2019-05-12 A review of Filth by Irvine Welsh

Just finished reading Filth by Irvine Welsh (spoilers).

This is a good book, and very dark. It lives up to the blurb of having themes of sexism, racism and other pretty offensive topics. The main protagonist is a disgusting human. The crude antics he gets up to involving drugs, sex and other immoral behaviour are pretty nasty. He's a scheming and devious arsehole that you wouldn't want to meet.

Doesn't sound that positive for a role in a book and why read? Well, I like a dark book occasionally and this one is full of dark humour. It's not a warm story, but it is compelling. I blasted through this book in a week. As the story progresses there is a separate monologue from a tapeworm living inside the main characters gut. This worm evolves to have a consciousness and fills in some of Bruce's (main character) past. The reader is then more compelled to feel sorry for Bruce right up to the tragic end.

As I said a good read, which was my first of Irvine Welsh's novels. It was a bit tricky at times due to the Scottish dialect used and lack of quotation marks in the text.

I'd give this a solid four stars, but don't read if you are easily offended.

More from Winston Smith
All posts