Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Review: Porno by Irvine Welsh

Porno
By Irvine Welsh

Published: 2002
Synopsis (via GoodReads): In the fag-end of his youth, Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson is back in his native Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity, which to him represents one last throw of the dice.  In the world of Porno, however, nothing is straight-forward, as Sick Boy and Renton find out that they have unresolved issues to address, concerning the increasingly unhinged Frank Begbie, the troubled, drug-addled Spud, and, most of all, with each other.

A couple of weeks ago I reread and reviewed Trainspotting in anticipation of this read and fell in love with the story Irvine Welsh crafted all over again. Basically I had no idea how this sequel could even hope to measure up against one of the finest novels I have ever read. I began this book with trepidation because we all know how easily a badly written sequel can spoil the original previously loved novel. I needn't have worried, I should have trusted Welsh to deliver a superb and extremely well crafted novel, as he always has in my experience and certainly did this time.

A lot has changed in the time between Trainspotting and Porno, both with format and the characters. The characters we knew at their worst in Trainspotting have aged 10 years and given up the drugs (well they've given up heroin at the very least) that defined them the first time we met them, and as they've matured (*ahem*) and attempted to launch careers and families so has the narrative grown from a series of fragile short stories into a full-length novel.

The cast of 1000s remains but we only hear directly from five points of view now, Sickboy, Spud, Rents, Begbie and newcomer Nikki (although none of the characters respond too happily to their childhood/junky nicknames). Of the five Sic-sorry, Simon is the protagonist (or should that be antagonist?) and clear focus of the story. Returning from a failed attempt at everything in England he jumps at the chance to buy his Aunt's pub for cheap, believing he can reinvent it and himself as the entrepreneur with the sharp suit and high powered friends he believe he should be. Knowing the people he knows leads him down a very different path, a visit to a friend's amateur stag porn night leads him down the pornography path and sets the direction for the book to take.

The characters are the characters we loved (and loved to hate) in Trainspotting but a much, much darker version. They may have families, jobs and be off the junk but they're basically older more F'd up versions of themselves, and without the drugs (or the friends with drugs) they have a sincere lack of aims or goals left in their life. There is simply an absence of anything. There is almost an extreme nihilism in this novel, as Mark says himself, "The raison d'etre of our class was simply to survive. F**k that; our punk generation, not only did we thrive, we even had the audacity to be disillusioned," (page 365).
 

Begbie, fresh out of a decade behind bars is angrier than ever. He is almost completely consumed by his hatred and paranoia and is a ticking bomb just waiting to explode. Danny (Spud) is still struggling with drugs and battling almost crippling depression and dangerously low self-esteem. He's now a father and a loving partner but he's still a screw up in the eyes of many and struggles to believe he can amount to anything. Simon (sickboy) is a narcissistic, arrogant, manipulative, compulsive liar who only thinks as far ahead as the next scam. Mark (Rents), well Mark is surprisingly stable. After leaving with the bag of cash at the end of Trainspotting he settled down in Amsterdam, got off all the drugs (other than alcohol) and became part-owner in a successful nightclub. But he's basically a straight version of who he was in Trainspotting, disillusioned, argumentative and untrusting.

Once again the characters are the crux of all of the problems, they're a group of men stuck together mainly because they have noone else to turn to, but there is also this perverse connection linking them to one another so that they can never truly hate or separate from one another. Throughout the novel they're constantly bringing each other down in esteem, riling each other up, pitting one against another, and teasing out all of those dark and dangerous qualities. Returning again to Mark's rant partially quoted above he also said; "Now what I fear isn't the heroin, it's not the drugs, but this weird symbiotic relationship we have with each other. I'm concerned that it has a dynamic which will draw us right back into the slaughter," (page 365). 


The book is fantastic, and I subscribe most of this praise to the new full-length format. We're now able to glimpse the full extent of the characters we met in Trainspotting and they are fleshed out completely into complex, detailed characters who I both loved and detested simultaneously. This book would be nothing without the foundation built in Trainspotting and while I had been weary about whether a sequel was actually necessary I found this further examination of the characters to be amazingly interesting, cathartic and fulfilling.

I know I've mostly spoken about the characters here, but don't take that to mean that the plot is in anyway faulty or less important. It is an incredible journey we're taken on through it, with both soaring highs and depressing lows and the ending is simply superb, those last three pages... (well I'll let you read it for yourselves!). I highly recommend this book to anyone who read and enjoyed Trainspotting and for those of you who haven't read either I suggest you head down to your library now, these are two books that are not to be missed.

1 comment:

  1. I loved Trainspotting when I read it nearly 10 years ago, but I don't think I would enjoy it now. I remember all the characters being pretty despicable, and I don't have much desire to revisit them.
    I really appreciated your review, though, because it's probably the closest I'll get to Porno! So thanks! :) I'm glad you enjoyed it, even though I don't think I would.

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