synopsis:

'Trainspotting' is about a group of addicts living in Edinburgh, Scotland. The novel describes their different ways of living, surviving and being. We are introduced to a lifestyle far away from our own, but yet well known through series of films and books on the subject. It's a lifestyle filled with cheating, stealing, fighting, lying and escaping. We follow the characters through a collection of short stories, which are tied together by the characters and related events. They are all addicted to something, whether it's heroin, alcohol, adrenaline or sex. Their addictions represent, in a way, their escape from society and reality. They are so convinced of the meaninglessness of any effort, the hopelessness of the future, and the humiliation of being Scottish, that taking drugs begins to seem as a logical option, even to the reader. The drugs transform an otherwise methodical life into a more intense and fleeting adventure. At times it is darkly comic. This book is predominantly depressing when you come to realise that the lives of these people are nothing but a dead end, literally. Trainspotting attempts to deal with the current drug culture. It does not judge and it doesn't glorify. It simply describes.

on this book:

'Trainspotting' was first published in 1993, but it was the making of the film in 1996 that really set speed to its popularity. it is Irvine Welsh's debut novel. According to Welsh 'Trainspotting' was set in Edinburgh between 1982 and 1988, but the issues of drug addiction and drug abuse and the on going HIV issues are as pertinent as ever.

The point of view changes every other page and so does the dialogue, the dialect, the atmosphere, the topic, the intended audience and the tone. The difficulty of reading also varies from character to character. It is written partly in third person, and from several different first person perspectives. This allows us to look inside the various hearts and minds of the characters. With every chapter we come to know the minds and ways of these people in different ways, and that might basically be the theme.

Another way of interpreting the theme is to look at the meaning of the title, 'Trainspotting'. Trainspotting, or to be a trainspotter, is to be obsessed with the arrivals and departures of trains. Trainspotters are people who wait at train stations and depots in an attempt to catalogue, by number, all of the trains in the British rail system. This is naturally impossible; one train will always be missed because a trainspotter can not be in all places at all times. To quote Irvine Welsh: "Trainspotting is a futile occupation, as is drug taking."