found_drama

In the wake of finishing up Porno, I find myself ruminating on the craft again — as I seem often to do when I wrap up a piece (be it read or written).  How would I have described Welsh? — I ask myself — if I had chosen to write it like some book jacket summary or Washington Post book review instead of my cheeky linguistic dance of Leith lilt.  Probably something like this: “Irvine Welsh is a bit like a Scottish Douglas Coupland with some of that Chuck Palahniuk edge.”

But that only seems partly right.  And also a partly unfair.

Apparently I’m not far off.  But I do ask myself why my mind makes this connection.  A Scottish Douglas Coupland?  Not more like Palahniuk?  Why not the other way around?  I get myself stuck on this Palahniuk connection.  It isn’t that Welsh doesn’t have a hard edge.  I keep drawing these tight parallels mentally between Welsh’s Sick Boy and Palahniuk’s Victor Mancini.  Grit and cons and that underbelly-ish feeling you get from unsavory folks that you know are rifling through your recycling in hopes that you forgot to shred that one document with your social security number on it.

Perhaps it’s then despite these similarly toned characters that I bite my lip and consume Welsh as a matte realist and Palahniuk as eggshell surrealism.  (Don’t ask me what’s become of Coupland in this discussion.  Semi-gloss consumerist post-modernism?)  But that surrealism, the tip-toe into the absurd is hardly well-described in terms of finish; it’s more of a smell, eh?  My neurons start playing connect-the-dendrites on other names that reek with brilliance in my memory: Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Haruki Murakami, William S. Burroughs, and (of course?) David Foster Wallace.  Is this our path to success then?  Follow your nose past the kitchen’s bread out into that belching sulphorous stink from out back?  Let go, the aroma seems to say — indeed, let go of that urgent-feeling so-called need to anchor yourself.  Black comedy doesn’t come from realism, you know.  Insight doesn’t come from doing the same old thing all the time.

So now, ye should prolly ken tha I jist finished up this Irvine Welsh cunt’s book ehs cault Porno. I cannae honestly be puttin masel n a spot of callin it the bes book ays ever read, likesay. But I’d some kinda daft liar if I cault it pure trash also! I cannae rightly say whae I felt like eh went wrong. Ehs like written a follow-up to dem lads fae Trainspotting — Rents n Simon “Sick Boy” n even Spud n the Beggar Boy! Ehs given ays dis tale a betrayal n redemption and wrapt it all up raun some scam fae Sick Boy to get tae riches fae makin some stag film, likesay.

Now, ye should ken tha ehs nae a bad book. Ehs got ehs gauns on and like some really well writ passages. This Welsh cunt’s got a keen eye fae ehs stories, mind. This one jist don inspire like Trainspotting did — it didnae knock ays on ma arse, likesay. Again, ehs nowt without ehs charms n aw. Mibbe ehs jist used up all ehs bes work? I dinnae ken nowt aboot tha. One thing ehs got in spades like is ehs still got this full on fuckin mastery of ehs words.

Ehs like this.  Ave ye ever done that optical illusion wi some cunt’s inverted flag?  Ken wha ays mean?  Mibbe ye seen dis one?  Well this daft cunt Welsh, ehs writin ehs like some kinda afterimage only ehs wit words in YER BRAIN!  Ye pick up the book tha ehs writ and struggle to get yer way through some fully dense passage tha is like full of all dese mashed up words that ye cannae ken on tha spot and so it takes ays fully way too long tae parse through it and it gies masel a right migraine tryin tae fae figure it oot.  And but then whin I puts tha book doan and says to masel FUCK IT, I’M ALL DUN then the words that ehs writ are right stuck in ma heid.

I tells ye, ehs fuckin horrible.  But now ahm jist so stuck on tha pish wi ehs language tha I cannae hardly make a fully qualified statement aboot ehs fuckin plot!  Somethin about betrayal and jist bein consumers, likesay.  But anyways, mibbe I’ll run doan tae tha fuckin boozer and grab a lager wi ma mates to put the edge off and sort masel right oot.

War! Revolution!

A corporation and a hospital vie for control of the same building.  Although it was originally built as a hospital, they sought financial aid from this company.  Ever since, the two organizations have been at each others’ throats, trying to secure total control over the building, adding to it (arcology-style) as they go.  From without, you can tell who has the upper-hand by the kind of architecture being used on each new addition to the building.  It gets taller, its footprint bigger, each and every year — though the revolution (company vs. hospital) rages just as much.

A missing baby has brought me here.  A. and I have apparently moved and she has awoken from a fitful sleep to discover that our baby has gone missing.  My granddad intervenes, helping us search, asking questions.  We did not even know that we were expecting.  It was like someone took it from us (from her) in our sleep.  Granddad knows someone that can get me inside the hospital to seach for it.

I heed his advice and enter the attic of our new house (why are attics always crammed full of old crap no one wants? even in a newly built house such as this?) to discover a small door.  Behind the door is a tunnel that leads to just outside the hospital.  I loop around to one of the loading docks and see the man I’m looking for: a burly, hunched-over looking fellow with thick, metallic bristles of attenae sticking out of his back like an ankylosaurus.  He’s also got other red-glowing LEDs on his body and other metallic armor plates.  He’s got a thick brown cloak draped over his shoulders but the spikes have torn right through.  I can’t tell if he’s with the hospital or the corporation’s faction but he’s going to help me either way.  He arms me with glass bottles and we go inside.