The acid house a soft touch. The Acid House Characters 2019-01-13
The acid house a soft touch Rating:
5,8/10
916
reviews
The Acid House by Irvine Welsh
Sex is violent and sadomasochistic, childbirth a living hell and any sort of tenderness a ludicrous self-deluded sentimentality. I think this is a fantastic intro to Irvine Welsh's writing style, especially for getting used to the Scotts English dialogue. She is a harsh and vindictive character. No hint is offered that the book's protagonists are not responsible for what they do, or that they should be forgiven their trespasses. The Soft Touch: a man is too soft to do anything when his wife moves in with the thug upstairs. Caught in a dalliance with another character's sister, he beats up the boy, but when he goes downstairs, he finds that his grandfather has died sitting in his chair. No such luck in this utterly appalling, ineptly made slice of cinematic bile.
The characters unfortunatly stand on a blank canvas. All these stories collected in this collection are good, but the few that really stand out make it worth reading all of them. I was very disappointed as although I have not read Trainspotting, I have heard very good things about it. All in all a pretty interesting portrait of a point in time of Scotland's fringey youngsters. Not everything is set in the reality we know. I felt waves of nostalgia when reading certain reference points which I've only come to appreciate when penning this review it's got a very late '80s feel. Die totale Abkehr von Liebe und Menschlichkeit, dies zeichnet viele Texte von Irvine Welsh aus.
Seems a nice enough young fellow. In retrospect, it would have been better served with another writer adapting it and putting in some different ticks, rather than my cut-and-paste job. I was disappointed when I cracked this open to find that it was a collection of short stories. Gerade die Titelgebende Geschichte am Ende des Bandes ist einfach nur Fantasie auf Drogen. Ronnie is a sketchy personality type in the story, because he is unfailingly stoned on drugs, mumbling and only partially conscious. Although McGuigan claims never to have seen Trainspotting, occasionally sequences seem like direct allusions. Veitchappears in A Smart Cunt Veitch, one of Brian's friends in the novella, is so stupid that he allows a drug dealer to keep his wares at Veitch's apartment, putting himself rather than the dealer at risk of a bust.
He is a sad figure, betrayed by Chrissie, who nevertheless clings to him for emotional support. I wouldn't read this again, but if you liked Trainspotting, don't mind short stories and have a fondness for the word cunt. Also really disliked 'Disnae Matter' because this included one of my biggest pet hates, when people say Disneyland when they mean Disney World. This revelation at the end of the novella is the last in a series of betrayals Brian has endured throughout the book. Probably my favorite by Irvine Welsh other than Trainspotting.
Richardappears in Eurotrash Richard is the gay bartender who was Chrissie's lover when she was Christopher. As someone who was born,lives, works and socializes in the areas of this movie i found it hilliours and so accurate! Just a few weeks in the life of a smackhead, the goings-on and hangers-on. To be honest I prefer the acid house to train spotting anyway because i feel it is a better likeness to the sort of people named 'lower class' who make up a large part of our population in Edinburgh. His characterization was there, and better than what I witnessed in the films. His girlfriends visits him and everyone thinks he is messed up from the acid. Tinaappears in A Smart Cunt Tina is Ronnie's girlfriend, who later becomes his wife. Because I know you wouldn't say that to them personally.
I read them all anyways and while some were better than others The Granton Star Cause most of them were not that interesting. I was unsurprised to find the same vice-filled characters I expect from Welsh after reading Trainspotting. Then you might like this. Becoming inured at an early age to the human savagery at the bottom of the social ladder is the only way to survive the meanness and degradation so flamboyantly exhibited in these three vignettes evoking the lower depths of North Edinburgh. And he wrote me back! Coco goes into a coma, but his mind enters the body of the newborn infant.
Dean Cavanagh's input would have been great. It chooses a life that is all its own. It suffered from comparisons with Trainspotting, as almost anything would have, but I was very proud of it. However, Mr Welsh' are based on the heroin binary code which has a pronounced craven start, an abrupt finish and a delicious intermezzo. There is alot of Scottish dialect here which can be hard to read but is amazing to try and read out loud, in my terrible Scottish accent. This could well be the worst and most offensive film of the year, if not the decade.
The Soft Touch: a man is too soft to do anything when his wife moves in with the thug upstairs. The Granton Star Cause: in the same day a young Leith lad is dumped by his football team, his girlfriend and his parents, arrested and beaten up by the police and turned into a fly by God, whom he meets in a pub. In one a guy drops acid and ends up switching bodies with a baby or thinking he did, I can't remember. Initially, he seems to be the same apathetic substance abuser we would expect, but I was really able to see a clearer character arc then in the other stories or in Trainspotting. She first enters the story as a woman who supposedly had sex with Brian's bisexual friend, which bothers Brian, because Olly had once rebuffed his advances. Though I have zero recollection of it now, at the time I read that I thought it was brilliant, and because I was bored on vacation in London with nothing better to do, I wrote what I believe was the only fan letter to an author I've ever sent, telling him this. When Catriona becomes pregnant, Larry dumps her.
The title story is just outstanding: a lightning strike switches the soul of acid-tripping Coco Bryce with a newborn baby. But its fascinating strands are finally too undigested. As others have said on here, the stories get a little repetitive because all the characters are fairly of a kind. The stories were short, brutal, and captivating. It's the way of the world, Brian. I really enjoyed Snuff, The Acid House, and Eurotrash.
'The Acid House': Short Stories, Nasty and Brutish, of Life in Edinburgh
At one point, asks Brian to accompany her and Ronnie to her parents' house, so her parents can see that not all of Ronnie's friends use drugs. I feel like if I lived my life in some dusty Scot I had watched trainspotting as a teenager and had prematurly assumed that Irvine Welsh was a genius. I was also really impressed with the tone and dialect Welsh crafts in the collection's longest piece, a novella of 112 pages revolving around the stumblings of Brian, a wallowing, substance-abusing, well-meaning twenty-something. When a cocky new neighbor, Larry Gary McCormack moves in next door to the newlyweds in their ratty tenement, he initiates a flagrant affair with the voracious Catriona, leaving Johnny to tend to his daughter Chantal while Catriona and Larry make loud screaming love upstairs. The second story that really stuck out for me was about a guy who turned into a fly. Twisted as he may be, Welsh remains one of my favourite authors, and going back to some of his older works helps to remind me of this.
