Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

©Vintage Press 1994

There's always a time in your life when you hunger for freedom, without thinking of consequences that went beyond the boundary of normal foresight. All you can ask is more time, and more glory as high as the boundary of the exosphere and the earth. You're not thinking of crashing back to earth, all you want is the trip and not the destination for choosing life only to turn your back from that one final step of entering that threshold. Can't blame you. Because you've got another plan, the mothershite of all plans that will finally end the skaggin' days with the radges, with pishes and shites, leave the losers on their own, and go incognito in a new country perhaps in a new name--a new identity. That was always your strategy, to keep right on to the end of the road.

The skull-covered version by Vintage books in 1994 is way too cool than the one with a tongue-waggin pussy cat of the same publisher in 2007 so this explains my choice of book cover here. And that intro paragraph is actually my message to the main character Renton.

Written in  Scottish accent, I never imagined that this funny book deserved a sequel but Irvine Welsh did. But it has to wait. This is a highy entertaining book perfect for adult readers who can keep their morals intact but still enjoys stories playing around with morality and soceital conjectures. Imagine one dirty and wildest fantasy and it wont measure up against the stories embedded in this novel. A waitress making her revenge through her 'magical' soup and her 'special' chocklit desserts, a lout shaggin his preggo sister in law on the eve of his brother's funeral, a stoner who cant see that he's shaggin a young nymph way below her legal age. It's all too f*ckin hilarious and hysterical, only to hit a brickwall and feel pity to the characters who suffered  the disease of anti-body positive. This is actually the trait that made the book an exceptional one.

Laughter and pity--these two are part of consequences of choosing life. And I thank Mr Welsh for reminding me of that through this good read of British fiction, a good romp, a good trip. Good thing as a reader, I'm already old to know the difference.

The best line by Renton:
"Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people what's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah knew aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ay sound mind etcetera, etcetera,  but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that you jist simply choose tae reject whit they have tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.
Well, ah choose no tae choose life. If the cunts cannae handle that, it's thair fuckin problem. As Harry Lauder sais, ah jist intend tae keep right on to the end of the road..."

Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4 glasses of pish-pints