Croxy, sweating from exertion rather than from drug abuse for once in his life, struggles up the stairs with the last box of records as I collapse on the bed, gaping through a numb depression at the cream woodchip walls. This is my new home. One poky room, fourteen foot by twelve, with an attached hallway, kitchen and bath-room. The room contains a built-in wardrobe with no doors, my bed, and just about space for two chairs and a table. I couldn't sit in here: prison would be better. I'd fucking well go back up to Edinburgh and swap Frank Begbie his cell for this frozen hovel.
This confined space the stench of old fags from Croxy is suffocating. I've gone three weeks without a cigarette, but I've passive-smoked about thirty a day just from being in his proximity. - Thirsty work, eh, Simon? You coming down the Pepys for one? he asks, his enthusiasm seeming like a gloat, a calculated sneer at one Simon David Williamson's reduced circumstances.
On one level it would be sheer fucking folly to go down Mare Street, to the Pepys, so that they can all snicker, 'Back in Hackney, Simon?' but, aye, company is what's wanted. Ears must be bent. Steam has to be let off. Also, Croxy needs an airing. Trying to give up fags in his company is like trying to come off gear in a squat full of junkies.
Ideona n. 18.732
Più sudato, almeno stavolta in vita sua, per lo sforzo fisico che per l’abuso di droga, Croxy sale le scale sbanfando con l’ultimo scatolone di dischi mentre io crollo sul letto, occhi fissi attraverso una depressione sorda sulle pareti in truciolato crema. Questa è la mia nuova casa. Una stanza da miseria, quattro e mezzo per tre e mezzo, più ingresso, bagno e cucina. La stanza è completa di armadio a muro senza porte, del mio letto nonché di spazio appena suffidente per due sedie e un tavolino. Ma qui non ci potrei restar seduto: meglio il gabbio, sarebbe. Tanto valeva allora tornar su in quella cazzo di Edimburgo e far cambio con Frank Begbie: la sua cella per questa topaia glaciale.
In questo spazio sacrificato il tanfo di vecchie paglie di Croxy ti asfissia. Tre settimane che faccio senza sigarette, ma solo a stargli nei pressi ne avrò fumate trenta al giorno in passivo. «Vien sete, eh, Simon? Scendi mica giù al Pepys a berti un birrozzo?» mi fa, il suo entusiasmo che sembra più un gongolamento, uno sbeffeggio calcolato alla ristrettezza dove è caduto un certo Simon David Williamson.
A un certo livello, è pura follia del cazzo andare al Pepys, in Mare Street, per farli sghignazzare tutti:« Di nuovo a Hackney, Simon? »Ma vabbe', qua urge compagnia. Orecchie basse. Boria, non pervenuta. E poi, a Croxy gli farà bene un po' d'aria. Tentare di darci un taglio alle cicche con lui vicino è come tentare di disintossicarti in un casamento occupato da squatter tossici.
Reviews
In a wily "Big Chill" maneuver, Welsh brings back the cast of his iconic first novel, "Trainspotting," for a serially narrated Edinburgh reunion, but, though ten years have passed, none of these seedy characters have grown up at all. When pimping and pub proprietorship become a bore, Sick Boy and Renton turn their energies to the production of a porn film entitled "Seven Rides for Seven Brothers," in which they and their nearest and dearest play starring roles. Brawling, bonking, and Scots brogue aside, there's room for some solid satire -- of gentrification, globalization, and the hypocrisy of Britain's Labour Government. Surprisingly, the book's most convincing voice is that of its only female narrator, an ambitious Sick Girl, who takes on each man and somehow comes out a winner.
The New YorkerThe Trainspotting gang returns in a sequel to Welsh's cult novel, this time trying to scheme their way into the annals of adult entertainment. Ten years older, but criminally irresponsible as ever, Sick Boy, Renton, Begbie and Spud are still focusing on illicit drugs and seedy sex. Budding entrepreneur Sick Boy or Simon, as he prefers to be called now comes up with the brilliant idea of starting a porno flick company in Edinburgh, and hunts down Renton in Amsterdam, where his former friend owns a nightclub. With the help of Nikki Fuller-Smith, a ravishing and frustrated undergraduate film student and part-time sex worker aching for fame, the two begin filming and marketing their first movie, making it all the way to the top of the industry before the inevitable crash. Meanwhile, homicidal Begbie and pathetic Spud lurk in the background, waiting to crash the party. To boost the hormonal rush of the narrative, Welsh tells the story from different points of view, the thickness of the dialect varying convincingly from voice to voice (English Nikki quotes from Middlemarch, while the nearly incomprehensible Begbie says things like "Ah lits um go tae git the bat wi baith hands"). As has been noted many times, Welsh has an uncanny talent for dialogue, and his writing is often diamond sharp (a sexual encounter is described as "raging bull and mad cow get on board the love boat"). If this follow-up feels less urgent than the original, it is no reflection on Welsh, but rather on the growing familiarity of the terrain he has so inimitably staked out.
Publishers Weekly
