Porno [ハードカバー]

Before you read this book, you definitely must first read Welsh's first novel Trainspotting, and you should probably also read his last one, Glue. Porno is a direct sequel to Trainspotting, bringing back virtually all the characters some ten years later, and it's a semi-sequel to Glue, adding some of that book's characters into the mix, most notably "Juice" Terry Lawton and Rab Birrell. Porno will lack a great deal of depth and resonance for readers not familiar with those earlier books and their characters and settings.

And therein lies both Porno's attraction and minor disappointments. If you loved Trainspotting, reading Porno is very much like the experience of having seen a great band in a tiny club when they were just starting, and then seeing the same band ten years later in a large venue when they are more popular. They may still be amazing and play your favorite songs, but inevitably they've mellowed a touch, the intensity is isn't the same, and you get a little wistful. And to a certain extent, that's exactly what the book is about, aging, maturing, and getting over one's past. It's totally unfair to expect another Trainspotting from Welsh, an author can only write that passionate and electric a book once, and it's usually the first book they write. In any event, readers have had ten years to get used to reading Scots dialect and it's hard to conceive of what Welsh could write about that would be equally shocking as his heroin underworld.

In any event, Porno is a carefully plotted and constructed story, told in alternating first-person chapters by Sick Boy, his new lady Nikki Fuller-Smith, Spud, Begbie, and Renton. The central character is Sick Boy, who's seeking to reinvent himself as post-millenium entrepreneur, starting by making a porn film with his circle of acquaintances. Eventually this intertwines with the reappearance of Renton and the question of what went down in London ten years ago when he cheated Sick Boy, Begbie, and Spud on a heroin deal and skipped town. Cynics will no doubt say that Welsh is looking to ride the sequel bus to potloads of money, which is, again, unfair. Clearly the Trainspotting crew were the characters closest to his heart, so of course he's going to want to revisit them and it seems churlish to suggest that an author who uses characters twice is a sellout.

Foe most part the characters are exactly as they were in the earlier books, although to varying degrees, most realize they're getting older and need to change. In this regard, Spud's story is the most poignant and affecting of the lot. And of course Renton's attempt to settle the past and lead a normal life is hard not to empathize with, which is why mad-dog Begbie is such a menacing presence throughout the book. Ultimately however, this is a comedy, lacking the darkness of Trainspotting, or Welsh's severely underrated Filth. It's a wonderful sentimental adventure full or wacky hi-jinks, and comuppances aplenty.

Well, it's ten years after Mark Renton stole the loot the Trainspotting boys made off the drug sale and Begbie went to prison and his other "friends" Sick Boy and Spud are up to their normal routines. Sick Boy decides to leave London and go back to Leith and quickly falls in with a friend who's into porno. Sick Boy sees a career (and a ton of money for himself) and begins the scam to make himself rich. He digs up Renton and talks him into returning to help him and soon they begin scamming each other. Finally, Begbie gets out of prison (it hasn't mellowed him) and he's looking for Renton and his revenge.

The book is a high energy romp through a segment of the pornography business and Welsh keeps ratcheting up the tension as time goes on and the book approaches it's climax. Despite that, he continues to approach the topic (and his characters) with a good deal of humor. This is a real page turner and deserves to be picked up.

I've heard rumors of a movie being planned which would be great. Don't let the title mislead you, the book is not primarily about sex but rather the industry, the deals, and the crazy lives of the players. Many old Trainspotting favorites turn up (some briefly but often memorably) and the new characters are interesting to follow as well.

"Porno" is a rambunctious, high-energy, coked-up and stressed-out sequel to the much bleaker (and much better) junkie opera "Trainspotting", a story of a gang of Scots trying to make ends meet- perpetual losers, screwups, abusers, junkies and sluts that they are- in despair-ridden urban Scotland. This time around, Welsh takes us on a globe-hopping trip through the bright-n'-happy streets of London to the decadent Red Light District in Amsterdam, all the way to a French film festival, letting these whacked-out sociopaths roam free in a guilt-free environment. This is one metaphor for the change in the book- gone is the heroin-addled pathos of "Trainspotting", "Porno" embraces a sillier, stranger tones with dollops of surreal humor and the same working-class Scottish dialect Welsh fans have come to know and love. There are still some moments of heartbreak and disgust, as with any Welsh novel, but ostensibly (as one reviewer described it) "Porno" is "Seinfeld" on hard drugs, let loose in the ghettoes of Scotland. Which might not be such a bad thing after all.

After a sizeable hiatus from his grime-ridden criminal roots, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson returns to his hometown of Edinburgh to start up a pub. With business as slow as ever, and cocaine, ecstasy and birds taking up his every breathing moment, thus preventing our scheming hero from getting anything done, Sick Boy gets a flash of inspiration: make a porno film, build an empire and make tons of cash. Our sleazy chum starts recruiting nubile young stars for his film "Seven Holes for Seven Brothers", including fantastically endowed local drunk Juice Terry Lawson, student-type raver Rab Birrel and a pretty young thing named Nikki Fuller-Lawson, whom Simon strikes up an affair with. Sooner or later, however, problems arise when Mark Renton makes his way back onto the scene, with a cache full of the money he stole from Simon and his mates ten years prior. And yet, its Spud Murphy, that sweet-hearted, but essentially dimwitted smackhead, now an aspiring novelist, and the cold-blooded, sexually and verbally abusive sociopath Begbie, now fresh out of a prison sentence full of "poof's porn", that may be the ones to watch out for.

"Porno", like many other Welsh works, runs the gamut of emotions from sick humor to depraved desparation to keen political and social commentary- there's actually some rather witty satire on the status of labor unions, feminism and the adult film industry to be found here. Mostly though, it's a chance for Welsh to show off his well-honed skills in dialect and storytelling, including many riotous set pieces, not the least funny of which has a junked-out Spud desperately trying to fix a crying woman's dishwashing machine. And yet we find that sooner or later, these events dissolve into tragedy and sadness, as Mark Renton intends to make off with the money, Sick Boy uses and abuses those who work for him and Franco Begbie goes buck-wild with bloodthirsty, savage rage, personified in a chilling rape scene perpetrated on a street prostitute. All in all, "Porno" is about the friendship of that same old group of losers, propelling themselves with loving longing to the day that it would all go wrong, and ranting, raping and raving in the midst of the sick pleasure of it all. It may not be "Trainspotting", but it comes damn close.