tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post114883942890630244..comments2024-03-29T05:07:02.453+00:00Comments on Grumpy Old Bookman: TrainspottingMichael Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11338398159818400930noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-84267091648047026252011-08-15T12:16:26.998+01:002011-08-15T12:16:26.998+01:00Unreadable, you say.
Well, Francis Ellen, I'm...Unreadable, you say. <br />Well, Francis Ellen, I'm Polish, never been to Scotland, don't know Scots, read it when I was 20 (that was 5 years ago, I did not know the language that well back then), had to read the first page about 20 times, but all in all managed to understand it.<br />It always amuses me when native English speakers say it's too hard... Perhaps you're a bit lazy, eh?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1165164930664934312006-12-03T16:55:00.000+00:002006-12-03T16:55:00.000+00:00FrancisI think if you persevere with the book the ...Francis<BR/><BR/>I think if you persevere with the book the accent gets easier to read, I found it hard to begin with but began to get used to it so much that it didn't bother me any more. I can't say anything about it being authentic or not, but I'm not sure how much that matters. Welsh used the accent rather than the dialect of Leith so that people who are not from Leith can nevertheless understand it, therefore he makes his point without making the text totally incomprehensible.<BR/><BR/>Welsh is, by using the Scottish dialect as the main narratorial voice, challenging constraints that have been put on almost everyone who does not have the middle-class BBC accent which is what books are almost invariably written in. Looking at Chaucer, Robert Burns and even Shakespeare you can see that language was more fluid then, and it is only due to coincidence and the way that the educated classes speak that language evolved like that. The dialect in Trainspotting is essential to it's core and message. <BR/><BR/>I'm not saying that using dialect is always a strong statement of identity in fiction; indeed it can often descend into stereotype, which I think is possibly the danger if you only give indications of accent as I think someone suggested earlier. <BR/><BR/>I would reccomend that you persevere with Trainspotting, you seriously do get used to the accent. Throughout the book language is used by the main character, Renton, to great effect. The use of accent in narrating the book is essential to it's themes, and I'd say it's well worth a read.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1149032474986363822006-05-31T00:41:00.000+01:002006-05-31T00:41:00.000+01:00How very different from the home life of our own d...How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1148910980450150172006-05-29T14:56:00.000+01:002006-05-29T14:56:00.000+01:00I really liked the book "Trainspotting", it had en...I really liked the book "Trainspotting", it had energy, verve etc. And it was short! <BR/>Unfortunately, as with other similar "groundbreaking" books (allowing things to be written that weren't previously), eg "Last Exit to Brooklyn", a host of poor imitators has ensued, big on the shock stuff and low on the talent. (Also, I have not liked Welsh's subesequent output as much as TS).<BR/><BR/>I thought the film was weak and romanticised.<BR/><BR/>Not sure whether I want to see the play or not based on your review. Did all those things happen in the book? I can't now remember (eg the waitress anecdote). I wonder if the author of the play added them in?<BR/><BR/>You are very right about times changing. Do you remember the fuss about that Edward Bond (have I got the author right?) play about the baby? Someone throwing a rock into the pram if I remember rightly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6656468.post-1148903632452864992006-05-29T12:53:00.000+01:002006-05-29T12:53:00.000+01:00Just a little on accents in Trainspotting.I haven'...Just a little on accents in Trainspotting.<BR/><BR/>I haven't read Trainspotting and I never will. I found it utterly unreadable.<BR/><BR/>Well, here we have an 'extreme' Scottish accent. Perhaps I'm just not up to it?<BR/><BR/>But the problem with trying to phonetically represent accents is that the writer surely has to take the host (reader) position. How do people with different accents themselves read Trainspotting? It is impossible to phonetically represent accents properly because the reading requires a reader, and the reader's 'inner voice' decides how it sounds, and if it sounds 'wrong' then what's the point? <BR/><BR/>Not only would I say that Trainspotting is the same old dreary tale of all drug addicts that I'd heard a thousand times before this novel; the accents do not even work for people who actually come from the area where the story is set.<BR/><BR/>It received huge critical acclaim, the movie was watchable, and a rather famous American politician even commented on it (providing Mr. Welsh with a living despite his subsequent novels).<BR/><BR/>But I find the whole accent thing strange because the writer claims to come from Leith and one would suppose that he knows how a Leith accent sounds. <BR/><BR/>Did anyone 'really' read this book? I can read and, unlike Welsh himself, I grew up in Leith, so one would think I'd be able to read it at least as easily as anyone else. <BR/><BR/>I'm sure there must be people reading this who read the book. But I can't figure how they would do that. The Leith 'accent' may not be a separate language but it has to surely qualify as a dialect. I know almost every word of that dialect (outside of the very new) but turning myself into a four-year old child isn't my idea of how to read a book for fun. How can that be entertaining? I mean, it is a novel, no? It isn't a textbook so it's supposed to be fun. Or is that naive? Is there another reason to read a novel? Will I be a better person if I force myself through pain?<BR/><BR/>The only people I ever met who say they 'like' this book (and I've met a lot of them) sound more like football fans than people who read a book. It seems to have the same kind of attraction as reading Proust or Beckett; like eating a witchetty grub or some kind of gonad to impress oneself. I just don't believe people who say they enjoyed this book.<BR/><BR/>I was brought up on the very streets where all of the action takes place and Mr. Welsh got the accents wrong. My own (Leith) accent was (apparently) so strong that on my first day at secondary school a wonderful teacher (of whom I had just asked "Where's the toilet, Miss?" in that rather desperate way only an 11 year-old can) informed me that I was 'scum' (because of my accent — and I hadn't even started on heroin by then). <BR/><BR/>But hell, drugs are trendy and controversial and we all like to see how these strange sub-cultures live, I suppose. <BR/><BR/>I once read an interview with top London agent, Georgina Capel, who sent Trainspotting to an American publisher with "I dare you to publish this." as the only words written about it. Wooooo. They certainly went out of their way to create the ‘right’ mythology.<BR/><BR/>I always thought that the reason we (writers) use just a slight suggestion of an accent now and again is that we just want to tell the story. We don't want to drive people crazy. Almost to a man, 'rough types' (such as myself) in Leith start sentences (often every single one) with the word 'cunt'. I know this; I even used to speak like this. If I decide to write a story set in Leith should I use the word authentically? Would that make me trendy enough to attract publishers? Would Georgina Capel dare a yank publisher to publish me, and if so would he do that without having any chance of reading me? (Just like Irvine.)<BR/><BR/>I suspect an industry got horny for this book. Right time, right place. <BR/><BR/>It all sounds like a crock to me. There was something afoot because this book (if I might use the Leith vernacular) is a lump of shite.<BR/><BR/>Sorry: Cun'i'za Lumpasheeyaee'.<BR/><BR/>(... the ' represents a guttural stop — for all the Trainspotting fans who have fun with funetix).<BR/><BR/>Francis Ellen <BR/>(embittered writer)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com