Dove se non in un romanzo un detenuto psicato può intortare la propria psicologa (ovviamente gran fica) fingere si essersi redento, sposarla, avere due figlie con lei pur rimanendo il solito folle psicato? Begbie, now going by the name of Jim Francis, meets Renton on a plane, and surprisingly does not try to kill him. It seems that the psycho has mellowed, and is now an acclaimed arstist with a devoted wife and two lovely children. You can always tell the status of a Welsh character by the blondness and waist measurement of his girlfriend Because I read most of the books in this series before I joined Goodreads, I want to start with: I thought that Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting was an absolutely brilliant book – full of heart and laughs and subversive social commentary, amped up with a transgressive frisson and artfully dense dialect – and that Skagboys was a powerfully heartbreaking prequel. On the other hand, I found the sequel Porno to be campy and shallow, and the recent continuing saga of The Blade Artist to have been a disappointing betrayal of Welsh's world: what reader wants Begbie to be a buttoned-down straight citizen? Now with Dead Men's Trousers, we reconnect with the rest of the gang as they approach fifty years old, and as they jet around the world commenting on the evils of neoliberalism, Welsh seems to have become disconnected from everything that was subtle and engaging and true about his own characters; sure, people should grow up (and I'm glad none of the lads are skagboy jakeys anymore), and it's good to revisit these storylines and see how details from a few books ago have played out, but this book adds nothing to the furtherance of truth; there's no art here.

Which is when things start to go horribly wrong. The four men, driven by their personal histories and addictions, circle each other, confused, angry, and desperate. One of these four will not survive . . . Which one is wearing Dead Men’s Trousers?A] fitting send-off… When he’s at his best, Welsh spins a story of four men broken by addiction and betrayal; old friends who’ve shared their youths, somehow lived through them, and just can’t quite seem to let go.”– NPR

It is funny, unflinchingly abrasive, authentic, and inventive, unerringly on-and off-the pulse. It is a true cult, the kind of novel you press on perfect strangers. It validates a world fiction hasn’t recognized before.”– Time Out Gone are most of the things which made Welsh great in the first place - the original cultural references, the Scots dialect, the counter-culture/drugs scene, basically anything distinctively to do with contemporary Scottish life. Dead Men's Trousers, like The Blade Artist, feels extremely Americanised (or at least obviously written by an author who no longer spends his time with the people and places he writes about - someone who is out of touch, to say the least). I think this might be one of the bigger reasons why his more recent work fails to hit the mark. Then he runs into his old partner in crime, Frank Begbie, from whom he’d been hiding for years. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist in Los Angeles, and doesn’t seem interested in revenge. My favorite quote is an updated version of the "Choose Life" monologue, which completely fits our current era: Carl’s been dragging his flight case ay records wi him, perspiring like a Thatcher Cabinet minister wi the education portfolio up for grabs, and looking dangerously red.It's kind of similar to latter-day Simpsons episodes. Not quite the institution it used to be, but if you just watch to watch you can enjoy. You're nothing but a work-in-progress until that day you fall out of this world into the land ay dead men's trousers. Since reading Trainspotting, when it came out in 1993, I have read all of Irvine Welsh's books and, to one degree or another, enjoyed them all, so - full disclosure - I came to Dead Men's Trousers as a massive and long time fan of Irvine Welsh's work. Mikey waves ehs hand n shakes ehs heid. — Naw, Spud. No in likes ay drinks n that, eh laughs, hudin up his pint. — But it works better freezin organs. Among the deeper themes presented herein would be the concept of death. So many funerals. The violence scenes are serious, with the feeling that it can lead to a permanent end at any time. And about the acceptance of it. A beloved old school character even passes, but I won't spoil by saying who.

Mi sgomenta un po' adesso iniziare un nuovo romanzo, ho riso parecchio per alcuni passaggi, ho rallentato perché la lettura durasse il più possibile. Perché, dato il loro stile di vita non proprio morigerato, era inevitabile che qualcuno della banda prima o poi ci lasciasse, e quando questo alla fine accade, ci si sente quasi come aver perso un vecchio amico. Welsh presents several sub-plots within which he can introduce and withdraw his characters. The two book vendetta with the American policeman is a good example of this. The blurb flags up that a major character is going to die and it's clear who the likely candidate is, but Welsh skilfully sows doubt right up to the tragedy occurring. Previously peacable characters explode with sudden violence as decades long resentments boil over, particularly where characters have literally been too clever for their own good. While comparisons can be made to the first sequel novel Porno, which was about gentrification after coming home to the ol' scene, suddenly all our old friends are middle-aged and very successful. I suppose it has to do with the author's journey himself. But Begbie as a rich artist, Rents as a globe-trotting music manager, does it work? I don't know. Somehow, it does seem to diminish the brutality of our first impression all those years ago. At least Spud is still a loser.

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If you go for Welsh’s stuff, as I do, you’ll go for Dead Men’s Trousers with great enthusiasm. If you don’t … well, you were warned. Not to mention, this new novel also directly takes place after the solo Begbie novel Blade Artist which feels like required reading now. Then there's that novel Glue, featuring characters such as the perverted Juice Terry and DJ N-Sign--who have also been in more novels. Spud's character goes through a lot of shit in this novel. But the ending of this book suggests that the next book about these characters could be told from Spud's point of view, through his autobiography. I hope I am right. Frankly, I am such a big fan of these characters that I would read anything put out by Welsh. Another entry in the Trainspotting saga had my hopes high that Welsh might have returned to form after the slew of forgettable books he's churned out in the past decade or so. I was disappointed. If it wasn't for Skagboys, I might well be considering the idea that Trainspotting was indeed ghostwritten by Spud Murphy. Hell, maybe this is Welsh trying to tell us something? Unfortunately, this also has me questioning whether the other books are as good as I remember them being - a question which I'm sure will answer itself in due course.

There are other problems. It’s still very male-focused, not to say misogynistic. It might be plausible to depict an entirely male friendship group of 1980s junkies, but Renton and Begbie now work in gender-balanced fields, and the women in the novel are almost exclusively trophies, victims, or whores. You can always tell the status of a Welsh character by the blondness and waist measurement of his girlfriend. For all the sound and fury about “neoliberal Christmas” (the subhead for part one), Renton and Begbie have become a cultural brand, safe and replicable.Raunchy, profane, violent, and frequently hilarious… Dead Men’s Trousers delivers a strangely life-affirming dose of dark absurdity, ensuring that, if this is the last we see of these characters, they won’t soon be forgotten.” – *starred* Booklist review But everyone other than Spud is comparatively rich – most especially the Miami-based Welsh himself – and they all spend their time in pursuit of the “more” that will finally fill their empty spaces. Other than for the tying up of some old loose ends, Dead Men's Trousers is a fairly pointless read. Even so, every now and then, Welsh throws in an old school passage that made me smile: I love these boys, and reading this book was murder. Desperate to just zoom through, to inhale the violence, the shagging, the plots, the revenge, I forced myself to go as slowly as possible and savour every moment. It was torture. Mark Renton is finally a success. He now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms, and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with life. The parts with Begbie are also a huge improvement from the disappointing The Blade Artist. I respect Welsh for pulling off Begbie's transformation from a psychotic force of nature to a well known artist, loyal teetotaler husband and responsible father of two kids. He is still a psycho to people who try to mess with his family. I guess Welsh was trying to make the point that truly great artists are not what they seem to be on the surface.