Latest news with #MenInLove
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
This week's literary fiction: MEN IN LOVE by Irvine Welsh, SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood, MIGRAINE by Samuel Fisher
MEN IN LOVE by Irvine Welsh (Cape £20, 544pp) In 2017, Welsh said he'd never write another novel about the characters from Trainspotting, but who truly believed him? Men In Love follows the old gang of heroin-addicted benefit cheats – Renton, Sick Boy and Spud, together with psychotic hardman frenemy Begbie – into the Nineties, each going their own way after Renton sneakily pockets the shared proceeds of a drugs heist. He's in Amsterdam, Begbie's in jail, Spud is trying to go straight and Sick Boy is prowling for sex... business as usual, then, as Welsh knits their stream-of-consciousness chapters around a farce involving Sick Boy's bid to worm his way into the heart of a civil servant's daughter. Cartoonish and often in terrible taste, it works, because these characters remain alive on the page, more than 30 years on. SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood (Viking £14.99, 176pp) I loved Wood's Eighties-set novel, A Station On The Path To Somewhere Better, the chilling story of a boy's catastrophic day out with his estranged dad, a set designer on his favourite TV show. Themes of illusory promise resurface in his new novel, another wrong-footing and enormously compelling coming-of-age narrative. Set in the early 1960s on the Kentish coast, it follows a stifled young man who lives with his mum and earns his keep by scraping shrimp from the beach, dreaming about a girl he doesn't have the courage to ask out. His fortunes change when a Hollywood director pays him an untold sum to scout locations for a new film. The deal isn't all it seems – but nor is this novel, which drifts from quiet lyricism into a weirder, more hallucinatory style as we delve deeper into the protagonist's haunted interiority. MIGRAINE by Samuel Fisher (Corsair £13.99, 192 pp) Fisher's third novel, a standalone follow-up to his 2022 climate dystopia Wivenhoe, transports us to a richly imagined near-future London battered by storms that cause mind-expanding headaches. The narrator, Ellis, having suffered his first migraine, roams the emptied streets in search of an ex-girlfriend who had them frequently. As he searches for her, accompanied by a shadowy bookseller who knows more about Ellis's past than he lets on, the novel portrays the social divisions and conspiratorial worldviews that take root as a result of the city's competing experiences of the mysterious chronic pain. If the texture of Fisher's speculative scenario holds attention, extra compulsion lies in the emerging story of lost love and buried guilt. Elegiac, languid, interrogatory, it resembles a cross between the cyberpunk of William Gibson and the psychogeography of Iain Sinclair.
Spectator
6 days ago
- Business
- Spectator
Soul suckers of private equity, Douglas Murray on Epstein and MAGA & are literary sequels ‘lazy'?
First up: how private equity is ruining Britain Gus Carter writes in the magazine this week about how foreign private equity (PE) is hollowing out Britain – PE now owns everything from a Pret a Manger to a Dorset village, and even the number of children's homes owned by PE has doubled in the last five years. This 'gives capitalism a bad name', he writes. Perhaps the most symbolic example is in the water industry, with water firms now squeezed for money and saddled with debt. British water firms now have a debt-to-equity ratio of 70%, compared to just 4% in 1991. Britain's desperation for foreign money has, quite literally, left Britain 'in the shit'. Gus joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside the journalist Megan Greenwell, author of Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. (00:46) Next: why is MAGA so incensed over Jeffrey Epstein? Six years after he died, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is still haunting Donald Trump. Trump had vowed to release all files on various cases that attract conspiracy theorists – from JFK to Martin Luther King Jr. What makes the Epstein case different, as Douglas Murray writes in the magazine this week, is that the case was so recent and Epstein's ties with the elites, many of whom are still in power. Trump appeared to backtrack on releasing files relating to Epstein, prompting ire from the MAGA world, and there is now mounting cross-party pressure to uncover who knew what. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, sent representatives home early for summer, and there is even talk of Ghislaine Maxwell testifying. Why is the Epstein scandal such a lightning rod for MAGA rage? Douglas Murray joined the Spectator to discuss. The full interview can be found on Spectator TV. (15:49) And finally: are literary sequels 'lazy'? It's 'sod's law', says the Spectator's literary editor Sam Leith, that when a friend's book is due to be reviewed in the pages of the books section that you edit, the review will be bad. Mike Cormack reviews Men In Love by Irvine Welsh this week, calling the decision by Welsh to pen another sequel to Trainspotting 'lazy'. At the Spectator this made us ponder whether this is true of all literary sequels, and what motivates authors to stick with characters and stories that they know. Sam joined us to discuss further alongside Lucy Thynne, the Telegraph's deputy literary editor. (33:59) Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.
The Herald Scotland
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'Hopeless romantic' Welsh sends his gang looking for love
But it is the characters he created for Trainspotting that he keeps returning to – even if their latest adventures may be something of a departure for Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie. Read more: The fourth sequel to Trainspotting, which picks up shortly after the end of the first novel, sees them leaving heroin behind in pursuit of romance and raves. And Welsh has admitted he has drawn on his own experience as a 'pretty hopeless romantic' for the novel, which sees the characters seeking sex and looking for love in London, Amsterdam, Paris and their home city of Edinburgh, where Welsh suddenly emerged as a major new literary voice in the early 1990s. Irvine Welsh shot to fame with his debut novel Trainspotting in 1993. (Image: Getty) Within three years of Trainspotting's publication, it had been turned into an acclaimed feature film starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller, who were reunited in 2016 for a sequel set around 20 years on from the original. Men In Love, Welsh's latest novel, is the second Trainspotting novel since the movie sequel, although the new book unfolds as the 1980s are drawing to a close with Margaret Thatcher still Prime Minister and rave culture sweeping the UK. Welsh said: 'I've never really left these characters behind. They are in my head as the go-to guys that I'm always writing stories about to try to understand the world. 'To write a novel I really need to have a theme. I really wanted to write a positive book as there is so much hate in the world just now. I wanted to get people thinking about the more emotional and romantic side of life.' Welsh has been working on Men In Love since getting married for a third time, in 2022. He said: 'I was thinking back to that era when guys in their twenties first get serious about romance and their partner becomes more important than their mates, but they are not really equipped for it. 'I was looking back and thinking about how useless most guys are at that time. I thought I'd get the most useless guys of all and see how they shape up. 'I think I've always been quite serious about relationships. I was always obsessed with any women who were daft enough to go out with me. I've always been a pretty hopeless romantic at heart.' Welsh, who worked in Edinburgh City Council's housing department before pursuing a career as a writer, said he had never intended to create a whole series of books on the Trainspotting characters. The author told The Herald: 'I don't know if it is a blessing or a curse, but I have always lived in the present. I don't really have the ability to look back or forward. 'When I go out with pals they come out with all these stories and tell me what I was wearing 35 years ago. I can't even remember what colour of underpants I put on in the morning. 'I always said in the past that I was done with the characters from Trainspotting, but I'm not going to say that now. I will probably revisit them again. 'But I've just written a contemporary book, which is coming out next year, which is set in Las Vegas and has a whole new cast of characters. It's a very different book, which has been incredibly freeing to write.' While his new book offers Welsh's fans a nostalgic trip, the author bemoans the impact of new technology on younger generations, society, culture and nightlife. The author said: 'Things have changed massively, when I think about the freedom that we had. We could do anything. 'The internet was supposed to be this great liberation, but it's become such an intrusive and confining thing now. We are being monitored all the time and we are policing each other. 'I do think about how much more boring my life would have been if we had had the internet, surveillance technology and all that kind of stuff back then. I do really feel for the youth of today. They are not really allowed to transgress in any way. 'Nobody has really got money to do anything now. That's the main reason pubs are shutting down. 'So many music and literature festivals have shut down this summer because people just don't have the money to go to them. 'The internet is also driving us to a post-culture society where a lot of people, particularly working-class people, are not engaging in culture in any way. It's a horrible development.' Welsh's interest in music has seen him co-write a Trainspotting stage musical, which is hoped to be launched next year, and release a disco-inspired Men In Love album to coincide with the release of his new novel. After his book launches in Edinburgh and Glasgow this week, he will also be performing late-night DJ sets at the official after-parties. Welsh will also be making further appearances in his home city over the next few weeks, with a Men In Love book festival event and the world premiere of a new documentary, Reality Is Not Enough, made by Edinburgh-based filmmaker Paul Sng, who followed the author around the world for more than a year. The film, which is described as 'a gripping and revealing deep dive' into the mind of the author, is said to find Welsh 'at a crossroads, acutely aware of his own mortality.' Welsh said: 'By god, it makes me look interesting, which is quite an achievement. 'You spend so much time in your own head, you don't really perceive of yourself as someone who has an interesting life. 'You are in all these locations, talking to different people and doing different things. You don't really think of it as being particularly glamorous as you are transit all the time. 'But I have met so many interesting people down the years. 'In some ways, watching the documentary was like meeting a version of myself for the first time.' Welsh is launching Men In Love days before the main Edinburgh Festival season gets underway. He said: 'It's great that the Festival happens, but the downside of it is that we put all our eggs into the one cultural basket. It's an importation. There's not really a living, breathing thing going in the town.'
Scotsman
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Men in Love by Irvine Welsh review: 'his paciest, funniest book in years'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The early stages of drug dependency and romantic love have such similar rushing, all-consuming power that scientific studies of their comparative neurological effects have been made. That a book about one group of young men's devastating heroin habits should be followed by another about their often self-destructive pursuits of sex and relationship highs therefore makes plenty of sense. Thirty-two years have passed since Leith tearaways Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie first leapt off the pages of Irvine Welsh's darkly delirious million-selling masterpiece Trainspotting. Danny Boyle's 1996 film adaptation subsequently made icons of the characters and their creator. There have been numerous prequel, sequel and spin-off novels and short stories of varying merit, plus an iffy follow-up movie (2017's T2, set decades after the original). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Irvine Welsh At the outset of Men In Love, merely weeks have expired since Trainspotting's end, when Renton chose life by ripping off his mates in a drug deal before disappearing with their cash. The mixture of guilt, rage, betrayal and confusion each man feels is as fresh as the sweat on Renton's brow, as he goes cold turkey in Amsterdam trying to get clean. He, Sick Boy and Spud are estranged, yet largely united in their resolve not to fall back on the smack (Begbie's tangential compulsion for violent mayhem, meanwhile, rages unchecked). But what should fill the void? Foreshadowing 2002's Porno, the book that inspired T2, pseudo-sophisticate Scots Italian manipulator Sick Boy is in London building a career in adult entertainment, while using and abusing various women to different ends. Including Amanda, an upper-class dropout he encounters at drug counselling. She forces him to feel forbidden feelings no natural born shagger should feel. The thickest yet most morally sound of them all, Spud, is in a relationship with Sick Boy's ex Alison, whom he showers with a desperate, cloying love she can't requite. In Amsterdam, Renton becomes immersed in the burgeoning acid house club scene, and a world of fluid sexual and romantic relationships he may not be emotionally equipped for. Begbie's devotion remains only to Leith, the blade and the bottle. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The raw, gritty, trippy urgency and hyper-realism that drove Welsh's debut novel has long-since faded from his writing. Some of his graphic descriptions of oftentimes squalid sex may leave you needing a shower. But the simple ease and joy with which he reinhabits these vivid characters makes this his paciest, funniest, most page-turning book in years. If there is a love to be felt, it's Welsh's for his Leith young team, who for all their flaws and indeed evils, he never leaves without hope of redemption - be it Sick Boy in his battle of wits with Amanda's toff hypocrite father in the build up to their wedding, or Begbie, the world's worst best man, hanging over the climactic posh nuptials like a black cloud, threatening to rain either rough class justice or purely psychotic chaos.
Scotsman
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Irvine Welsh & The Sci-fi Soul Orchestra Dennis Bovell
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Irvine Welsh & the Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra: Men in Love (Port Sunshine Recordings) ★★★★ Jah Wobble: Dub Volume 1 (Dimple Discs) ★★★★ Dennis Bovell: Wise Men in Dub (Wise Records) ★★★ Michael Steele: Mosaic (self-released) ★★★★ Irvine Welsh At various points in his literary career, Irvine Welsh has described himself as a failed musician, claimed that he was saved by acid house and created playlists for his characters to bring them to life, so music is a key trigger for his writing. He now takes that love a step further by writing and producing an album companion to his new novel, Men In Love. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This Trainspotting sequel picks up immediately where his classic novel left off, with Renton, Spud, Sickboy and even Begbie finding salvation on the dancefloor. The setting is the Nineties but the music on Men In Love – written by the shadowy Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra with lyrics penned by Welsh – is far from the contemporary strains of Britpop and more reflective of the soulful sounds of Nineties clubland, in particular the dancefloors which reverberated to gospel house music. Welsh and compadres are clear on their inspirations, crate-digging to emulate the sounds of Philly soul and New York disco which were sampled by the deep house producers of the day. Unsurprisingly, Welsh has all the necessary vocabulary to evoke the era and a little bit more. Opening track A Man in Love with Love captures the mania of love with lusty soul vocals from Shaun Escoffery and a Chic-meets-Boney M disco breakdown. Jah Wobble Jools Holland collaborator Louise Marshall represents for the women on the disco riposte You Gotta Be Strong, cutting through the sentiment and extravagant expressions of this man in love to demand actions not words. Both she and Escoffery are Welsh's mighty mouthpieces as they testify across the album to clubbing as religion on Saviour and the transformative powers of the dancefloor on A Whole New Side Of Me. The latter is the most explicitly house music-influenced track on the album, if still dripping in delicious disco strings. With this exultant music ringing in their ears, how could Renton and co not prevail? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad You wait ages for a decent dub album and then two come along in one week. Bass ace Jah Wobble has been a dub devotee from his early days in Public Image Ltd but is not content with mere righteous vibrations on Dub Volume 1. Titles such as Old Jewish East End of London Dub suggest that this is not traditional dub territory. This geezer philosopher infuses Existential Dub with a hint of slinky Sixties exotica and uses distorted and pitchshifted vocals to unsettling effect on Lovers Rock Dub. Tragic Slavic Dub is embellished with keening klezmer violin, Dub in the East is built around an eminently melodic bassline while Tyson Dub Remix is a true dub odyssey with its wiggy analogue synths, melancholic ska brass arrangement and the sheer elasticity of Wobble's playing. On Wise Men in Dub, reggae veteran Dennis Bovell offers a more traditional adventure in sound though his curveball choice of dub-infused covers ranges from Musical Youth's Pass the Dutchie and Pete Seeger's Black and White, originally reggaefied by Greyhound but rendered here by Aswad's Brinsley Forde, to more transformative takes on The Zombies' Time of the Season, Minnie Riperton's Les Fleurs, Argent's Hold Your Head Up and The Stylistics' You're A Big Girl Now, dreamily rendered by Imagination frontman Leee John. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Michael Steele Edinburgh-based singer/songwriter Michael Steele describes himself as 'genre-diverse' - and how on his Mosaic EP which embraces French chanson, pastoral folk, low-slung punk funk, mellow country and angular guitar picking across its ten tracks with equal credibility. There may be no stylistic consistency to speak of but you have to admire Steele's laidback audacity in offering such a dizzying pick-and-mix of styles to choose from, each as well-executed as the next. CLASSICAL Visiting Rachmaninoff: Chopin Variations | Romances (Harmonia mundi) ★★★★ One of the true delights of the 'variations" genre is to witness the assimilation of two divergent independent minds. Here we have Chopin (the simple sequential theme and solid chordal identity of his Prelude in C minor) reconsidered via the virtuosic expansionism of Rachmaninov. Moreover, Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov presents the latter's 22 Variations on a Theme by Chopin Op 22 on Rachmaninov's own piano, an instrument presented to him as a 60th birthday present and housed in the Bauhaus-style Villa Senar by Lake Lucerne commissioned by the composer in the 1930s. This well-maintained piano exhibits the same formidably brooding persona as its original owner, Melnikov mindful of such in a performance that captures both the intellectual and expressive fluidity of a constantly fascinating piece. He's joined later by soprano Julia Lezhneva, who imbues extracts from the Op 21, Op 26 and Op 34 Romances with a typically glowing, soulful Russian-ness. Ken Walton FOLK Grace Stewart-Skinner: Auchies Spikkin' Auchie (Independent Release) ★★★★ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
