But here's the thing: prequels are tricky beasts. Ask anyone that saw 'The Phantom Menace'. Once the initial rush of seeing much loved characters as their younger selves wears off, any slightness in the plot will be ruthlessly exposed. 'Skagboys' manages to avoid this fate, but I have to admit that it may be one for the fanboys (of which I am one) and not necessarily a masterpiece...and here's why...
The genius of 'Trainspotting' is that it was effortless and visceral social commentary that exposed all of the ills and evils of Thacherite Britain. Welsh never needed to erect an enormous sign saying "SOCIALISM GOOD, CAPITALISM BAD" or to create scenes specifically to let us know that working class Scotland was hung out to dry during the 80s. All of this became apparent through the episodic structure of the novel, the small moments, the anecdotes, the seamless pop culture referencing. 'Skagboys' seems to fall into the trap of jumping up and down shouting "IT'S ALL THATCHER'S FAULT!" in rather a clumsy way. If the intention of the book is to correlate Conservative government with unemployment and drug abuse, then it's certainly successful, but there's no finesse about the way this is achieved and it's all too simplified and contrived to truly convince. Where 'Trainspotting' told a story that happened to have enormous cultural and political significance, 'Skagboys' seems to strain so hard that it becomes a political tract that just happens to have a plot. 'Trainspotting' had an episodic structure that was almost kaleidoscopic. There was no real sense of time: ten years could have passed, or one. It was disorienting and beautiful. 'Skagboys' aims at the same kind of multi-voiced, episodic narrative, but sticks to a much tighter and more linear chronology, and is probably less of a compelling book for it.
There are other issues, too. The characters don't seem to adequately grow (in the sense that by the novel's end the characters don't seem 'Trainspotting' ready), and though their speech and mannerisms are right, their narratives often seem to reflect the voices of the narrators from teen novels in their naiveté. There seem to be contradictions too, and some of the characters' actions seem to be parodies of how Welsh thinks we want them to act (a scene where Begbie batters two rivals with an iron bar, Sickboy attempting to break into the pimping game, Renton's philosophising about junk). Worst of all, it turns out that Renton's reason for trying heroin in the first place is not, as we'd been led to believe, his disabled brother or his general dissaisfaction with life, the universe and everything, but...wait for it...peer pressure. Yes, in a scene set in a party held after a Northern Soul all-nighter, Renton refuses the offer to chase the dragon and then feels like a coward, ending up tracking down Swanney soon afterwards. I thought that was pretty anti-cimactic. Of further concern is that many of the events we experience directly here, we already knew about, because they were frequently mentioned as backstory to 'Trainspotting'. Renton's brother? What more could we learn about him that we didn't already know from the original novel? Renton's time at Aberdeen University? Yep, we knew about that too. Renton's stint on the Hook of Holland ferry run? Covered in 'Trainspotting'.
I was struggling to explain why all of this was the case until I read around the interviews Welsh did around the publication date. Turns out that most of 'Skagboys' was in fact retrieved from a stack of floppy disks Welsh had begun writing 'Trainspotting' on back in the late 80s. Never having written a novel before, Welsh just started writing, and then kept writing. At a certain, fairly arbitrary point, he made a cut, and he began to polish the latter half, which would become 'Trainspotting'. Welsh did not think about the material he had left out too much until a few years ago, when he sent the disks off to be restored. What came back became the basis of 'Skagboys'. I think that Welsh perhaps did not edit the piece as much as he could have done. It feels like what it probably is: lively but unpolished juvenalia.
However (and this is a big however)...I still loved the book, for all its flaws. Because the fact is that Welsh is a writer who knows how to weave a story that keeps a reader hooked in. It's a page turner. You want to read about the rogues, the ne'er do wells, the innocents caught up in the brutality of 1980s social deprivation. The glorious rendition of the Leith dialect is as vital and thrilling as ever, and there are enough laughs, loves and shocks to keep you invested throughout. Of particular interest were the small sections woven through the narrative entitled 'Notes On An Epidemic', which detail the way that first, Scottish independence was eroded, then Scottish industry was decimated, leading to an increase in intravenous drug use, and finally, tragically to HIV/AIDS taking a horrific death grip over Edinburgh. Added to the 'Junk Dilemmas' sections familiar from 'Trainspotting', these chunks of text help to give the novel some gravitas. Renton's Rehab Journal is an interesting insight into his character that you don't necessarily get elsewhere in this book, while Spud is for me the undisputed star, funny, self-deprecating and oddly practical. There are also some truly memorable and fascinating moments to cherish, but I won't spoil those for you.
What an odd reading experience 'Skagboys' is. It took me only a week to read, I wanted to read it as often as I could, and it was a real blast spending time with all of those characters I knew and loved again, but all the time I was reading, I knew that it was flawed in a way 'Trainspotting' most definitely was not. Perhaps if the social commentary aspect of the novel was less heavy handed, if the editing had been tighter (this is a much longer book than 'Trainspotting'), 'Skagboys' would've been an unqualified success. As it is, it reads like a talented writer reshaping an old manuscript and relying on the power of his characters and iconic setting to see him through. 'Skagboys' is enjoyable and eminently readable, but lacking the power of the seminal novel it "sets up".
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