Filth

The pure disgust that oozes out of D.S. Bruce Robertson is so absurd that it becomes hilarious more than anything. With his tried-and-true motto of "the same rules apply," Bruce does his utmost to offend/degrade everyone and anyone, which for a duration of the novel appears to have little consequence. He offers his eczema-ridden "prime Scotch beef" to women constantly (some have fallen under his trap and are just eager for intimacy, while many are paid to enjoy his rash-ridden nether-region) and consumes drugs at any given opportunity. With a promotion on the line, Bruce also spends much time pitting his department friends against each other to limit the competition. Bruce knows he's a repulsive human being, but nonetheless he accepts show more the lifestyle of filth with humorous grace.

However, as the ever-creeping tapeworm inside Bruce's stomach continues to engulf the page (literally, which can become quite frustrating yet intriguing)and reflect upon his "host's" miserable existence, Welsh concludes this tale of ridiculous immorality with a surprisingly brutal ending that leaves you floored.

There is definitely a lot of shock value that will turn off many readers, but I for one found this to be an immensely entertaining read that strives to make the main character utterly unlikeable in the most unbelievable ways. show less

Filth You know about hard boiled crime fiction and noire?....well this is more than that.....it is putrid, it is decaying, rotting, stinking, disgusting, it is foul. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth as you read it. You will start to itch and feel scabby. You will want to vomit ad probably will then wish you hadn't. You will want to hold your nose and block your ears. You will cringe and shrink from normal human beings, you will forget about nice and wonder if you will ever know clean again. But you won't put it down until it is finished. It is vile.

Appalling and compulsively readable. You find out something in the end that will shock you and throw everything in the preceding x-hundred pages into an entirely different light. If you dislike bad language, this book is not for you. I find Irvine Welsh intriguing, though. He also wrote Trainspotting. Different subject matter, different voice, same flair.

So delicously revolting. Welsh is at his best, here. The metaphor is spot on. The dynamic narrative device is shocking and perfect. Bruce Robertson is a nasty, nasty piece of work, making Francis Begbie look positively choirboy-like in comparison. The twist, when it comes (and that's not a spoiler--it's Welsh, so you knew there would be one) is shocking and yet fits so perfectly all at the same time that it seems to have been crystal clear from the beginning. Not for the faint of heart, but if you want to see the power of disgust explored by a master of the craft, get this book immediately. Recommended.

Any book written in the first person has to deal with the problem of getting across to the reader all those things the narrator doesn’t know or isn’t prepared to acknowledge. It takes a special sort of author to think: “I know, let’s use a talking tapeworm”.

And so here is a novel about a bent policeman, a man with so many prejudices they are impossible to count, who treats both his enemies and his friends with breathtaking contempt, who drinks, takes drugs, and refers to all women as “hoors”. The content is often shocking and extreme, and borders on too much information as he attempts to expel the said talking tapeworm from his scab encrusted rear.

I struggled to get into it in its early stages. It was wall-to-wall show more egregious behaviour, and it made me think how important it is, even in a book about someone utterly amoral, to have some spark of goodness to lighten the way, so there I was like a man dying of thirst in the desert desperately searching for some evidence of humanity in this character’s corrupt soul. Eventually there was that chink of light, and as with all Irvine Welsh novels, this turns out to have depths I didn’t suspect, and by the end I was quite in awe of its complexity, its extensive cast, and the way the action was sustained evenly over so many pages. There was some tremendous dark humour too (I loved the bit with the dog on the farm).

It can be an unsettling read. The Scottish slang talk, the phonetic spelling, the shocking events and the depths it plumbs are just the same as those in Trainspotting, yet it’s harder to laugh at this one. I think that’s because Trainspotting is about junkies and we expect the worst of them, whereas this is about the police and we want to expect the best from them. I had the feeling the author was drawing our attention to the real dangers of freemasonry within the police, and suggesting that all coppers are bent, they all take drugs, they all have 100% contempt for the public. Maybe I am being naive but I don’t want to believe it. show less

I tried reading this book a few years ago, and like many of the other reviewers found it just too distasteful to continue... the Scottish writing and slang notwithstanding... it's hard to get into a book where you despise the main character from the get go.
But I tried it again, and I'm glad that I did...
Like most unpleasant things, if you just try to power through it you can get to something rewarding.
Once things really start falling apart for Mr. Robertson I couldn't put the book down... my poor neglected girlfriend can attest to that.
Now that I'm done I'm going to take a shower and read something fuzzier... like the new Stephen King I just got.

If you indulge in Irvine Welsh then expect to be shocked, his writing and his descriptions are at times excruciatingly painful to read. Sergeant Bruce Robertson is a typical Welsh character, he takes what he wants lives life to access and does not care if his actions harm or destroy anyone in the process. He is at heart a narcissist possessing an inflated sense of his own importance involved in numerous female liasions with little or no empathy for others. However underneath this facade is a very troubled possibly suicidal man, and the author uses a very clever way to disclose this to the reader. Robertson's use of alcohol and recreational drugs, with little or no intake of nutrition, have caused a deterioration in his health and he show more appears to be harboring an intestinal worm. This parasite becomes the main source of information for the detectives's increasingly bizarre behaviour, a very original and highly entertaining element in a narration not for the faint hearted. show less