Trainspotting the Novel is Better than Trainspotting the Film

The main character of Trainspotting, Mark Renton, is eloquent enough to persuade you that self-destructing with injected narcotics makes more sense than the middle class grind of sleep, commute, work, ad nauseum. His deftness with words is showcased when, in the film, he lambastes the people of Scotland for submitting to English rule:

It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We're ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference.

I adore Trainspotting the film but the novel is a higher work of art. The foundation for the greatness of both works is Renton's character. The film gives us a passing account of him. It focuses on his transformation from a junkie scraping by in Edinburgh to a Londoner trying to claw his way into the middle class. The novel gives a complete description of Renton's personality, world view, and family.

In it, we learn that, growing up, Renton was ashamed of his younger brother, a spastic who was sent away to an institution. He felt a mixture of hostility and contempt for his older brother, Billy, who regularly beat him up until he earned Billy's respect by stabbing a bully at school. This incident and Billy's reputation as a hard man caused the thugs of Leith to give Renton wide berth.

Renton's family, on his father's side, is Protestant and militantly Unionist. On the mother's side, they're Catholic and favor Scottish independence. Billy takes after the father's side, joins Her Majesty's Service, and is killed by Republican forces on a patrol in Northern Ireland. At the wake following the funeral, Renton drunkenly comes on to his cousin. His advances enrage his Unionist uncle, Chick, who attempts to throw Renton out:

--Listen son, if you don't get oan yir fuckin bike, ah'm gaunnae tan your jaw. If it wasnae fir yir father thair, ah've done it a long time ago. Ah don't like you son. Ah never huv. Yir brother was ten times the man you'll ever be, ya fuckin junky. If you knew the misery yuv caused yir Ma n Da ...

--You can speak frankly, ah cut in, anger throbbing in my chest but nonetheless contained by a delicious glee that comes fae knowing that ah've upset the cunt. Stay cool. It's the only way tae fuck a self-righteous bastard over.

--Oh ah'll speak frankly aw right, Mr University smart cunt. Ah'll knock you through that fuckin waw. His chunky, indian-inked fist was just a few inches from fae ma face. Ma grip tensed oan the whisky gless I wis haudin. Ah wisnae gaunnae let the cunt touch us wi they fuckin hands. If he moved he wis gittin this gless.

Ah push his raised hand aside.

-If ye did gie us a kickin, ye'd be daeing me a favour. Ah'd jist huv a wank aboot it later on. We University drop-oot smart cunt junkies are kinky that wey. Cause that's aw you're worth, ya fuckin trash. Yir also takin a wee bit for granted. Ye want tae go ootside, just say the fuckin word.. Ah gestured at the door. The room seemed tae shrink tae the size ay Billy's coffin, and be populated only by masel n Chick. But thir wir others. People wir looking roond at us now.

Renton reduces Chick to fodder for a pervert's sexual fantasies. The contempt is impeccable. Renton's contempt first reached artistic heights at the wake when a minister of the British government extends condolences for Billy's death:

Some ruling class cunt, a junior minister or something, says in his Oxbridge voice how Billy wis a brave young man. He wis exactly the kind ay cunt they'd huv branded as a cowardly thug if he wis in civvy street rather than on Her Majesty's Service. This fucking walking abortion says that his killers will be ruthlessly hunted down. So they fuckin should. Aw the wey tae the fuckin Houses ay Parliament.

Here, Renton seems to view Scottish nationalism as a viable program that might bring about an independent Scottish state. This contrasts with his rant in the film in which he calls the Scottish servile trash, which suggests that hopes for independence are futile.

Since films are short and visually oriented, Trainspotting the film can't depict Renton's personality with the art and the depth of the novel. Because Renton's character is the nucleus of both pieces, the novel is superior to the film, just as an original of a painting is superior to a reproduction.

The opposite holds in the case of the film and novel versions of Fight Club. Palahniuk fails to give his characters personality in the novel. The film, by shifting the focus to the compelling chain of events described in the novel, and away from the deficient characters, is stronger than the novel.