Porno

by Irvine Welsh

Book Overview

In the last gasp of youth, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson is back in Edinburgh. He taps into one last great scam: directing and producing a porn film. To make it work, he needs bedfellows: the lovely Nikki Fuller-Smith, a student with ambition, ego, and troubles to rival his own; old pal Mark Renton; and a motley crew that includes the neighborhood's favorite ex-beverage salesman, "Juice" Terry.

In the world of Porno, however, even the cons are...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393324508
• ISBN13: 9780393324501
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Love it!

Love it!

this is not a waste of time

Irvine Welsh is one of the most brilliant writers I know, he has mannaged to create a sequell to "Trainspotting" which is not dissapointing as I expected it to be. in this book you get to know more about simon (sick boy), begbie and spud murphy from their one point of view , about severall characters who appear also in "Glue" ( Terry, rab birrell...) and to an interesting new female character (nikki).Welsh has an extraordinary talent of bringing his characters alive and making you feel as if they realy exist. the ending is just perfect. you must read this!

Excellent Folowup to Trainspotting

Well, it's ten years after Mark Renton stole the loot the Trainspotting boys made off the drug sale and Begbie went to prison and his other "friends" Sick Boy and Spud are up to their normal routines. Sick Boy decides to leave London and go back to Leith and quickly falls in with a friend who's into porno. Sick Boy sees a career (and a ton of money for himself) and begins the scam to make himself rich. He digs up Renton and talks him into returning to help him and soon they begin scamming each other. Finally, Begbie gets out of prison (it hasn't mellowed him) and he's looking for Renton and his revenge.The book is a high energy romp through a segment of the pornography business and Welsh keeps ratcheting up the tension as time goes on and the book approaches it's climax. Despite that, he continues to approach the topic (and his characters) with a good deal of humor. This is a real page turner and deserves to be picked up.I've heard rumors of a movie being planned which would be great. Don't let the title mislead you, the book is not primarily about sex but rather the industry, the deals, and the crazy lives of the players. Many old Trainspotting favorites turn up (some briefly but often memorably) and the new characters are interesting to follow as well.

Let's make a film

Irvine Welsh is one of my favorite writers. His last few books GLue and Filth were difficult to get into, even though they were risky books to write. They were funny and strange. They were a walk in the fields. Porno is more in line with Trainspotting, Acid House, and Ecstacy. Porno even takes the characters of Trainspotting and meets them ten years down the road. Like Faulkner wrote about his little town and used some of the same characters, one gets a feeling that Welsh will be writing about Renton, Sick Boy, and Begbie until they die. In this book, Sick Boy and Renton are still up to their underworld lives. Sick Boy is making a porn film. Begbie is out of jail and seeks revenge. The comedy starts then. It is one of Welsh's best books.

All the young junkies...

Before you read this book, you definitely must first read Welsh's first novel Trainspotting, and you should probably also read his last one, Glue. Porno is a direct sequel to Trainspotting, bringing back virtually all the characters some ten years later, and it's a semi-sequel to Glue, adding some of that book's characters into the mix, most notably "Juice" Terry Lawton and Rab Birrell. Porno will lack a great deal of depth and resonance for readers not familiar with those earlier books and their characters and settings.And therein lies both Porno's attraction and minor disappointments. If you loved Trainspotting, reading Porno is very much like the experience of having seen a great band in a tiny club when they were just starting, and then seeing the same band ten years later in a large venue when they are more popular. They may still be amazing and play your favorite songs, but inevitably they've mellowed a touch, the intensity is isn't the same, and you get a little wistful. And to a certain extent, that's exactly what the book is about, aging, maturing, and getting over one's past. It's totally unfair to expect another Trainspotting from Welsh, an author can only write that passionate and electric a book once, and it's usually the first book they write. In any event, readers have had ten years to get used to reading Scots dialect and it's hard to conceive of what Welsh could write about that would be equally shocking as his heroin underworld.In any event, Porno is a carefully plotted and constructed story, told in alternating first-person chapters by Sick Boy, his new lady Nikki Fuller-Smith, Spud, Begbie, and Renton. The central character is Sick Boy, who's seeking to reinvent himself as post-millenium entrepreneur, starting by making a porn film with his circle of acquaintances. Eventually this intertwines with the reappearance of Renton and the question of what went down in London ten years ago when he cheated Sick Boy, Begbie, and Spud on a heroin deal and skipped town. Cynics will no doubt say that Welsh is looking to ride the sequel bus to potloads of money, which is, again, unfair. Clearly the Trainspotting crew were the characters closest to his heart, so of course he's going to want to revisit them and it seems churlish to suggest that an author who uses characters twice is a sellout.Foe most part the characters are exactly as they were in the earlier books, although to varying degrees, most realize they're getting older and need to change. In this regard, Spud's story is the most poignant and affecting of the lot. And of course Renton's attempt to settle the past and lead a normal life is hard not to empathize with, which is why mad-dog Begbie is such a menacing presence throughout the book. Ultimately however, this is a comedy, lacking the darkness of Trainspotting, or Welsh's severely underrated Filth. It's a wonderful sentimental adventure full or wacky hi-jinks, and comuppances aplenty.

A fascinating roller coaster ride through a changing Leith

Welsh managed to create a great book with a well fitting Title. The cover alone will embarrass you while riding on the train to work, but at the same time grip you with its intensity and that of its characters.Viewing the story from the perspective of all main characters in turn, the reader gets sucked into their heads, learns what makes them tick, shares their dreams and ambitions. Despite their disgusting immorality, abuse of people surrounding them the readers still learns to develop sympathies even for the worst kind of characters like "Begbie", the foul mouthed, brutish, paranoid thug terrorizing the Leith neighbourhood after a brief spell in prison.The nymphomatic, cool & intelligent Nikki and her escapades as a student of film & media and Scottish literature certainly eclipses most readers experience at university. She will painfully experience exploitation, but eventually gain a sweet revenge.Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and the other colourful characters certainly bring some smiles on your face, whith their exploits when they are "pished", high or sexually intoxicated.I particular enjoyed the cunning and successful scam played on Ranger supporters. It could work!But readers be warned! The foul language and explicit scenes, combined with Scottish spelling may pose a great challenge to people not used to it!In the final analysis I think it was an excellent read. Not pleasant, but hugely enjoyable. Don't wait for it to come out on film - it is to explicit and I cannot imagine Obi-wan Genobi to star as an Amsterdam Rave organiser!