Skagboys

This book is the prequel to Trainspotting, that Scottish debut novel which took the literary world by storm in the early ‘90s. Trainspotting’s subsequent ‘96 on-screen dramatization quickly had the same effect on the world of film, securing the international superstardom of director Danny Boyle and actors Ewan Macgregor and Robert Carlyle.At the time Trainspotting resonated extremely well with the grunge generation since its subject matter was unapologetically and unforgettably raw and edgy and it also provided readers with a wholly original setting. I suppose that every work of art is to some extent a remix of something that came before it, yet Welsh’s first story about heroin junkie Mark Renton and his motley crew of drug addicts (and a particular clean albeit sociopathic mate) remains peerless in its shameless irreverence and grittiness, revealing a tragicomic subculture in Leith which is at all times both desperate and depraved, yet never boring.To my mind it remains the greatest fictional work of genius which I’ve ever stumbled across. It’s told through the point of view (POV) of five main characters, and Welsh’s ability is so mesmerising that after a few pages into the book a discerning reader can recognise the POV character after reading the first few lines in each chapter. Which is pretty amazing when one thinks that the much lauded GRR Martin still needs to write the names of his POV characters (Eddard, Cersei etc) at the start of each of his chapters in the instalments which make up his Song Of Ice & Fire series.I also found the sequels Porno and The Blade Artist to be really good reading, books that could make you both cry with laughter or feel greatly distressed. Welsh never takes a didactic approach to his storytelling, which is so uncontrived and fresh that there are few tropes for him to break, if any.Given all of the above, I was very excited to finally pick up Skagboys, the sole prequel to Trainspotting. It started brightly enough with a description of a miners' strike during Thatcher years, followed by a funny chapter about Mark Renton and his work colleagues. Yet although it was very well-written (earning it its first star), this lengthy tome quickly deteriorated into a meaningless ramble so that it soon became hell to get through it all. I think that there were a few reasons for this:(1) The book is choked full of secondary characters like Keezbo, Matty, Alison and Nicksy who are both bland and largely irrelevant, yet often POV characters or the focus of chapters told in the third person. But if I cared little for these characters when Skagboys first introduces them, I give less than a stuff about them after finishing the novel.(2) Trainspotting, Porno and The Blade Artist all work because they’re each possessed of a tangible hook (how will Rents flee his dropout peers and heroin addiction? What will happen when Begbie finds Mark? Who killed Begbie’s son?) or an unconventional overarching theme (heroin addiction, the trials and tribulations of trying to film a porno flick or a murder mystery / whodunnit). Yet Skagboys contains none of these things. The theme of heroin addiction is nothing new and the various sub-plots are largely disconnected and all over the place. Welsh attempts to insert an overarching theme (based on a conspiracy theory) about the unpopular Tory government seeking to manipulate an underprivileged Scottish electorate. Yet although the idea is in essence not a bad one, its realisation is at best a pathetic attempt unworthy of the talent of Welsh.(3) As if it’s not bad enough that this novel doesn’t contain anything new that’s of interest, it also inexplicably fails to delve meaningfully into the characters of Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie, whose combined experiences made Trainspotting such a hit. The main focus is on Renton and Sick Boy’s largely vacuous misdaventures while they’re both sinking into heroin addiction for no apparent reason. As for Spud and Begbie? They barely get two POV chapters each (the one involving Begbie and old Dicky made me laugh so hard that it earned this book its second star – it was almost worth reading this tripe for that single chapter alone). All of which is a missed opportunity. As for Tommy, the character whose end lends so much poignancy to Trainspotting? Not a single POV chapter. And he’s just about the focus of a single chapter told in the 3rd person.Otherwise there really is not much more for me to add about this novel, except that (as with Welsh’s other books) readers should not bother seeking any egalitarianism or any overt morality or higher meaning in it. Put more plainly, here’s an excerpt from Skagboys that will melt all snowflakes, which closely follows a scene in which Frank Begbie beats up the brother of a girl he (falsely) denies impregnating:We’re worried aboot the polis, no that they c**** would grass anybody up, and ah doubt they’d bother interruptin a tea brek at Drylaw Station for rubbish like that, but some auld c*** might have put the call in. Franco’s buzzin like f*** though, sittin wi a big grin oan his coupon.— An awfay loat ay fuss aboot some f***** slag gittin up the duff. Next time ah ride her it’ll be up her e***, so thit thaire’s nae f***** room fir accusations.— Romance isnae deid, eh, Franco? Nelly grins fae the front, taking the van ootay the scheme, oantae the West Granton Road.This uncensored, confronting style is largely the reason why we were all so intrigued by Irvine Welsh in the first place. But it’s not enough to save what is all round a very piss-weak tale in terms of plot.I’m left absolutely gutted by this unexpected disappointment, but somehow I know that - like your typical Irvine Welsh junkie - I will inevitably be drawn to reading ’Dead Men’s Trousers’, Welsh’s last instalment in what is now being loosely referred to as the Mark Renton series.In potentially seeking to avoid the pitfalls present in Trainspotting’s prequel, Dead Men’s Trousers openly declares on its back cover blurb that one of Trainspotting’s famous foursome won’t survive the last instalment, instantly serving readers with that sort of curiosity-inducing hook that is at all times regrettably and wholly absent in Skagboys.

Super quick delivery and book is in as great shape as advertised. Can't wait to read.

Trainspotting is probably my favorite fiction book, and I'd enjoyed several of Welsh's other titles as well. But this revisit of the Trainspotting characters was more than twice the length, with half as much to say about them. Trainspotting was retelling incidents that were like the level of stories these guys would be telling at parties for the rest of their lives; this one is more like pointless everyday stuff. Did you really want to know all the bands Renton enjoys listening to? Well now you will know. Near the end of the book everyone ends up in rehab together, which seemed like some of the better material -- but it was nowhere near the tension and nightmare and humor of Renton's "cleanup" at his parents' house in Trainspotting. I finally found I had over 100 pages to go and just didn't care what was going to happen to these guys (I mean, it's kind of a prequel to Trainspotting, so in effect we know where they end up...)It felt like if Welsh had been moved to cut down the length of the text, there were some good ideas that could have shined through a bit more. But it was too dull a read for me, overall.

I loved this book.As an American, the slang and written accents were hard at first that I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through to the end. I found the best way is to just keep reading and not focusing on each word you don't know. They're mostly words you know like "to" and "cold", just spelled differently to get the effect of the Scottish accent.That being said, I loved getting the back stories of the characters. Welsh has an insanely awesome ability to describe the feelings of the characters and situations they're in, in a way that's relatable (even though I've never been a male junky in Scotland). I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn't put it doon.

This book is a must read for Welsh fans. If you read the cover, you know how it starts, and if you read or saw Trainspotting, you know how it ends, so it would be hard to give any spoilers even if I were inclined to.The central story is the decline of Mark Renton, who starts out as a university student with a wonderful girlfriend and a real shot at "getting out" and ends up, well, you know. That theme is compelling, but the book also cycles through vignettes of the other main characters: Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie, as well as several other peripheral characters. With the exception of Begbie - who is a constant through all three books - they all "fall", but since they don't have as far to fall as Renton, they pretty quickly end up in the state you meet them in Trainspotting. The stories are poignant and well written, but after a while, I did find that they became a bit repetitive, and it became a bit of a slog to get to the end - particularly, as I said, when I knew pretty much what the end was going to be. Personally, I think it would have been more effective if it had been pruned a bit.Much has been said about the phonetic dialectic writing. I only saw the movie Trainspotting, but if I remember Porno correctly, he only used dialectic writing for some characters (Spud?). In this book, it's most characters. I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I think it adds a bit of flavor, but on the other hand, I would have been happy for him to only use it when someone was talking. Since he used it for everything, I eventually just stopeed noticing.So definitely well worth reading, but you may find yourself skimming in places.

Irvine Welsh's Skagboys novel is the prequel to his earlier popular novel, and subsequent highly rated movie, Trainspotting, in which we are introduced initially to Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud. In Skagboys, we learn how these Scottish lads were driven off their life's paths into the world of drugs, casual sex and victims of a difficult era.Sections of the text switch to different people, making it initially difficult to know from whose perspective the text is relating to. In addition to this, the Scottish dialect used in the writing makes it sometimes difficult to follow and requiring the text to be read over again in order to make sense of what has been written. This is particularly so as the author does not use quotation marks during speech and the spoken word forms part of the text with only an elongated dash as a clue to the reader that something is spoken. After a while, the reader gets to know the English translation of Scottish words, for example, "ken" is "know".Major topics at the time are covered in the text, explaining the downward spiral effect these topics have on the characters, and they include the miners strikes, the high rate of unemployment throughout Great Britain and the horror which was the AIDS crisis, brought about by sexual relationships between gay and bisexual men and the sharing of needles by drug addicts. More importantly, Irvine Welsh captures perfectly the difficulty of living, even existing, through the tough period which was the Thatcher years.Throughout the 545 pages of text, the reader gets to feel the toughness, necessity, strength and weakness of the characters through the atmospheric writing of Irvine Welsh and the lives of Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud, along with an assortment of supporting characters, are perfectly captured as if this book was an autobiography. Overall, highly recommended, especially if a fan of Trainspotting.

I won’t lie it takes a bit of effort to get into the book due to the slang in the book. But after 50-100 pages the need to google words drops massively and it’s easily understandable.And once it gets going - it’s a tour de force. If you grew up in the 80’s there is lots of nostalgia, but most of all it’s a fascinating portrayal of people you would never ever come across in life (well most of us won’t). The shenanigans they get up to in the book are brilliant and I was entertained all the way through.Most books I find get slow in some parts. This book never did.

I thought I'd give the Trainspotting series a go, starting with Skagboys. I wasn't sure what to expect and was a little surprised. First, it's written in Scottish. Now, I've lived in Edinburgh before, so my spoken Scottish isn't bad, but my reading skills were sadly lacking at first. Persistence pays off here. Next, the book is darkly comedic, it takes no prisoners, heroin is fun, but you pay a price, it's just a matter of how high, and remember this is set in the burgeoning aids epidemic in Edinburgh. But some of the set pieces are cryingly funny. Franco being interrupted by the father during oral sex will have you laughing out loud, then you switch to the indifference to death in favour of another hit, or indeed, anything for another hit, no matter how small.So, it paints a bleak picture, but in an often amusing way. The dialogue is hard at first, but worth it. It's well paced, but character switches can catch you unawares. Will I carry on to Trainspotting? I think so, even if I know how it ends...

Trainspotting and Porno are two of my favourite books. I slogged my way through the decidedly awful The Blade Artist but I just can't finish this.As ever there are moments of pure brilliance. The moment when Renton and Sickboy finally try heroin is genuinely thrilling but you have to wade through so much to get there it's just not worth it. The chapters skip from character to character from one plot point it's hard to care about to one that's even worse to some rubbish about diseased trees.Sickboy goes from a master manipulator to paedophile pimp in the blink of an eye.And then there is the constant effort to mine hidden depths from Begbie that only result in him becoming a mess of a characterI really looked forward to reading this and all I can muster is meh.

I bought this along with the other 2 books of the Mark Renton Trilogy, as I'm a fan of some of the film adaptations of Welsh's books, Filth, Trainspotting (1&2), and thought it worth reading some of his work.I'm not going to lie, it wasn't my favourite of the 3, I found it too long, and frankly quite boring in parts - and this is from someone who reads construction specifications and contracts.. but I refuse to not complete a book - unless it really is utter tripe - so I persevered.I'll continue to keep an eye out for the films, but I can't say I'll be rushing to re-read this or the other Welsh books - sorry