Described as the "poet laureate of the chemical generation," Irvine Welsh is perhaps best known for "Trainspotting," published in 1994 and adapted for film in 1996. Voices from heroin addicts living in Edinburgh relate the pros and cons of drug addiction, of sex and of immorality in general. Rough, raw and spoken in a sometimes nearly unintelligible Scottish brogue, "Trainspotting" is recognized widely as one of those books that you have to force yourself to love.
And yet, "Trainspotting" is also one of those books, even published as recently as 1994, that is already making its way onto the syllabi of college literature classes. This is a book that made the final ten for the Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious annual literary award (won previously by such diverse authors as A.S. Byatt and Salman Rushdie). This is an author with clout, with power and with an ability to capture a generation in words.
Born in Edinburgh, Welsh moved to London in the 1980s following the trends of the punk movement and drug dependency. Returning to Edinburgh by the end the decade, Welsh now had the capacity to immortalize his own generation in works that have been called insanely powerful and the voice of Britain (if also disturbing and nearly pornographic).
From "Trainspotting" in 1994 to the current publication of "Porno" in 2002, Welsh has covered the full spectrum of drugs, sex and depravity. "Filth," published in 1998, has it all: a misogynistic, racist drug addict who also has a tendency to abuse women. Realistic? Maybe and maybe not? But powerful, regardless, and capable of capturing modernity in a way that most other authors don't have the guts to do.
He is praised as the youthful voice of Britain and the near winner of an internationally well-regarded literary prize. But Welsh is also heavily criticized as a proponent of drugs, especially after the publication of such works as "Ecstasy -- Three Tales of Chemical Romance" (1996). So there's the question. Is Welsh over-the-top and too graphic when it comes to sex and drugs? Or is he simply holding up a mirror to what is really there?
-- Christie Harner
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