Tolleranza zero

Irvine Welsh was the literary hero among my generation of working-class Central Belt Scots for his graphic novels set in Edinburgh sink estates, riddled with sex, drugs, violence, and written in dextrously rendered phonetic dialect. I avoided reading Welsh, since a witless moron at my school rated T Leggi tutto

I realize I haven't read Trainspotting, or even a great deal of Irvine Welsh's work, but let me go out on a limb here and say that this is my favorite. The characters, especially the main character, are all deliciously real. Characteristic of Welsh, in my experience, is the atmosphere of darkness and Leggi tutto

Stylistically this is Welsh's best work. Along with Glue it's the books of his that show him to be a really great writer who has much more up his sleeve than just drugs and violence (although he writes about these things so well, that it's not a bad thing when I say that). Why this book isn't one of Leggi tutto

It’s about a coma patient who calls everyone a cunt as he’s chasing a big stork through South Africa.

In many ways, this book was brilliant: the structure of flitting between his coma state, memories of his childhood, and an African hunting fantasy. Also, the way he physically structures words on the page really conveys the polyphonic stream of consciousness of a person in a coma. And the Scottish p Leggi tutto

Turns out that Irvine Welsh is not a one-trick pony, he's a one and a half trick pony. He wowed us all with his filthy funny tales of Scottish smackheads in Trainspotting, one of the ALL time black comedies, they don't come any blacker or funnier, and then it was kind of - follow that. So this one d Leggi tutto

Mind. Blown. The angle of this story is incredible to begin with; a coma patient tell his story. Sometimes, he (Roy) slipps close to the surface and hears conversations or music around him, a level below that he recounts actual memories from his life, and even deeper, he hunts the metaphorical stork w Leggi tutto

I read this in 2017, malnourished and with a high fever, while stranded in abu dhabi with hugo. It gave me a panic attack or dissociative episode or something, and caused a small amount of permanent damage to my brain. 4.5 stars, would not recommend.

Need to read again soon

Possibly the most disturbing book I have ever read. After I finished the last page I felt like I had been run over by a truck.