Talking Welsh
Posting on this a bit late, but there are plenty of interviews and reviews with Irvine Welsh in the press lately concerning his latest novel, Bedroom Secrets of the Masterchefs.
Many reviews deliver a very thorough kicking indeed. I do believe however that I will not let that put me off, and with one very good reason. The reviews for Filth in 1998 were almost universally scathing, including from Spikes very own Gary Marshall. But guess what? I hugely enjoyed that one, and I might just enjoy this one too.
There is a very well established literary critical trend in Britain, identical to its musical critical counterpart, whereby the desperation for the next great thing results in rabid over-praise of the new kid on the block every so often. Occasionally an artist is feted, praised and hailed, and raised aloft to an absurdly extended pedestal. After this the critical press has to make amends for its initial embarrassing premature ejaculation by slagging off whatever comes after from the new kids forever more. It seems to me that is what takes place with Welsh now.
I am not doubting the sincerity of many, even most of the individual reviewers. If you do not like him you do not like him. I can genuinely see what is not to like. Bloggers in particular are exempt. I do find however the broadsheet reviewers have a suspicious unanimity of tone. It seemed to me the blanket scorn Welsh got over Filth had a real element of atoning for past over-dribbling about it. I found Filth, like his other work, a forceful, flawed, viciously entertaining tour de force. Glue I liked very much too, a far more mature work, largely over-looked. I never (ever) liked Oasis, but I think a fair comparison can be made in that the professional reviewers doing the most sneery stitch-ups of them now were probably often the ones doing the most ridiculous arse-licking before, same with Mr Welsh.
Irvine Welsh is not one of my all time favourite authors, and nor do I think him one of the all-time greats. He has very clear flaws:- his modish desire to shock, his unevenness of tone, the tendency to melodrama, the occasional box-ticking of the Scottish state of the nation shtick. But at the same time, there is not one book I have read by him that has not grabbed me from the start, and thoroughly entertained and sated me all the way through. He is consistently riotous, moving, satirical and funny, with a frequent inventiveness with both language and form which can be a real delight. So, maybe this new one is off the boil. But, I do get the scent of one too many swine over-compensating in denouncing their early sweaty love-letters. After enjoying Filth so much, I shall make my own mind up, ye fuckin wee radges.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Trainspotting Prequel Planned
- Irvine Welsh on the South Bank Show
- Irvine reads from the Masterchefs
- Irvine Welsh, Anthony Swofford and a cast of thousands
- Irvine Welsh Not The New Jane Austen Shocker
