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Porno:

It takes him almost 250 pages to get to the actual porno, but Irvine Welsh knows how to keep people reading: sex, drugs, vengeance and scam after scam. It's the characters, though, each vying for top dog position, that most violently kidnap attention.

"Porno" is Welsh's return to the seedy, volatile Leith underworld of his 1993 debut, "Trainspotting." It's been 10 years since Mark Renton took the drug money and ran, and his little scheme has been neither forgiven nor forgotten. Since then, Renton's been hiding out in Amsterdam while Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson returns from London to Leith to run Aunt Paula's pub. Frank Begbie's getting out of jail and Spud's going to rehab sessions between shots of heroin, still not quite together, but trying to get there before his wife leaves for good. New to the mix are Terry 'Juice' Lawson, who's looking for a place to shoot stag videos and Nikki Fuller-Smith, a university student (film studies major) and aspiring porn star.

Why the need for a "Trainspotting" sequel? Why revert back to old characters -- does Welsh have no juice left? Well, for one thing, Rent Boy, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud simply are too good to limit to one business venture. Secondly, it's not as though Welsh is recycling his material. His characters have matured in their 10-year hiatus, and they're all on to something new. Simon has graduated from heroin to cocaine; Renton's calmed down and is looking for love; Begbie's on the warpath (okay, maybe that's not new); Spud's got literary aspirations and the newest member of the gang, Nikki, deserves a high place on the roster simply for her astute observations on the male ego.

Before you know it, Welsh has them all masterfully fleshed out again, carrying on with each other in a complex matrix of plots and subplots (the most important being Simon's production of a pornographic film), each intrinsically connected and harboring the potential to turn their already precarious positions into one big, big mess.

Welsh's fiction pulls no punches. It's famously uninhibited, as are most of its characters. Instead of shying away from scatological references, graphic sex, perversity or what some might call "immorality," Welsh has a field day with all of this and more, including rather creative overuse of the words "[female genitalia]," "f--," "shite" and "hoor."

Like "Trainspotting" (and thankfully, unlike "Filth," Welsh's tasteless descent into depravity for depravity's sake), "Porno" is a balanced affair, simultaneously glorifying and vilifying both the schemie, junkie underworld and the snooty upperworld of elitists.

The five main characters take turns narrating, shifting the monologue every few pages and preventing any clear-cut "message" to come through. Each narrator gives a separate but overlapping take on current events, turning the novel into a Venn diagram of five intersecting circles that keeps the narrative fast-paced and interesting.

Welsh's fondness for his characters is clear. To be sure, it's hard not to find Simon's absurd lack of integrity ("Rule one: socially surround yourself with fanny, avoiding groups of 'mates' at all costs"), combined with his capacity to get in horrific messes, unbelievably funny. And Begbie's involuntary rushes of rage ("ah feel like muh heid's gaunnae f--in explode") soon become dangerously endearing. Almost always, Welsh throws in something laugh-out-loud to even out the darker elements of his considerably dark characters and many of the more sinister scenes.

But when he doesn't, the effect is an unpleasant and profoundly uncomfortable scene to read, causing one to realize just how appalling some of "Porno" actually is. Without doubt, this is intentional. But anyone who thought "Trainspotting" was unbearably disturbing should steer clear of "Porno."

"Boogie Nights" seems like a Sunday picnic compared to the explicit porn scenes of "Porno." That's to be expected from Welsh. But what's most interesting is the different stance each involved character takes as he or she intellectualizes sex as performance or chooses to see it as a product to sell in a consumerist society: "That's why advertising and pornography are similar," according to Simon. "They sell the illusion of availability and the non-consequence of consumption."

But the pornographic flick is by no means the center of the story -- although it is the strongest plot line. More important is the reunion between Simon and his old mate Renton, or perhaps Simon's developing relationship (what? Simon has a relationship?!) with Nikki. And we can't forget poor Spud, the best heart you'll ever meet, but whose hopeless drug addiction may just get the best of him.

A few off-color moments taint an otherwise convincing world, but despite these, "Porno" is as entertaining, disturbing and heartwrenching as its prequel. It's Welsh at his best -- turning what may be considered taboo into daring high-culture literature.

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