Autobiography or not, Irvine Welsh is on to something he could not have made up.
Whilst his novel ‘Trainspotting’ was withdrawn from the Booker shortlist in 1993 for being ‘offensive’, on Friday he was quizzed about a phrase which has inspired an attendant university student’s dissertation, no less. ‘To label me is to negate me’ she quoted. Clearly this has not rung true of Welsh.
The amphitheatre was positively buzzing with fans’ worship; at least half would not have been born when ‘Trainspotting’ first came out and inspired Danny Boyle’s film of the same name.
The excitement spawned by ‘The Blade Artist’, Welsh’s latest instalment of a saga not previously envisaged, but set up in ‘Trainspotting’, followed through in ‘Skagboys’ and ‘Porno’ prompted a pleading for a further follow-up novel.
Welsh was not making promises he couldn’t keep. The new novel’s drama turns on the conflict between Begbie’s evidently transformed self and his peers’ expectations he would be exactly the same. Yet host Simon Toyne revealed his own relief that Begbie revert to his familiar self after all, so whether Welsh finds mileage in keeping these characters on remains to be seen.
Still, ‘Trainspotting 2’ is being filmed next month.
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