“it want a book that'll make me drunk,

 

full of freaks and disenfranchised punks, ee
No amount of hate, - ine Wels
no load of junk, ea
idiosyncracies. They rarely identify But Welsh achieves an amazing
ne bag of words, i a One character, for balancing act of his own. The kids are
no costume trunk, instance, does an impression of Sean _ never judged, but neither are they
Connery, while another punctuates glorified. Aside from one early mouth-
can make me feel the every sentence with the word “likesay.” _dryingly stunning passage where one
Same way” And sometimes, third-person narrative character injects another, there is no
8s 93 is thrown into the mix, when the voice —_ attempt to make the pursuit seem
—“Inch an Hour of one is not sufficient. noble. Welsh shows what the draw is,
Tr agically Hip The book follows the wanderings of __ then lets the characters continue on
a group of twentysomething friends their own, whether they eventually fall,
Jim Chliboyko from Leith, a lower-class suburb of or maintain their balance, or pull
Edinburgh. It starts and ends with themselves up.
hough these lyrics might not’ve Renton, the main character almost by It is also refreshing to read some-
been writtéh specifically with a default, a junky who was once one of ___ thing without any hint of North Ameri-
book concerning Scottish junkies in the more promising kids in the can puritanism, or any attempt at
mind, the lyrics of ‘Inch an Hour’ aptly — neighborhood. Unable to overcome his _ calculated American anti-puritanism.
describe Trainspotting, the newest (but own desires in university, he came The characters are just people who
not really all that new) book by home to shoot up and fuck in the occasionally do bad things, which do
Edinburghian Irvine Welsh, another company his friends, Spud, Simon, get more pathetic over the course of
impressive release from Minerva Begbie and a hundred others. the book, but even this is done with
publishers. And, like some other The foundation of Trainspotting more of an even than heavy hand. As

Minerva titles (How Late it Was, How _ never does solidify, but you get used to the characters slowly degenerate, so
Late), it is also written in the dialect of __ it. It does seem fitting that a book that —_ do their bodies. A couple of them

the street; accents, unexplained slang _ seems so inspired by the bodily slowly bow out, get sick or fall apart,
and all. It is a process, decoding the humours remains so liquid; there is either physically or mentally. But, to
language, but after a few pages you more blood, shite, spunk and pish in credit Welsh, these deaths and
get used to it. Makes it hard to pull the book than there is ink. (I wouldn’t —_ tragedies are never used as plot
quotes, though. be surprised if the binding glue wasn’t _—_ devices; they are merely things that

“S no really his fault. Ye kin only pish_ glue.) These are people, after all, that | happen, almost randomly, to the
wi the cock yiv goat. Whae else is are ruled by the balance or imbalance _ characters.
thir?” of fluid in their veins, be it booze or Trainspotting may not be ideal

“Aye, right-e-nuff...but ah’d like tae heroin. more Trainspotting next page...

see John Rawbirtsin git un extendid
run. Deserves it. Scotlind’s maist kin-

sist-tint strikir.” In Search of...continued Mulroney and those damned conserva-
Reading Trainspotting is a lot like small) interests. Laxer speaks about tives!) and universal healthcare. But
emerging from a bender which has left | emotional issues, often taking socialist | what else? Resting on the healthcare
you slightly discombobulated and rhetoric to a communist extreme. | can vicory is what Laxer sees as the NDP’s
uneasy on your feet. You are con- only hope, as the NDP practically problem. They have no federal initia-

stantly coming-to in awkward places, disappears from the BC political scene, tives. They’re just maintaining the
waking up in strange beds and odd that somebody within the party politic | status quo, rather than fulfilling any

apartments, pannickingly fumbling your reads this. Or maybe that’s what scheme of what Canada could be.
way for perception right along with the _ they’re doing right now...sequestered At times this book is amusing (in a
scoobied denizens of Leith. The in some unreachable locale, terrifying way) and at other times
narrative ground beneath you, also, is strategizing, and defining what being a thought provoking. And frankly, this is
constantly shifting—the tales are told . Canadian and social contract mean. the best (and possibly the only)

from the perspectives of easily adozen There is more to socialism than state explication of political conspiracy in
people, voices that you eventually control of business (which has been Canada I’ve ever read. | only wish it
distinguish by their accents and given up under the auspices of were more upsetting. «&

Books 27h