Strange Journeys

[Andrew Dinn]

Jeffrey Reid writes:

> On Mon, 1 Jul 1996 LBernier at tribune.com wrote:
> >      What is the deal with this "Trainspotting" thing?  I saw a book with

> trainspotting is the uniquely British hobby where you get a little black
> book and travel around the country trying to see as many different trains
> as possible (usually kept track of by number) and writing them down in
> your book.

Close but no cigar I'm afraid.

Trainspotting is a novel set (here) in Edinburgh by a young Scottish
writer called Irvine Welsh. Immediately, it's about the Edinburgh
heroin scene in the early 80s, a scene of which Welsh was a member for
several years. Indirectly it's about the choice between eating shit or
injecting it. The book is extremely funny and I guarantee you will all
of you find itextremely difficult to understand and impossible to read
out loud as it is written in an Edinburgh dialect I still have
problems getting my head round after 4 years in this city.  But it's
worth reading for its defence of `low' life in the face of the dismal
alternatives offered by state, commerce, culture etc.

The film does not do justice to the book but it is still a damn good
film. In particular the down-the-toilet scene in the book is
wonderfully funny *and* disgusting at the same time. In the film the
director appears to have deliberately twisted it to be more like
Slothrop's journey.

Welsh's second book `The Acid House' conatins some short stories and a
short novel which deal with the Ecstacy scene in Edinburgh, Manchester
and Amsterdam. It is also pretty good. The third novel is bad and the
fourth is utter pish (as we say here in Embra). Welsh also co-authored
a an Edinburgh guide which recommends all the most grim sites in
Edinburgh - housing schemes, derelict land etc - via amusingly
fanciful descriptions.


Andrew Dinn
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And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.