Dead Men's Trousers
Ratings4
Average rating4.6
15
Ratings4
Average rating4.6
The International Bestseller from the author The New York Times called "blisteringly funny" — it's the wild and wooly crew from Trainspotting back for one last adventure You don't need to have seen the blockbuster movie—nor read the earlier mega-bestselling books—to get what's going on in Dead Men's Trousers: Four no-longer-young men who constantly think back to their bawdy, drug-filled youth together on the streets of Edinburgh, decide they want to join forces for one last caper. Careful what you wish for... "Manages a sort of ragged glory, a life-affirming comic energy . . . A whooping last hurrah for the Trainspotting gang." —The Guardian "Crackles with idiomatic energy and brio." —Publishers Weekly Mark Renton is finally a success. He now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms, and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with life. Then he runs into his old partner in crime, Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist in Los Angeles, and doesn't seem interested in revenge. Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Sick Boy and Spud are intrigued to learn that their old friends are back in town, and concoct a new scheme for them all . . . Which is when things start to go horribly wrong. The four men, driven by their personal histories and addictions, circle each other, confused, angry, and desperate. One of these four will not survive . . . Which one is wearing Dead Men's Trousers? Fast and furious, scabrously funny, and weirdly moving, this is a spectacular return of the crew from Trainspotting.
Featured Series
5 primary booksMark Renton is a 5-book series with 5 primary works first released in 1993 with contributions by Irvine Welsh and Federico Corriente.
Reviews with the most likes.
I think i would very much like to give this a five-star rating but then, to be a bit more objective, the answer would be no. So there it is 4-star.
When you mix life philosophy and mid-life crisis and old problems with drugs, the chemistry is so endearing that it either becomes a masterpiece or just some hollow Big Beat sort of literature, i.e. On the Road, which does not hold enough truth in it to make it a guide of life. But this, with its very subtle usage of FUCKs and SHITEs and scottish dialects that need some brainpower to digest, it certainly pulls off as a masterpiece in concluding the fates of the fellow characters that have been mingling with one another for more than half their lives. Here it is about social structure and that agency to say fuck no to the system, and that even-though-im-a-fucking-scumbag-but-i-still-gonna-choose-life-and-not-let-the-rich-get-to-me-and-the-authorities-too ideology. Very convincing indeed. The only possible fallacy probably is the dirty bit of the plot, which seems a bit too grim, but thinking it as something that is usual in that sphere, it is nothing unrealistic.
Here's to the shady bits of life, cheers!
