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The bad detective >> With Filth, Irvine Welsh takes himself a wee bit too seriously by JULIET WATERS
In the meantime, he keeps himself entertained by stealing sentimental objects from old women, forcing 12-year-old ravers to give him head, seducing his wife's sister along with any other off-limits women (friends and co-workers' wives) and making crank calls. These pastimes and others keep his mind off a few problems: his wife has left him and he's developing an extremely painful rash on his anus. And when "shagging hoors" and snorting a ton of coke doesn't work, he distracts himself with a wide selection of Deep Purple, Phil Collins, Foreigner, BTO and even "that Celine Dion bird" ("singing that horrible song, the one she was just made to sing."). Filth is Irvine Welsh's fifth novel, and it pretty much justifies the claim on the dustcover: "At last, a novel that lives up to its name." Godfather to the Edinburgh beats, or tartan new ravers as they've been pegged by one scot'zine editor, Welsh is best known for writing the novel that inspired the movie Trainspotting. With Filth, Welsh has crafted a 400-page rant/narrative that has a certain brutal integrity but eventually becomes more than a wee bit tiresome. To give Welsh some credit, he's not selling out. Filth couldn't be easily adapted to film. The bad cop thing has been done before, even if Robertson does make Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant seem like a guest spot on Cagney & Lacey. And, notwithstanding Deep Purple's recent comeback, what loser would buy the soundtrack? The film would also have to remove some of Robertson's more sadistic acts and fantasies which, unpleasant as they are, would remove what little plot there is. However, the worst cinematic problem would be the role of the talking tapeworm that has invaded Robertson's intestines (ergo the rash). Even with some interesting computer special effects, it's not much of a supporting role. Mostly, the tapeworm just eats. And when he starts to talk he doesn't have the bad attitude or cool idioms. He's kind of a poofy, sensitive, liberal tapeworm without much of a personality. But at least he's an occasional relief from the relentless, and not really funny enough, Robertson story. Readers may find Filth more accessible than Welsh's past work. I can't say for sure if he's toned down the Scottish slang or if I'm just more used to it. But now that he's more comprehensible, I suspect he's so heavy with the idioms because he doesn't have all that much to say. I wouldn't say this of his past work. How Welsh said things, the conflict between indigenous Scottish street slang and generic popular culture, was a subtle part of the theme. But what Welsh says here has been said about a million times before (there's an innocent laddie hidden in every psychopath). Welsh is more fun, interesting and substantial when he's playing around with disaffected youth culture in an intense and difficult country. When he tries to tackle the problem of human evil, which seems to be what he's attempting, he exposes himself as a minor writer. Some might argue that he's satirizing the struggle with human evil, but as a parody this book doesn't quite hit the mark. In the end he takes himself much too seriously. Trying to gain our sympathy for Robertson with a clichéd childhood abuse story is a noble enough little trick, but the person I end up feeling sorry for is Welsh. It's hard enough living with this character for the time it takes to read a 400-page novel. Having to live with him for the month I imagine it took to write this book must have been a real labour of love. :
Filth by Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Cape,
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Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is a bad cop with bad taste in music. He's a virulent racist, homophobe and misogynist who thinks Michael Bolton's version of "When a Man Loves a Woman" is "ten times better than any nigger shite." His mission in life is to get promoted to D.I., although he's not planning on ever becoming "one of those Inspector Morse type of cunts."