Dead Men's Trousers (Mark Renton, 5)

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The parts with Begbie are also a huge improvement from the disappointing The Blade Artist. I respect Welsh for pulling off Begbie's transformation from a psychotic force of nature to a well known artist, loyal teetotaler husband and responsible father of two kids. He is still a psycho to people who try to mess with his family. I guess Welsh was trying to make the point that truly great artists are not what they seem to be on the surface. Uh-oh. Ah’m no sure aboot this, man. — What? Is that no illegal, smuggling body parts, like the invasion ay the bodysnatchers n aw that? Perché, dato il loro stile di vita non proprio morigerato, era inevitabile che qualcuno della banda prima o poi ci lasciasse, e quando questo alla fine accade, ci si sente quasi come aver perso un vecchio amico. My favorite quote is an updated version of the "Choose Life" monologue, which completely fits our current era:

Global commercialism has compelled the Scots tae pretend tae like Christmas, but we're genetically programmed tae rebel against it. Mikey gies ays a grim smile. Looks around, lowers ehs voice, leans intae ays. — A kidney, Spud. A human kidney: for a life-saving operation. Because I read most of the books in this series before I joined Goodreads, I want to start with: I thought that Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting was an absolutely brilliant book – full of heart and laughs and subversive social commentary, amped up with a transgressive frisson and artfully dense dialect – and that Skagboys was a powerfully heartbreaking prequel. On the other hand, I found the sequel Porno to be campy and shallow, and the recent continuing saga of The Blade Artist to have been a disappointing betrayal of Welsh's world: what reader wants Begbie to be a buttoned-down straight citizen? Now with Dead Men's Trousers, we reconnect with the rest of the gang as they approach fifty years old, and as they jet around the world commenting on the evils of neoliberalism, Welsh seems to have become disconnected from everything that was subtle and engaging and true about his own characters; sure, people should grow up (and I'm glad none of the lads are skagboy jakeys anymore), and it's good to revisit these storylines and see how details from a few books ago have played out, but this book adds nothing to the furtherance of truth; there's no art here. Mark Renton is finally a success. He now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms, and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with life.

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Replace ice … Whoa, man, no sae sure aboot that. Ice is pure natural like, well, it’s usually made artificially in fridges like, but in its natural state in the polar regions – That said, there's a lot of plot in latter-day Welsh. It's not just about the misery of the human condition by way of a decrepit Scottish junkie setting. This time, there are crazy imaginative scenarios organ transplants and various murders. Welsh non è autore per tutti, che sia lasciato a noi bastardi potenziali che lo abbiamo nominato portavoce. Non c'è una fava di posto al sole. Non c'è uno stronzo di futuro. C'è solo l' adesso. Ed è una merda, e sta peggiorando.

Dove se non in un romanzo, un barman asporta un rene ad un donatore ignaro seguendo un tutorial su youtube? The story begins in 2015 when Mark Renton, now a successful DJ manager hopping between Amsterdam and LA, bumps into Franco Begbie on a transatlantic flight. In their last encounter Begbie disappeared under the wheels of a car while en route to take bloody revenge on Mark for ripping him off at the end of Trainspotting. But Begbie – now teetotal, and a successful artist living in California with a wife and two young children – comes over all Zen. Is he a changed character?

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They were nice lads and the fact that they're in soldier uniform is constant proof that a nation state isnae a kind of construct if you urnae rich. Welsh makes these amoral misadventures so propulsive, so joyfully awful, that you have to go with the flow…this roues’ romp is about as much fun as you can have between two book covers.”— The Times Mark Renton (Rents/Rent Boy) is now manager to a small stable of club DJ’s and spends his life on planes and in hotels, seeing to their every need. Raunchy, profane, violent, and frequently hilarious… Dead Men’s Trousers delivers a strangely life-affirming dose of dark absurdity, ensuring that, if this is the last we see of these characters, they won’t soon be forgotten.” – *starred* Booklist review I love these boys, and reading this book was murder. Desperate to just zoom through, to inhale the violence, the shagging, the plots, the revenge, I forced myself to go as slowly as possible and savour every moment. It was torture.