Porno by Irvine Welsh (2003)

"Porno" is a novel that follows up from two of Welsh's previous novels, "Trainspotting" and "Glue" featuring characters from both of them and referring back to scenes from both.

The plot roughly centers on a few of the characters who meet up in Edinburgh and decide to make an adult movie together.

Mark Renton is back in Edinburgh after a long exile in Amsterdam, having ripped his buddies off at the end of "Trainspotting" when he took the group's drug money and ran off. In the meantime he's gotten himself cleaned up from heroin and turned into a decent businessman in Amsterdam's red light district.

He spends most of the book trying to avoid Begby, the nasty, mean, violent fellow who was one of his buddies he ripped off, and who's out of jail. Begby is so mean and nasty that when he beats up his girlfriend he's not sorry, he's so terrible, he doesn't even know it's wrong... And when he hears Rents is back, he wants revenge.

Terry is more than happy to star in the adult movie, since that's one of the few things he's ever been good at... He's the happiest of the whole group, or at least until he gets an improbable injury while filming...

Another character from "Trainspotting," Spud is wandering around, trying to get off heroin again and again, but always relapsing. He thinks writing a history of Leith will give him something to do, but once he starts he finds out he has no idea how to research or write and no one is even remotely supportive...

Spud has what must be the absolute, most utterly disgusting sex scene I've ever read anywhere, when he randomly meets a junkie girl in a park, for whom drugs have far overtaken hygiene... ( )

Fajn, dočteno, můžu do kina na T2 :D
Hrozně mne prudila první pětina, takže jsem tuto knížku četla hrozně moc let:) Sickboy je nejvíc nesympatická postava, úpe ho nesnáším a začátek byl hlavně o těch jeho fintičkách, manipulaci s lidma, pasení žen... ale jakmile se vrátí do Leithu, přidají se i další postavy. Ve vyprávění se střídají postavy z Trainspottingu a tak je (opět) každý pohled vyprávěn jiným stylem. Kdo nečetl Trainspotting, asi měl v tom zmatek, sice zde byl více propracovaný příběh, ale stále byl spíše nití, která se proplétá mezi ukázkama osudů bývalých hrdinů: Spud je nonstop vyspídovanej kočičák, Begbič- ještě víc vole násilnická paranoidní begpíča, jen ten Renta je vlastně sympoš, ale popsán tak nějak ploše, že je potřeba znát minulost mezi ním a Sickboyem, aby jeho druhej podraz byl víc pochopitelnej (a dal to, opět Sickboye obral! :D )
Jinak nejlepší na knize sou ilustrace :-)))) ( )

Porno is the sequel to Trainspotting.

Plot:
Ten years after the events of Trainspotting, Sick Boy inherits a pub in Leith from his aunt, so he leaves London behind where things haven't been going that well for him anyway, hoping to be on the winning side of gentrification for once. But before things take off in that direction, Sick Boy finds himself hosting an amateur porn shoot in his pub. But Sick Boy isn't the only one returning to Leith: Begbie is being released from prison and even Renton returns from his exile in Amsterdam, hoping to avoid pretty much everybody he knows from back then, except maybe for Spud who is desperately trying to stay clean.

Porno was an excellent continuation of Trainspotting, but also different in many ways. It's a strong book, looking at some of humanity's worst traits without losing all hope entirely.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.com/2017/06/03/porno-irvine-welsh/ ( )

So I picked up this book because I'm trying to read more from my bookshelves before I have to move sometime in the next year or so.

I had already read about half of this book but had put it down after Welsh wrote something awful happening to one of the female characters, and I didn't feel like reading it anymore.

18 months or so later, I picked it up and read all the way to the end. Whew.

Porno is shocking and sexy and awful, utterly awful, as Welsh's writing usually is. I will say that it is a departure from Trainspotting in that there's slightly less drug use and quite a bit more sex.

One thing that I didn't like about it was the sheer amount of sexual violence against women. I also felt that Trainspotting has a lot more depth to it as a novel. Porno? Not so much, this felt a little bit more like fan service, as if the characters were allowed to get away with so much more just because of who they were.

I did like the writing, I love reading some of Welsh's words and the way he weaves his story in phonetic Scots and Scots Leid and all the slang, even if it is difficult to read sometimes. I still found it really readable, but I didn't love it as much as I loved Trainspotting.

Oh, and trigger warnings for all the things. Sexual violence, assault, drug use, drug references, non-consensual sex, all the things. It's an Irvine Welsh novel. ( )