Dead Men's Trousers (Mark Renton, 5)

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A] fitting send-off… When he’s at his best, Welsh spins a story of four men broken by addiction and betrayal; old friends who’ve shared their youths, somehow lived through them, and just can’t quite seem to let go.”– NPR If you go for Welsh’s stuff, as I do, you’ll go for Dead Men’s Trousers with great enthusiasm. If you don’t … well, you were warned. What we are trading that for is years of entertainment, and I for one will take it. But I definitely understand if others aren't into this diluting of the "franchise." As said, I'm into it and I'm entertained. Non c'è una fava di posto al sole. Non c'è uno stronzo di futuro. C'è solo l' adesso. Ed è una merda, e sta peggiorando. My favorite quote is an updated version of the "Choose Life" monologue, which completely fits our current era:

Like his last few books Dead Men’s Trousers is a return to the Trainspotting/Glue universe and takes it’s cues Porno and The Blade Artist.The stewardess, not the lovely Jenny I was chatting tae, but a low-rent, pleb-serving, varicose-veined battleaxe, bike-rode into decrepitude over decades by the few hetero pilots, without even a hint of a sparkler thrown into the mix, is right over, her crabbit pus rammed into my coupon. Spud's character goes through a lot of shit in this novel. But the ending of this book suggests that the next book about these characters could be told from Spud's point of view, through his autobiography. I hope I am right. Frankly, I am such a big fan of these characters that I would read anything put out by Welsh.

Danny Murphy (Spud) is the only one still living in Edinburgh and is still an addict, spending his days begging on the street for change. With Dead Men's Trousers, is Trainspotting a trilogy now? No, it's bigger than that. While indeed this is number three, after Porno (which was loosely "adapted" into the T2 film), there is also the Skag Boys prequel. Begbie, now going by the name of Jim Francis, meets Renton on a plane, and surprisingly does not try to kill him. It seems that the psycho has mellowed, and is now an acclaimed arstist with a devoted wife and two lovely children. A spectacular return of the wild, dissolute gang from Trainspotting, from the author the New York Times called “Blisteringly funny…. ”

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Global commercialism has compelled the Scots tae pretend tae like Christmas, but we're genetically programmed tae rebel against it. But everyone other than Spud is comparatively rich – most especially the Miami-based Welsh himself – and they all spend their time in pursuit of the “more” that will finally fill their empty spaces. Other than for the tying up of some old loose ends, Dead Men's Trousers is a fairly pointless read. Even so, every now and then, Welsh throws in an old school passage that made me smile: You're nothing but a work-in-progress until that day you fall out of this world into the land ay dead men's trousers.