Porno: Irvine Welsh (Mark Renton, 3)

Product Information

In middle age, Welsh became a DJ (post-Trainspotting, he found he could make a fortune playing in clubs across the world, and he loved the social side); in Dead Men’s Trousers, Renton manages DJs. They're nice for a quick injection, and something to go to when you're not quite in the mood to have your heed blown off your shoulders into pitch black darkness. For example, in Chapter 25, Spud narrates, "So ah'm downcast git intae the library, thinkin tae masel" ("So I'm downcast when I get into the library thinking to myself").

Spud's chapters are just narrative, Begbie's are in capitals, and Nikki's are quotes from the chapter, for example ".Begbie and Spud, on the other hand, speak a language all their own; a rich, broad broth of phonetics which Welsh splashes across the page, peppered — at least in Begbie’s case — so thickly with expletives it is surprising the paper doesn’t disintegrate before your very eyes. Ces "contes de la folie ordinaire" pour une fin de siècle conjuguent plusieurs sortes d'addiction : l'amour, la vengeance, la drogue. Hapless addict Spud is here for the ride too, as is deranged psychopath Begbie, who is about to taste freedom for the first time in a decade after ten years in the slammer. Sick Boy is the most cynical of the Trainspotting characters, an amoral con artist always sniffing out a chance to screw the next sucker. Simon David "Sick Boy" Williamson - bitter by a string of failed business ventures, Sick Boy decides to make a porn film.

But a lot of my stuff just comes from listening to people shouting at each other in queues, in pubs, on buses; I don’t drive, so public transport is a really fabulous place for me to pick up references. Another difference from the format of Trainspotting is that each character has a defined chapter heading depending on what chapter it is. Rab Birrell - brother of Billy Birrell and a college mate of Nikki also on her Film Studies course - and fuels the idea of exploiting the girls from Terry's pub, and Nikki's knowledge of film and pornography. A series of arrests for petty crimes and finally a suspended sentence for trashing a North London community centre inspired Welsh to correct his ways.

Not love stories in the classical sense, more love stories for the modern, ecstasy fuelled, party age. Now he’s 59, a few months short of a pensioner’s bus pass, and he’s getting rose-tinted about the good old bad old days. Welsh's writing is characterized by its dark humour, intense language, and exploration of the darker aspects of human nature. Boyle and McGregor had not worked together since 1997's A Life Less Ordinary, after which McGregor was passed over in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio for the lead role in Boyle's big screen adaptation of Alex Garland's novel, The Beach.

The first section concludes with "OOTSIDE", a chapter noting the release into society of Francis Begbie. I found Freddy Royle, television personality, necrophile and all round shit-bag was a little too over the top, even by Welsh's standards. Leggerlo va benissimo, se non sei in uno di quei momenti in cui te lo chiedi troppo spesso, che cos'è questa noia che ti dà la nausea.In Dead Men’s Trousers, Renton talks about the worst thing he has ever done (having sex with his pregnant sister-in-law at his brother’s funeral). In particular Heather as the housewife battling constant belittlement and her push to break out of a life of boredom. He worked for Hackney Council in London and studied computing with the support of the Manpower Services Commission. In the novel Filth, the tapeworm's internal monologue is imposed over the top of the protagonist's own internal monologue (the worm's host), visibly depicting the tapeworm's voracious appetite, much like the "Climax of Voices" in Gray's novel 1982, Janine.