Empower your senses: Irvine Welsh’s top 10 must-read books
Here are the novels he feels everyone should read at least once in their lifetime
Irvine Welsh. PHOTO: FILE
Irvine Welsh, the author of the book that was made into the movie Trainspotting in 1996, dished out a list of his 10 all-time favourite novels. Compiled from The New York Times, here are the books he believes everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.
Welsh read this book in every one of his adult decades and got something different from it each time. “Ulysses isn’t a novel, it’s a life project, and like life itself, we embark upon it striving toward understanding it," he stated. Guess we should take up this life project and improve our skills!
Lanark is in fact widely and justifiably regarded as Gray’s masterpiece. "I love this novel and its protagonist; an alcoholic, conservative jock. It shows the dismal outcome of a life that succumbs to fear, but is still somehow an uplifting book," remarks Welsh.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
This one was an easy pick for Welsh. "Music in the form of words. It’s every western pseudo-lit-lover’s cliché of a 'spiritual third world novel' that I almost hate myself for loving it, but I do," he quipped.
It’s almost fashionable to read Burroughs and proclaim him as a genius but Welsh has an opinion on this writer's works. "The truth is that Burroughs’s best novels were the ones he wrote in the later years of his life, like The Western Lands and this beautiful work," claims Welsh.
5. A Disaffection by James Kelman
Still the most satisfying of Kelman’s novels, Welsh reread it recently, and it seems to have gained even more potency through time for him. "We’ve all been Patrick Doyle, going into a place of work, and even through your life, and feeling hopelessly, utterly miscast," he shared.
This biography, written with a novelist’s stylisation, was an incendiary moment in western culture. "Ironically, it became the weapon that would win the cultural wars for dispossessed black, urban America. It’s impossible to think of what street culture of white Hollywood would look like without it. Slim is the most influential writer in English since Shakespeare," asserted Welsh.
This has the harsh tone of fictionalised life, and Jay Gatsby’s experiences draw heavily on Fitzgerald’s descent into alcoholism, and his wife Zelda’s succumbing to mental illness. "Nobody in the English-speaking world has been able to write sentences like this author," stated Welsh.
"This was the book that made my John Updike collection pretty much superfluous," claims Welsh. In one big, sprawling, ambitious novel, DeLillo captures the soul of white America at its most optimistic, soaring and sad — an amazing achievement. "You can read this and look at what the US is now and cry tears," shared the author.
"I was hooked from the opening sentences. This is the most important English novel since Orwell put pen to paper," marked Welsh. We must read this one - especially because Welsh compares it to Orwell's work!
Along with “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk, here are the two novels from the end of last century which have not been overtaken as the seminal works in defining America in this century, according to Welsh. "One deals with the out-of-control greed and power lust of the 1 percent, the other with the lost generations of the 99% — poorer than their parents for the first time in American history. Read them together and you have the USA," claims Welsh.
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- Ulysses by James Joyce
Welsh read this book in every one of his adult decades and got something different from it each time. “Ulysses isn’t a novel, it’s a life project, and like life itself, we embark upon it striving toward understanding it," he stated. Guess we should take up this life project and improve our skills!
- 1982, Janine by Alasdair Gray
Lanark is in fact widely and justifiably regarded as Gray’s masterpiece. "I love this novel and its protagonist; an alcoholic, conservative jock. It shows the dismal outcome of a life that succumbs to fear, but is still somehow an uplifting book," remarks Welsh.
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
This one was an easy pick for Welsh. "Music in the form of words. It’s every western pseudo-lit-lover’s cliché of a 'spiritual third world novel' that I almost hate myself for loving it, but I do," he quipped.
- Cities of the Red Night by William S Burroughs
It’s almost fashionable to read Burroughs and proclaim him as a genius but Welsh has an opinion on this writer's works. "The truth is that Burroughs’s best novels were the ones he wrote in the later years of his life, like The Western Lands and this beautiful work," claims Welsh.
5. A Disaffection by James Kelman
Still the most satisfying of Kelman’s novels, Welsh reread it recently, and it seems to have gained even more potency through time for him. "We’ve all been Patrick Doyle, going into a place of work, and even through your life, and feeling hopelessly, utterly miscast," he shared.
- Pimp by Iceberg Slim
This biography, written with a novelist’s stylisation, was an incendiary moment in western culture. "Ironically, it became the weapon that would win the cultural wars for dispossessed black, urban America. It’s impossible to think of what street culture of white Hollywood would look like without it. Slim is the most influential writer in English since Shakespeare," asserted Welsh.
- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgeral
This has the harsh tone of fictionalised life, and Jay Gatsby’s experiences draw heavily on Fitzgerald’s descent into alcoholism, and his wife Zelda’s succumbing to mental illness. "Nobody in the English-speaking world has been able to write sentences like this author," stated Welsh.
- Underworld by Don DeLillo
"This was the book that made my John Updike collection pretty much superfluous," claims Welsh. In one big, sprawling, ambitious novel, DeLillo captures the soul of white America at its most optimistic, soaring and sad — an amazing achievement. "You can read this and look at what the US is now and cry tears," shared the author.
- The Football Factory by John King
"I was hooked from the opening sentences. This is the most important English novel since Orwell put pen to paper," marked Welsh. We must read this one - especially because Welsh compares it to Orwell's work!
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Along with “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk, here are the two novels from the end of last century which have not been overtaken as the seminal works in defining America in this century, according to Welsh. "One deals with the out-of-control greed and power lust of the 1 percent, the other with the lost generations of the 99% — poorer than their parents for the first time in American history. Read them together and you have the USA," claims Welsh.
Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.