Irvine Welch's Porno is a slick, befuddling sequel to Trainspotting
by John Sewell
I'm always put off by how the publishing houses will print a new edition of any novel as soon as the film version is released. I mean, even if it's a great book, it's unlikely that I'm going to purchase the paperback version of any literary masterpiece that has a photo of Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson, or even the wonderful Ewan McGregor on the cover. Hey, I am a poseur with artsy pretensions and sure wouldn't want anyone to think—even for a minute—that I'm reading a book because I saw the movie first.
Ever the hypocrite, my approach to Irvine Welsh's Porno (Norton) was sort of backwards. The film version of Porno has yet to be produced; but I'm sure it's coming. Porno features characters from Welch's first big novel (and subsequent movie blockbuster) Trainspotting. And, other than reading interviews with the author, viewing Trainspotting has been my only  introduction to Welsh's work. So I'll just be honest and say that my perception of the characters and plot of Porno was compromised because I envisioned a sequel to Trainspotting, including the characters and rapid-fire imagery of the film, as I read the novel.
Porno opens with Simon David Williamson (alias "Sickboy") returning to his hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland after inheriting a pub. A decade has passed and the protagonist is older, but apparently hasn't gained one iota of depth or maturity since the dopesick daze chronicled in Trainspotting. OK, he may not be visiting Mr. Brownstone on a regular basis, but Sickboy is ingesting other drugs at such a relentless pace that it would be impossible for him to attain a single moment of clarity. Of course, this is the character that Welsh's readers love, and this kind of behavior is requisite in all of Welch's writing.
In a soliloquy from early in the book, Sickboy explains (while smoking rock cocaine) the rationale behind his choice of drugs to ingest. "I look at the spoon, the paraphernalia, and think with detached concern about how it all seems too reminiscent of my skag days. But fuck that; I'm older and wiser and skag's skag and crack's crack."
After returning to Edinburgh, Sickboy falls in with his old gang. And, guess what, as soon as the crew is reassembled a shady, get-rich-quick scheme is concocted involving all of the merry miscreants from Trainspotting. And what do you know, they're going to produce a porn film.
Ever the envelope pusher and cultural provocateur, it seems that Welsh himself has tapped into a potential gold mine by glamorizing pornography just as he glamorized drug use in Trainspotting. One could argue that neither book serves to glamorize its subject as both books catalogue myriad grotesqueries. But the admirers of Welch's work (including myself) come seeking a guided tour of hell, complete with copious salacious thrills, devoid of moralizing.
Viewed as an artfully wrought picaresque novel taken to the extreme, Porno delivers everything one could want: morally bereft characters, a deluge of sex and violence, a creepy view of the post-midnight world, and plenty of slang and swearing, delivered in Welsh's inimitable first person Scottish dialect. However, the nonstop ugliness presented in Porno (like pornography itself) becomes numbing after a while.
A maddening thing about Porno is the novel's ever-shifting perspective. Each chapter is presented from the point of view of a different character, and it is sometimes confusing just who is doing the talking. That said, Welsh employs the shifting narrative to give added dimension to each character. And this technique actually works, provided the reader is vigilant in keeping up with exactly who is who.
Porno's rapid fire delivery is best handled in small doses. In short bursts, it's brilliant—whereas in a steady stream, it's befuddling. Chapter 14, for example, entitled "Scam #18,737" makes more sense read as single installment in a series.
Like a week-long stimulant binge, what begins as explosive excitement ends as a series of disjointed yammering. Welsh, seeking to create a tightly intertwined labyrinth that leads to one conclusion, has instead created so many divergences that readers are tempted to give up on the entire endeavor. The fact that none of the characters are particularly likeable hammers this home. The amorality of all the key players provides such a lack of contrast that Porno gets stuck in a subterranean mire.
As far as I'm concerned, Welsh should have taken postmodernism to a new extreme and put a photo of Ewan McGregor on the cover to begin with. As a novel, Porno seems like a text version of a movie script created after the fact. It's as if you're reading a treatment for a long, hideous MTV video written by a cracked out Scottish Dante. The coming film will surely be fun, fast-paced, ugly and diverting. And, like the book, it will be a quickly forgotten cheap thrill.
November 14, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 46
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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