The Rif Raff Book Club's July reading was Porno by Irvine Welsh.

Porno by Irvine Welsh

Dis book was sumtin else. Da story about all deese losers from across da big pond and dere lifestyle was pretty revealing. Each chapter hadda different first person narrator and it took a while before you figgured out who was doin da talkin. And da guy wrote like da characters talked. So some really had da accent pretty tick and ya knew who was talking. I caught miself with my lips moveing so I could undastand what dey was saying. I guess it was a good letrary trick, cuz ya felt like you were really wid dose people. Dere was lots a stuff about drugs and sex and drinkin and more drugs and sex and sometimes it was pretty funny. Da trips to Amsterdam and Cannes were full a yucks cuz da characters were not really social kinda people. So I goes, I sez, all in all it was a pretty good book and a good social commentary on deese loser Eurotrash characters.

Porno is a book that starts slow and builds with interest. I didn't like the characters and the book had limited social commentary. The discussion would revolve around the most disgusting sexual acts and the big rip-offs that take advantage of everyday people. It seemed to me to be a continuation of the authors book, Trainspotting. I didn't like the fact that the author assumed you knew the character's past and feel I was left out of some aspect of the development of these main characters. It seemed the author sensed or the publisher calculated that Irvine Welsh's readers wanted to have a pick up story of what happened to these folks after Trainspotting. This would indicate nothing more than a money making motive for writing the book. There was nothing there that was new, fresh or insightful. I'm glad I finished it to know the ending offered nothing more that the beginning of the book. It was an exercise in reading without meaningful payoff. There are to many worthwhile books out there to waste time reading Irvine Welsh. I did not appreciate the work on any level.

This fookin' book was a pain in da arse to read and unfortunately was more work than pleasure. Unless one is familiar with the heavy Welsh accents of the region, it's nearly impossible to just read this story straight through. I had to stop and phonetically attempt to translate much of what I was reading. The characters were interesting, but horribly misguided individuals. I realize that I live in a different land and different culture, but I would never want to walk a mile or even a block in their "dirty" shoes. After frequent attempts to stay with it, I had to stop after 150 odd pages of torture. A thumbs way down selection.