Revisiting old friends

The renowned Scottish author Irvine Welsh attended this year’s Festivaletteratura to present his latest novel, Men in Love, a sequel to his acclaimed 1993 debut Trainspotting.

Trainspotting captured the spirit of 1990s Scotland, reflecting the social and cultural realities of the decade: Thatcherism, the rise of pop and punk, poverty and marginalisation, working-class life, drug culture, and the disillusionment of a generation of young people. More than three decades later, Welsh returns to the same world and its characters in Men in Love, bringing back the familiar figures from Trainspotting, including, Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie.

In Men in Love he examines these characters at a different moment in their lives: the point at which they become increasingly aware of their own mortality. The reckless young men of Trainspotting are no longer in a position to simply wreck their lives. They have reached an age when they have to think about the future, find a way to establish themselves, and consider what kind of life they want to build. Even romance becomes something they try to take seriously, a new and unfamiliar territory for characters accustomed to running from responsibility.

Underlying Welsh’s work is also a persistent concern with class conflict. His characters inhabit a world sharply divided between those who are wealthy and those who are not, where making a living is increasingly difficult and securing a better future for the next generation feels even more uncertain.

Another recurring theme in Welsh’s work is the desire to escape. His characters repeatedly dream of leaving, of abandoning their circumstances and their identities. But escape is never quite as simple as it seems. You can leave a place, a relationship, or even an addiction, but ultimately, you cannot escape yourself. However, the attempt to break away is often followed by a return to the very patterns the characters are trying to escape.

When a member of the audience asked Welsh about what might be considered the modern drug, he simply took his phone out of his pocket and held it up for the audience to see. For Welsh, the phone represents a new and concerning form of dependence. From this new addiction emerges a new character, Stupid Boy.