Trainspotting - Theme?

What do you think is the theme of Trainspotting?

 

I should mention, I'm writing a paper on it and that's why I need to figure it out. Your opinion is valued!

 

The gritty, dirty, drug-filled underworld of Edinburgh.

and Iggy pop.

 

The relationships between people in the drug culture, and maybe a glimpse at what it's like for people who are completly submerged in there addictions....

 

Rejecting society's norms at any cost in favor of immediate, more self-concerned pleasure.


www.lulu.com/philipporras
www.penthief.blogspot.com

 

It has lots of themes, I think the nature of friendship is a big one. I'm fascinated by the way Boyle echoes Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" throughout Trainspotting - I'm not sure there are too many other parrallels except for perhaps the question of free will and social determinism in the first half of the film.

 

trainspotting is my all time favorite book, one of my favorite movies, and irvine welsh is my favorite author. i agree with showmet. its about friendship and subculture, and the effect it has on people in all their different views.

 

placebo--what's your second favorite welsh novel ? i've read them all, and my second favorite would have to be marabou stork nightmares...

 

I think everything else aside, it simply serves the purpose of presenting life from the point of view of an addict, and it does it very well. Without Trainspotting i'd know nothing about it. And, like heron said, its by Iggy Pop

 

Theme? Tough call, the book is a collection of short, loosely-interconnected stories (originally written that way)...

I guess if i had to choose a theme it would be the social viewpoint of the uk from a specified view during those years....

...or that the only way to "win" is to be the biggest bastard of the bunch

 

Probably redemption and how unatainable it is.