DOCSLIB.ORG

The Acid House PDF Book

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Acid House PDF Book THE ACID HOUSE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Irvine Welsh | 304 pages | 28 May 1996 | Vintage Publishing | 9780099435013 | English | London, United Kingdom The Acid House PDF Book When the Emperor of China issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the The Adult with the baby brain ends up in the hospital drooling all over himself. Dec 04, Jessica rated it liked it. The Devil All the Time. Download as PDF Printable version. I'm between three and four stars on this one. May 28, Simon Hollway rated it it was amazing Shelves: This is unbelievable! The Acid House's first story provides good ammunition for Claire Monk's theory about the British male in crisis in the s. Hilarious, disturbing, ludicrous and a whole lot of fun. Enjoyable read. More Details However there are enough comic moments to lighten the burden, most notably when the cocksure Larry is dancing by himself in front of a mirror to the strains of T-Rex's Hot Love. I really enjoyed these stories. Three twisted tales of abuse, drugs, displaced personalities, and insect life by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. The Good Lord Bird. Share this page:. The patrons would spill into the streets chanting and drew the police on regular occasions. I think it was a pretty mind-twisting film. A kid from the neighborhood goes to work for the Mafia as a collector. Sep 18, J. Before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy at a nightclub [7] where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. Remember the 'worst toilet in Scotland' scene in Trainspotting? Article published in the San Francisco Chronicle and distributed via the Los Angeles Times Syndicate to other newspapers and published under various headlines. The Acid House Writer The Haunting of Bly Manor. It is all delivered with the air of something trying to just shock and hold an audience that way rather than have much of substance. Each story has his moments, some are better than others, The Acid House was the most trippy and crazy to watch, with an excellent Ewen Bremner playing a junkie character is apparently what he does the best. London, England United Kingdom. Welsh manages, however to imbue these characters with a sad humanity that makes them likable despite their obvious scumb Probably most famous for his gritty depiction of a gang of Scottish Heroin addicts, Trainspotting , Welsh focuses on the darker side of human nature and drug use. Big Disney fan! Color: Color. Lynn Aitken Costume Designer. Well done a great movie!!! Overall, I'm going to give The Acid House just an average rating of five pints of blood, but don't be misled. Paula Nechak. Hide Spoilers. Psychedelic music. The guy who plays spud in Trainspotting plays the guy in this who trades bodies with the baby. There are conflicting accounts about the origin of the term acid. Don't be put off by the dirty talk and blasphemous conversation. Mike Gunn Production Design. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. I enjoyed that aspect; we get to see Welsh explore different themes and styles. Otherwise, this may just seem to be a big flubbery mess with it's obvious brilliance scattered about, when really, it's a great, quirky collection of some very odd stories. Philadelphia Inquirer. All these stories collected in this collection are good, but the few that really stand out make it worth reading all of them. Reminded me of when I lived in a block of flats and had a similar madman living above me. This in turn, makes the story really approachable, in spite of the rather abrasive title. This anthology adapts three stores by Scottish cult author Irvine Welsh. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Although it was made as one film with three stories, I actually saw the first part of this as a standalone film so my comments can only be about that first part. Welsh explores a lot of different themes and styles here, it Another wee collection of short stories! The Granton Star Cause: All in one day a young Leith lad is dumped by his football team, his girlfriend. Because the stories are so short you want to keep reading the next short story and I feel that that is what people want in a book. The story of Helen Reddy, who, in , landed in New York with her three-year-old To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Like Trainspotting a mere year before it, The Acid House adopts the approach of telling a groggy and visually disgusting tale about Scottish people living lives full of drugs, sex and the like in locations that visually repulse you. Very strange stories, only Irvine Welsh could have done these. Story 1 is a tale about revenge. San Diego Union. It is his commentary on the frustrations and consequent suffering of the working classes. The setting was tense, and while the ending was anti-climatic, it was the most well made of the shorts. I was under absolutely no illusion that this three-shorts set was similar, or even related to Danny Boyle's brilliant masterpiece. It's very difficult to review a book of short stories plus one novella as it's always a mixed bag and this collection was more mixed than most, from the boring to the brilliant in particular the novella which captured the full spectrum. Remember the 'worst toilet in Scotland' scene in Trainspotting? Email Address. The Acid House Reviews Everything got mingled up because you hear so much. The Guardian. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. New beat or Belgian house [42] was a short-lived [43] underground mid-tempo electronic dance music [44] derived from Belgian electronic body music and Chicago [45] acid house. Photo Gallery. Three twisted tales of abuse, drugs, displaced personalities, and insect life by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. Archived from the original on Jeffrey M. The second concerns a very disturbed couple with a newborn baby, and their wacky neighbor who moves into the flat above them. A number of dank and torrid tales of wrongdoing. My Movies The characters unfortunatly stand on a blank canvas. I was very disappointed as although I have not read Trainspotting, I have heard very good things about it. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Ya fuckin' knob! Release Dates. By signing up, you agree to receiving newsletters from Rotten Tomatoes. Mar 26, Cameron rated it really liked it Shelves: norris-reading-challenge. Clear your history. Email address. The Acid House Read Online It follows Boab Coyle who is about to have a couple of days from hell. Dirty, crazy, and makes Trainspotting, look like it copped out. The second story in The Acid House is non-supernatural, but just as disturbing. But that's all right - nothing wrong with a specific vision as long as it's this amusing and relentless. Use the HTML below. The victim of the piece is the gullible Johnny who is married to the detestable Catriona, who in turn is screwing the equally hateful new neighbour from hell Larry. Alea Intrica 18 September There were big coincidences happening around the work [ sic ] and then all of a sudden the central image of it has been nicked on all these acid house t-shirts everywhere. Oct 28, Jennifer rated it really liked it Recommends it for: People who like raunchy humour and drug books. This winds me up massively! Another points out Sleezy D 's "I've Lost Control" was the first to be released on vinyl, but it is impossible to know which track was created first. His characterization was there, and better than what I witnessed in the films. Marc Bolan Non-Original Music. David Elroy 17 November Log In. Views Read Edit View history. Paul McGuigan. My only gripe here is that the territory is a bit narrow. Part of a series on. I picked up Acid House and was quickly discouraged. I'm hooked or maybe that is what Welsh intended. Successful author Veronica finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must First Name. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Welsh not only simulates real life brilliantly with these scenes but he also shows an immaculate contempt for political correctness and human nature in general as the selfish protractors of Boab's grief, all with their own agendas, insist on blaming circumstances rather than their saintly selves. Jemma Redgrave. Story 3 is more of a character study of a young man called Coco suffering from a drug over-dose. I'm no prude and whilst black humour and the darkness of human degradation often inspires and moves me, The Acid House just made me feel quite ill. Jenny McCrindle Evelyn. But the environment is, I suggest, the problem: the stories might have surprises and clear identity, but I felt at various stages that another staging would be welcome. The Acid House It's romp through the ugliest, most politically incorrect depths of everyone's subconscious. The story of Helen Reddy, who, in , landed in New York with her three-year-old Short Stories. The Acid House Reading these stories will also give you a vintage, '80s feeling. If I could give this movie a negative rating, I would. However, this did not stop the club-goers from continuing after-hours dancing.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • “Resistance Art Is Nourishment When We Are in Dark Times. and We Are in Dark Times” Citation: M
    Firenze University Press https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis “Resistance art is nourishment when we are in dark times. And we are in dark times” Citation: M. Terrazas (2021) “Resistance art is nourishment Interview with Irish writer Emer Martin* when we are in dark times. And we are in dark times”. Melania Terrazas Interview with Irish writer Emer Martin. Sijis 11: pp. 383-399. University of La Rioja (<[email protected]>) doi: 10.13128/SIJIS-2239- 3978-12893 Copyright: © 2021 M. Terrazas. This is an open access, peer-re- Emer Martin is an Irish author, artist and teacher who lives viewed article published by between the depths of Silicon Valley, California, and the jungles of Firenze University Press (https:// Co. Meath, Ireland. She has produced a strikingly diverse range of oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/ work: novels, poems, literary journalism, paintings, and short fi lms. bsfm-sijis) and distributed under the terms of the Creative Com- She is also an active writer for newspapers and on social media. Her mons Attribution License, which fi rst novel, Breakfast in Babylon (1995), won Book of the Year 1996 permits unrestricted use, distri- at the prestigious Listowel Writers’ Week in her native Ireland. Th is bution, and reproduction in any novel and her next, More Bread Or I’ll Appear (1999), were published medium, provided the original author and source are credited. internationally and widely acclaimed. A year later, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her third novel, Baby Zero (2014a), was Data Availability Statement: published in the UK and Ireland in March 2007 by Dingle, and All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Infor- released in the US in 2014 by Rawmeash, an artist-led publishing mation fi les.
    [Show full text]
  • Translating Scotland's Skagboys
    Translating Scotland’s Skagboys Bachelor Thesis English Language and Culture, Utrecht University Marit Leenders 3696952 Supervisor: Cees Koster Second Reader: Onno Kosters April 2014 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Theoretical Framework 2.1 Function of the Scottish Dialect 4 2.2 Translating a Dialect 8 2.3 Other Translation Problems in Skagboys 11 3. Conclusion 15 Works Cited 17 Appendix A Translation 18 Appendix B Source Text 30 3 Introduction In 2012, Irvine Welsh’s book Skagboys was published. This prequel of the cult classic Trainspotting completed the Trainspotting Trilogy, consisting of Trainspotting, Porno and Skagboys. It follows the characters Mark Renton, Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson, Daniel ‘Spud’ Murphy and Frances Begbie in their journey from relatively innocent teenagers to young men addicted to heroin, who will do anything in the chase for their next shot. This group of friends, situated in the harbour city of Leith, consists of many different personalities. Mark Renton is the semi-intellectual one who leads a double life as a student at the university of Aberdeen where he hides from the problems created by society, his friends and his severely handicapped brother. Sick Boy uses his intellect and his charm to get what he wants, especially from the other sex. Spud is a naive man with a heart of gold who has been unlucky his entire life and always sees the good in other people. Begbie is a severely aggressive alcoholic who detests everything to do with drugs. Together they depict the victims of the drug scene that was booming in Edinburgh and of the society that had no place for people like them.
    [Show full text]
  • "Nice Work Sisters
    From Trainspotting to Filth – Masculinity and Cultural Politics in Irvine Welsh's Writings Stefan Herbrechter Trinity and All Saints, College of the University of Leeds ________________________________________________________________________ Men still have everything to say about their sexuality. You still have everything to say about your sexuality: that's a challenge. (Alice Jardine and Hélène Cixous, in Chapman & Rutherford 1988: 21) This powerful challenge, I am going to argue, is taken up in Irvine Welsh's work. What turns this work itself into a challenge is that it combines the search for sexual identity with aspects of the wider contexts of contemporary cultural politics. It critically reflects the transition from Thatcherite to Blairite Britain. From Trainspotting to Filth, Welsh's texts have been gravitating from Scottish marginality to mainstream British culture and economic and cultural thirdwayism. This development is reflected and find its (displaced) articulation in the crisis of masculinity which has increasingly become the focus of his writings. Welsh writes about social exclusion and individualism; the local, national and global; neoliberal economy and the commodification of drugs; but maybe, above all, about the dissolution of patriarchy and the de(con)struction of masculinity, about the erosion of gender categories and the family. Welsh's male working-class and subcultural (anti)heroes have to come to terms with the social changes of their roles and their relationships to their "mates", partners and children. As individual subjects, they are portrayed in their psychotic world of self- destructive masculine sexuality and identity, and, as members of post-industrial society, in their parasitic and anachronistic position within contemporary "postfeminist" and "post-gender" culture.
    [Show full text]
  • "T2 Trainspotting" Review
    CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017 ® Volume 163, No. 63 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 162 years also ready to avenge Renton’s be- t r a y a l . ‘T2’d o e s n’t pack “Sick Boy”Simon has traded his heroin addiction for cocaine. He runs his late aunt’s pub (where customers are scarce) as a side- RE B E C CA line to his pornography blackmail the same rush as L. FORD business. His accomplice and sometime romantic partner is a young prostitute from Bulgaria, Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova). Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates her Though half the men’s age, its 1996 precursor practice on complex litigation, compliance, board governance and specialized Veronika is clearly the adult employment issues. She is the former among them. Renton, Simon and executive vice president for litigation and Spud are all besotted by her. Riotous ‘Trainspotting ’came out 21 years intellectual property at MGM. She can be Everything is not immediately reached at [email protected]. forgiven between Simon and Ren- ago, and its characters didn’t age so well ton. When Renton offers Simon the share of the money he filched locomotive wallpaper. that “r i g h t f u l l y ”belongs to Simon, ven the worst things with Mark Renton (Ewan McGre- Broke and broken, no one from the realization of the lost oppor- that happen in one’s gor, the “Star Wars”p r e q u e l s ) the old gang has aged well.
    [Show full text]
  • Degree Project Bachelor’S Degree Thesis in Literature
    Degree Project Bachelor’s degree Thesis in Literature “Nae friends in this game. Jist associates” On the Presentation of Alienation in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting Author: Johan Skalstad Supervisor: Billy Gray Examiner: Carmen Zamorano Llen Subject/main field of study: English literature Course code: EN2048 Credits: 15 Date of examination: January 7th, 2020 At Dalarna University it is possible to publish the student thesis in full text in DiVA. The publishing is open access, which means the work will be freely accessible to read and download on the internet. This will significantly increase the dissemination and visibility of the student thesis. Open access is becoming the standard route for spreading scientific and academic information on the internet. Dalarna University recommends that both researchers as well as students publish their work open access. I give my/we give our consent for full text publishing (freely accessible on the internet, open access): Yes ☒ No ☐ Dalarna University – SE-791 88 Falun – Phone +4623-77 80 00 Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................................... 1 Concepts of Alienation ........................................................................................................................... 6 Meaninglessness, Social Isolation and Normless Behaviour in the Chapter “Skag Boys, Jean-Claud Van Damme and Mother Superior” ............................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Disability in the Writing of Irvine Welsh: a Discussion Paper
    Paper presented at the Disability Studies Conference: Glasgow University, 8 December 1997 Disability in the Writing of Irvine Welsh: A Discussion Paper Introduction In this paper I shall explore the notion of disability within the writings of Irvine Welsh. As might be expected I am using the concept of disability from a purely social model perspective in the sense that it refers to the social oppression of people with perceived impairments. I am focusing on the work of Irvine Welsh because I believe he is probably one of the most important and, indeed, popular writers of the 1990s. I also believe that one of the most effective ways of gaining an insight into any social phenomenon which, in this case, is the social interactions between people with and without perceived impairments, is through the detailed analysis of the communication media, and popular culture in particular. This is equally applicable to representations of both non-fiction and fiction although here, of course, I'm focusing on the latter . Whilst I'm not a great reader I think literature can be especially useful in this regard. By its very nature cinema and television tends toward the sensational and the stereotype. Novelists and fiction writers, on the other hand, are impelled to produce complex and intriguing storylines with fully rounded and plausible characters in order to hold the reader's attention. Moreover, stories which are located in the contemporary world must inevitably contain an element of truth with which the reader can identify; in short, they must be believable. Irvine Welsh is one such writer and widely regarded as one of the most important and gifted British newcomers of the 1990s.
    [Show full text]
  • Community and Male Camaraderie in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting
    Befriending the Other: Community and Male Camaraderie in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting ÁNGELA RIVERA IZQUIERDO Institution Address: Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Campus de la Cartuja. C/Profesor Clavera s/n. 18011 Granada. Spain. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-8257-650X Received: 29/11/2016. Accepted: 25/02/2017 How to cite this article: Rivera Izquierdo, Ángela. “Befriending the Other: Community and Male Camaraderie in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.” ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies 38 (2017): 89‒112. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24197/ersjes.38.2017.89-112 Abstract: Set in post-Thatcherite Scotland, critics generally agree that Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (1993) mirrors the emergence of rampant individualism and the disintegration of working-class communities in the UK. To support this view, they consider the lack of a sense of fraternity in the group and the characters’ fear of intimacy as indicative of individualism. However, it is possible to see Welsh’s ‘trainspotters’ not as atomised individuals, but as members of an alternative communitarian assemblage, as theorised in continental, post- phenomenological philosophy. Using a masculinities approach, this paper proves that the characters’ emotional detachment is representative of homosocial interactions among men trying to adhere to idealised types of masculinity and that, therefore, cannot be restricted to their alleged individualistic character. Contrarily, the kind of male friendship that Welsh describes can be considered as a paradigmatic example of Jean-Luc Nancy’s conception of the inoperative community, characterized by transcendence and exposure to alterity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Acid House a Film by Paul Mcguigan
    100% PURE UNCUT IRVINE WELSH The Acid House a film by Paul McGuigan a Zeitgeist Films release The Acid House a film by Paul McGuigan based on the short stories from “The Acid House” by Irvine Welsh Starring Ewen Bremner Kevin McKidd Maurice Roëves Martin Clunes Jemma Redgrave Introducing Stephen McCole Michelle Gomez Arlene Cockburn Gary McCormack Directed by Paul McGuigan Screenplay by Irvine Welsh Director of Photography Alasdair Walker Editor Andrew Hulme Costume Designers Pam Tait & Lynn Aitken Production Designers Richard Bridgland & Mike Gunn Associate Producer Carolynne Sinclair Kidd Produced by David Muir & Alex Usborne FilmFour presents a Picture Palace North / Umbrella Production produced in association with the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund, the Glasgow Film Fund and the Yorkshire Media Production Agency UK • 1999 • 112 mins • Color • 35mm In English with English subtitles Dolby Surround Sound a Zeitgeist Films release The Acid House a film by Paul McGuigan Paul McGuigan’s THE ACID HOUSE is a surreal triptych adapted by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh from his collection of short stories. Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard- talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche. Part One The Granton Star Cause The first film of the trilogy is a black comedy of revenge, soccer and religion that come together in one explosive story. Boab Coyle (STEPHEN McCOLE) thinks he has it all, a ‘tidy’ bird, a job, a cushy number living at home with his parents and a place on the kick-about soccer team the Granton Star.
    [Show full text]
  • How 'Trainspotting'
    H10 www.philly.com THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, November 11, 2012 Books Pregnantgirlinstrangeland “Small Damages,” set in avivid Spain, is about love and choices, passions and regrets. CHICK WIT Small Damages tensity that partsofthe book almost rise By Beth Kephart to the level of erotic gastronomy. LISA SCOTTOLINE Philomel. 304 pp.$17.99 Then there is Esteban, ayoung man Kenzie’sage, with ahypnotic way with ReviewedbyElizabeth Eisenstadt Evans birds and horses. Esteban has aspare manner of speech that means that when nour modern world, where so much he speaks, it matters —anongoing con- Of spaghetti experience is diluted and mediated trast with the friendly,popular,and ulti- I through digital technologies, Beth mately unreliable Kephart’snovel, replete with sights and Kevin. As Kenzie’sre- smells and sounds filtered through the lationships with the bands and an eyes of ayoung woman on the cusp of ranch inhabitants adulthood,seems compellingly immedi- deepen, so does her ate —and as far away as acountry once connection to the life visited and now living on the margins of growing within her, excellentfriend memory. whom she imagines, For so much of this young adult novel, and addresses as set in southern Spain in the mid-1990s, is “you.” ’m good in an emergency,but first Ihave to about sensing. “‘What are you go- know it’sanemergency. As Kenzie experiences the sights and ing to do?’ Kevin had I With Hurricane Sandy,Ididn’t. smells and voices of the foreign land asked me, making it The first problem was the name. where her mother has sent the high my choice, and you Beth Kephart sets One of my best friends is named Sandy,and I school student to bear her child after she mine, drawing the the young-adult love that name, so when Iheard that Hurricane gets pregnant, readers are drawn into fine line between us,” novelinthe Sandy was on her way,Iwasn’tworried.
    [Show full text]
  • Actants and Networks in Skagboys: Thatcher, Crime and Mundane Artifacts As Mediators
    Actants and Networks in Skagboys: Thatcher, Crime and Mundane Artifacts as Mediators Thomas Pedersen English Studies – Literary Option Bachelor 15 Credits Spring Semester 2020 Asko Kauppinen Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Background: Thatcher’s Legacy, Welsh’s Work, and the Postcritical Approach................... 6 2.1. Thatcher’s State Revolution ................................................................................................... 6 2.2. Welsh and the Working Class ................................................................................................ 7 2.3. Literary Postcritique ............................................................................................................... 9 3. Theoretical Departures: Actor-Network Theory and its Use in Literature ........................... 11 3.1. The Social as a Product of Associations .............................................................................. 11 3.2. The Implications of Network ................................................................................................ 12 3.3. Nonhuman Actors Make Us Moral ...................................................................................... 14 3.4. Using ANT to Trace Literature’s Political Implications
    [Show full text]
  • International Journal of Scottish Literature ISSN 1751-2808
    international journal of scottish literature www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk ISSN 1751-2808 ISSUE FIVE, AUTUMN/WINTER 2009 Is Life Beautiful? Narrative Uncertainty and ‘Literary anti-Trotskyism’ in Trainspotting Dougal McNeill You always mix in some little phrase that is not your own, And that disturbs because of the recollection it prompts! Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments[1] For all its shocks and provocations, Trainspotting employs a remarkably straightforward and direct style of narration. There is plenty that is difficult for the reader, to be sure, and plenty of material incorporated that is explored only rarely in most contemporary fiction, but the manner of Welsh's presentation is, at this stage in his career at least, characterised by a sort of 'up- frontness' and immediacy that serves to reinforce a sense of his work's moral seriousness and of the importance of his representational project. His narrative raw material, whether disgusting yet disgustingly plausible (all that ferreting around in the unflushed toilet Renton does early on) or moving, sympathetically portrayed and disturbing (Dawn's sudden and unexplained death) is represented in a broadly realist manner: the horror, particularly when the reader learns of Dawn's death, is that we know quite precisely what is going on. Narrative uncertainty, writerly tricks, tension and so on: these modernist or detective fiction stock-in-trade devices are noticeably absent at this stage in Welsh's work, and it is their absence that gives us a sense, when reading Trainspotting, of authorial solidarity with his characters, an evident sympathy and bond. Against conservative critics' claims that the novel is using the details of addiction and drug abuse for sensationalist ends, Welsh's matter-of-fact presentation indicates instead the presence of genuine engagement and attention.
    [Show full text]
  • The Downsides of Heroin Use As Represented in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
    University of Iceland School of Humanities Department of English “Ah Choose not tae Choose Life”: The Downsides of Heroin Use as Represented in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh B.A Essay Guðmundur Ásgeir Sveinsson 1401883449 Supervisor: Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir May 2017 Abstract Trainspotting is famous in the Western world today. Most people who know it connect it with the 1996 Danny Boyle film of the same name. The movie is based on a novel by Irvine Welsh which was first published in 1993. Welsh based the novel on his own drug related experiences from his youth in Scotland. Trainspotting revolves around a group of friends that are addicted to heroin. The novel portrays the addicts’ turbulent lives and does not paint a pretty picture. The characters often clash with others, whether it is government, police or their families. Mark Renton, the protagonist of Trainspotting, and his friends feel like they do not belong in today’s society and do everything they can to stay out of it. They are unemployed, have cut their families out of their lives and have no direction in life. The British government has implemented laws and spent a lot of money and effort on campaigns against drugs since early in the 20th century. In the last few decades the British government has focused on a war against heroin and in doing so described heroin addicts as worthless losers that nobody would want to end up like, the lowest of the low. The British government has implemented laws and run campaigns that aim to marginalize heroin addicts and show that there is no place for them in society.
    [Show full text]