For all the sound and fury about “neoliberal Christmas” (the subhead for part one), Renton and Begbie have become a cultural brand, safe and replicable. Then he runs into his old partner in crime, Frank Begbie, from whom he’d been hiding for years. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist in Los Angeles, and doesn’t seem interested in revenge. Since reading Trainspotting, when it came out in 1993, I have read all of Irvine Welsh's books and, to one degree or another, enjoyed them all, so - full disclosure - I came to Dead Men's Trousers as a massive and long time fan of Irvine Welsh's work. Raunchy, profane, violent, and frequently hilarious… Dead Men’s Trousers delivers a strangely life-affirming dose of dark absurdity, ensuring that, if this is the last we see of these characters, they won’t soon be forgotten.” – *starred* Booklist review

Dove se non in un romanzo un detenuto psicato può intortare la propria psicologa (ovviamente gran fica) fingere si essersi redento, sposarla, avere due figlie con lei pur rimanendo il solito folle psicato? That said, there's a lot of plot in latter-day Welsh. It's not just about the misery of the human condition by way of a decrepit Scottish junkie setting. This time, there are crazy imaginative scenarios organ transplants and various murders. In this the latest and apparently last novel in the series, the gang, now all in middle age are thrown together for one last enterprise. Mikey gies ays a grim smile. Looks around, lowers ehs voice, leans intae ays. — A kidney, Spud. A human kidney: for a life-saving operation. Replace ice … Whoa, man, no sae sure aboot that. Ice is pure natural like, well, it’s usually made artificially in fridges like, but in its natural state in the polar regions –Mark Renton (Rents/Rent Boy) is now manager to a small stable of club DJ’s and spends his life on planes and in hotels, seeing to their every need. Global commercialism has compelled the Scots tae pretend tae like Christmas, but we're genetically programmed tae rebel against it. Sto seduto nel mio appartamento a fumare canne e compatirmi. A deprimermi ancora di più con la coscienza esatta di quello che farò per sopportare questo disastro: mi sfonderò di sostanze, e passato l'effetto mi butterò nel lavoro. Lo ripeto fino alla morte. E questa la trappola. Non c'è un dopo. Welsh makes these amoral misadventures so propulsive, so joyfully awful, that you have to go with the flow…this roues’ romp is about as much fun as you can have between two book covers.”— The Times My favorite quote is an updated version of the "Choose Life" monologue, which completely fits our current era:

Welsh non è autore per tutti, che sia lasciato a noi bastardi potenziali che lo abbiamo nominato portavoce. Gone are most of the things which made Welsh great in the first place - the original cultural references, the Scots dialect, the counter-culture/drugs scene, basically anything distinctively to do with contemporary Scottish life. Dead Men's Trousers, like The Blade Artist, feels extremely Americanised (or at least obviously written by an author who no longer spends his time with the people and places he writes about - someone who is out of touch, to say the least). I think this might be one of the bigger reasons why his more recent work fails to hit the mark. I loved Dead Men’s Trousers the first time around and after rereading Trainspotting just before rereading DMT, I loved it even more this time. Not to mention, this new novel also directly takes place after the solo Begbie novel Blade Artist which feels like required reading now. Then there's that novel Glue, featuring characters such as the perverted Juice Terry and DJ N-Sign--who have also been in more novels. Begbie, now going by the name of Jim Francis, meets Renton on a plane, and surprisingly does not try to kill him. It seems that the psycho has mellowed, and is now an acclaimed arstist with a devoted wife and two lovely children.Non c'è una fava di posto al sole. Non c'è uno stronzo di futuro. C'è solo l' adesso. Ed è una merda, e sta peggiorando. What we are trading that for is years of entertainment, and I for one will take it. But I definitely understand if others aren't into this diluting of the "franchise." As said, I'm into it and I'm entertained.

Welsh presents several sub-plots within which he can introduce and withdraw his characters. The two book vendetta with the American policeman is a good example of this. The blurb flags up that a major character is going to die and it's clear who the likely candidate is, but Welsh skilfully sows doubt right up to the tragedy occurring. Previously peacable characters explode with sudden violence as decades long resentments boil over, particularly where characters have literally been too clever for their own good.Perché, dato il loro stile di vita non proprio morigerato, era inevitabile che qualcuno della banda prima o poi ci lasciasse, e quando questo alla fine accade, ci si sente quasi come aver perso un vecchio amico.

But everyone other than Spud is comparatively rich – most especially the Miami-based Welsh himself – and they all spend their time in pursuit of the “more” that will finally fill their empty spaces. Other than for the tying up of some old loose ends, Dead Men's Trousers is a fairly pointless read. Even so, every now and then, Welsh throws in an old school passage that made me smile: Like his last few books Dead Men’s Trousers is a return to the Trainspotting/Glue universe and takes it’s cues Porno and The Blade Artist.You're nothing but a work-in-progress until that day you fall out of this world into the land ay dead men's trousers. The story begins in 2015 when Mark Renton, now a successful DJ manager hopping between Amsterdam and LA, bumps into Franco Begbie on a transatlantic flight. In their last encounter Begbie disappeared under the wheels of a car while en route to take bloody revenge on Mark for ripping him off at the end of Trainspotting. But Begbie – now teetotal, and a successful artist living in California with a wife and two young children – comes over all Zen. Is he a changed character? Dove se non in un romanzo, un barman asporta un rene ad un donatore ignaro seguendo un tutorial su youtube?