Irvine Welsh
COLLA

“Glue by Irvine Welsh, 553 pages in the Guanda or TEA edition, I had found it a while ago on the piratical TorrentZetaDue in ebook format while searching for something else, and since the author's name seemed familiar, I thought: well, I'll download it and then I'll look into it.

I wasn't wrong, quite the opposite, reading it these “Maghrebian” days (for those who don't know, I'll still be in the Moroccan kingdom until early August and well...) I realized that this style wasn't new to me nor was the setting, in fact, the author is the same of “Trainspotting” from which a film was made (actually two films with the same name), I watched the first one when it came out and I must say I liked it a lot, then I also read the book that inspired Danny Boyle to make the film, the second I haven't had the chance (although I don't expect much in terms of novelty, I mean I'm sure it was created just to make some money riding the wave of the first, like all respectable sequels).

Okay, I don't want to talk extensively about the plot as you can find plenty of summaries where you know, I'll only report some personal impressions regarding the narrative ensemble from IW, starting from the title. Although the novel deals with contemporary youth rites of passage, including various initiations related to sports (mainly football, because what do you expect from Scotland?) and a bit of boxing by one of the protagonists, Mr. Business Birrel, as well as sex, the main topic of Mr Lawrence Terry Lawson, another co-protagonist who, after losing his prime job of delivering soft drinks door-to-door, resorts to burgling apartments (along with Uncle Alec, an old lush who knew his stuff until a few years back).

IW accompanies us through the first thirty years of these working-class friends in an Edinburgh always competing with the rest of the world and always opposing the Thatcherite and Papist regime (which we know well, at least those of us who are roughly IW's age). It shows us, from the beginning, the fathers and mothers of our heroes as workers and trade unionists in a Scotland that hardly caters to their natural needs, much like in Italy and Europe for that matter. Gradually, we enter the schools, stadiums, pubs, and bedrooms where our modern three musketeers plus the inevitable D'Artagnan grow before our eyes, truly being all for one and one for all, constantly surprising and intriguing us to know more of their adventures and lives sometimes marred by excesses and unforeseen diseases related to those excesses. What strikes the most is the “glue” which isn't the drug sniffed in certain underclass environments (even here on the streets of the old imperial city of Fès in Morocco, I saw young and even underaged people “wrecked” with a plastic bag in hand as they inhaled obscenely, hopelessly expecting nothing else from life). No, the “glue” IW talks about is the true friendship that binds four boys forever, no matter the cost, despite the distances like Australia or careers acquired over time. We find ourselves rooting for one or the other during the episodes outlined per chapter in the book (for which there is also a sequel titled “Porno”, which I may read as soon as I get a chance). In fact, I'll make an appeal: AAA anyone who owns an ebook copy and would like to share it with me, please contact me here on DeBasio, thanks in advance!

I'll conclude by saying this book almost seems designed to attract some filmmaker to consider it for another film sui “generis”, and I'm sure even though the subject is somewhat overused these days, it would still make a “great impression.”

P.S. Here too, music isn't lacking as time passes and in the homes of our um, “associates” starting from the King of Elvis to the music of the DJs (among them one of the protagonists Mr Carl Ewart or DJ N-SIGN) ranging from Ibiza to the rest of the planet rave...

II° P.S. um, I know, it takes courage to call all this a "review", I'm the first to admit it... but still, pay no more attention to it than necessary, and if you happen to come across the book, don't hesitate to give it a read when you can, okay?