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Trainspotting: Irvine Welsh
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Trainspotting is a singular sensation, a visionary knockout spiked with insight, wild invention and outrageous wit. Sure it's easy to mainline mind-numbing. American-made summer junk like Eraser or Striptease. But doing so can't match the thrill of watching as Trainspotting, from Irvine Welsh's 1993 cult novel, declares war on the dull gravity of social realism. There's incendiary daring in it, a willingness to go for broke that carries you over the rough spots. Director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald and doctor-turned-screenwriter John Hodge have upped the controversial ante on Shallow Grave, the black comic thriller that marked the thirtysomething team's hit 1995 debut.
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Based on the 1993 Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, 'Trainspotting' is a gritty, realistic look at the world of the urban drug addict. Although the subject matter could be off-putting, in this film it is handled with surprising sensitivity, neither glamorising drug use nor condemning it. Instead of being a film about drugs, it is really about the characters, all of which are fully developed and extremely well played by an outstanding cast. Young Ewan McGregor shows astonishing emotional depth in this, the breakthrough role that made him an international star - tragic though Mark's circumstances are, there is ... a wry humour to it that McGregor communicates effectively. The look of the film, and its direction, perfectly portray both the gritty reality of addiction and the surreal aspects of an addict's life.
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As Welsh says, this eighth book - like Trainspotting, Marabou Stork Nightmares and Filth - features characters that are at "an extreme point in their life. Kibby is reeling from the death of his father, while Skinner is coming to the painful realisation that his addiction to alcohol, and obsession with finding his absent dad, is causing his life to spiral out of control. But Welsh sets these characters - and scenes both hilarious and brutal that are vintage Welsh - in a richly-drawn family dynamic. It's a context that Welsh edged towards with Glue and Porno, but which he portrays vividly and empathetically in the new book.
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Boyle has stated his wish to make a sequel to Trainspotting which will take place 9 years after the original film, based on Irvine Welsh's sequel, Porno. He is reportedly waiting until the original actors themselves age visibly enough to portray the same characters, ravaged by time; Boyle joked that the natural vanity of actors would make it a long wait.[6]
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Trainspotting has been the cultural phenomenon of 1996. Irvine Welsh’s Edinburgh-based tale of drugs, dole and self-destruction has sold over 400,000 copies, the film has won critical acclaim across England, Europe and America, while the stage version has played to packed houses throughout the country. The stage versions of four of Welsh’s plays have subsequently been collected in the book 4Play.
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Trainspotting is the hilarious, appalling, riveting, bestselling, and altogether masterful first novel that launched the spectacular career of Irvine Welsh. It is an authentic, unrelenting, and strangely exhilarating group portrait of blasted lives in Edinburgh — as unforgettable a clutch of junkies, rude boys, and nutters as readers will ever encounter.
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