former teacher of theirs in South Beach.

There isn't a bad story in "Reheated Cabbage", to be honest.

It was while assembling this book that Welsh came across his notes about, and discarded sections of, "Trainspotting" and these inspired him to write "Skagboys".

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