ENGLISH TEST
Irvine Welsh
H
aving said all that, it's hard not to like Irvine Welsh. His writing is documentary in style, a
gritty, low-light photo of a generation of losers who have not a clue where they're going except
that it's higher. Ecstasy, is his tip to the rave generation, which he is most certainly not a part of,
for he's far too old, and those tight skimpy T-shirts simply were not made for big lads like him. If
he was absent from the raves however, he must surely have sat at home and tinkered with the
pills, for he takes great pains to describe (and thus glorify) the highs achieved therein. If he was
guilty of making heroin highs sound a bit too tasty in Trainspotting, he's really gone over the top
with the fashion drug Ecstasy in this book. His drawn out, often chapter-long recountings of the
super-euphoric love-thy-neighbour effects of E make it sound like something we should all be
having a bash at.
Love Is A Many Splintered Thing
Ecstasy: Three Chemical Romances
With the phenomenal success of Trainspotting (in all its various literary, filmic and dramatic
guises), Irvine Welsh has moved from semi-literary obscurity to the centre of contemporary
English writing. Trainspotting was one of those books that provoked people who hated reading
to devour its three hundred plus pages. This never happened with Martin Amis. But the real
reason for Trainspotting's popularity was lost amongst the inevitable, tedious furore about
whether or not it glamorised drug-taking. The title of Welsh's new book seems to play on that
uproar - it's so obvious that it's got to mean something else. All of Welsh's work, from
Trainspotting to the new collection of stories in Ecstasy, is primarily concerned with the decay
of England, the Orwellian political double-talk and the demand for conformity. It is concerned
with the reasons for why people are compelled to take drugs, not the vapid posturing that
occasionally goes with it.
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ENGLISH TEST
Irvine Welsh: Ecstasy
The Undefeated is Ecstasy's final and longest story, continuing Welsh's love affair with Iggy
Pop and returning to Trainspotting's style of using first person monologue. This is what Welsh
does best - the stream-of-consciousness style is dazzling at times, especially when the main
character Lloyd describes being on acid or during sex. (Funny, that).
Interspersed with the rebirth of Heather, a housewife who ditches her Dire Straits suburban
husband and finds life amongst the rave scene, Welsh smoothly demonstrates his belief in the
liberating power of dance culture. Most interestingly, he avoids the easy route of claiming
utopia. If drugs can liberate you, then they can as easily ruin you. Lloyd and Heather only fully
get together once she realises that Lloyd's packed in drugs for a while. He's realised
something. This gives the story a peculiarly conservative twist - that the natural high of love is
better than a chemical one. But in that context, Welsh makes a trite assertion radical within the
E'd up environs of the club scene.
All in all, Ecstasy shows Welsh to be restless, eager to take on new challenges in writing.
Even when he stumbles, he still produces effortlessly readable prose, which uniquely captures
the mood of contemporary England. Forget Will Hutton's The State We're In - get Ecstasy
instead.
Translation:
Translate the text Irvine Welsh - Ecstasy into good German.
Love Is A Many Splintered Thing: Comprehension
1. What is the author's attitude towards Irvine Welsh 's writing? Give
evidence from the text to justify your views.
20
2. What is Welsh's work mainly about, what technique(s) does he
brilliantly use to create his unique style (explain this technique by
referring to the novella The Undefeated) and what mistakes that
might spoil his work does he avoid? What is the "conservative"
element in the story?
20
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30
ENGLISH TEST
Irvine Welsh: Ecstasy
TRANSLATION
Nachdem nun all dies gesagt worden ist, fällt es schwer, Irvine Welsh nicht zu mögen.
Sein Erzählstil ist dokumentarisch und liefert ein ausdrucksstarkes, düsteres Bild1) einer
Generation von Verlierern, die keine Ahnung / keinen blassen Schimmer haben, wo sie
hinsteuern - Hauptsache es geht "höher".2) Ecstasy ist sein Tipp/Rat an/für die RaveGeneration, zu der er sicherlich nicht gehört, weil er viel zu alt ist und weil diese engen,
knappen T-Shirts einfach nicht für so einen schweren/kräftigen Kerl/Burschen wie ihn
gemacht sind. Wenn er schon nicht auf den Rave-Partys war, muss er sicherlich zu
Hause gesessen und mit den Pillen herumgespielt haben, denn er beschreibt (und
verherrlicht dadurch) sehr sorgfältig die durch diese Pillen verursachten
Rauschzustände. Wenn er den Fehler gemacht hat, in Trainspotting die durch Heroin
hervorgerufenen Rauschzustände etwas zu verlockend darzustellen, hat er in diesem
(seinen neuen) Buch mit der Modedroge Ecstasy wirklich den Bogen überspannt / über
die Stränge geschlagen. Seine ausführlichen, oft kapitellangen Beschreibungen der
extrem euphorischen (hyper-euphorischen) Nächstenliebe-Wirkungen von Ecstasy hören
sich an wie etwas, das wir alle einmal ausprobieren sollten.
1)
2)
wörtlich: "grobkörniges, unterbelichtetes Foto"
oder: ... Verlierern die, außer "higher" zu werden/sein, kein anderes Ziel vor Augen haben.
QUESTIONS
1. The author holds the view that Irvine Welsh is one of the best and most important
writers of English literature today and that even people who usually don't read thick
books like his novels due to his unique style and realistic topics (ll.2-10). The author
emphasises the fact that Irvine Welsh's style is progressive and that he doesn't stop
developing new ways of writing, even taking on very difficult tasks - a trait which
makes him so different from other modern writers. Welsh's books symbolise and
represent the feelings of the young generation and its attitude towards life even when
he loses his way or has difficulty in expressing himself or when he makes mistakes
(ll.26-29). And he finally tells the reader to forget about other authors (e.g. Will Hutton)
and strongly recommends buying Ecstasy.
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ENGLISH TEST
Irvine Welsh: Ecstasy
2. One of Irvine Welsh's main topics is criticism of society forcing everybody to stick to
established rules and traditions whereas Welsh himself pleads for individuality. Other
topics are England's social and economic decline partly caused by politicians'
misleading language and promises that are not kept ("Orwellian double talk" l.10).
Irvine Welsh's books also deal with the reasons why people take drugs and their
effects on modern dance culture. The title Ecstasy is ironic because it was Irvine
Welsh's reaction to the criticism and discussion about whether Trainspotting depicted
taking drugs too positively.
The technique he uses in the novella The Undefeated is called "stream-ofconsciousness". This means that the story is told from the point of view of a first
person narrator the reader identifies with very easily. For instance the story The
Undefeated is told by the two main characters Lloyd and Heather; each tells one
chapter and we learn quite a lot about their inner feelings and psychological
developments going on in their minds.
The mistake Irvine Welsh avoids making is "the easy route of claiming utopia"(l.20):
he clearly points out the ambiguity of drugs i.e. that they do not just create a positive
world where everybody is fine and happy but also situations that can be very
dangerous and destructive.
The conservative element in the story is the moral element: real (romantic) love is
stronger than drugs and can overcome every obstacle: Heather and Lloyd in The
Undefeated both realise their situation and that their love is more important than
drugs or material values of society, which make you feel good for only a short time,
whereas real love will last for good.
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