If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

I've just finished reading If You Liked School, You'll Love Work, by Irvine Welsh. It’s a collection of short-ish stories, the last one being actually quite long (a 'novella', some reviewers call it).




The first few stories I thought were quite poor, to be honest. My opinion is shared by some of the reviews on amazon.co.uk: "The short stories are all rather flat and dry and without soul", "this just didn't hit the mark for me …", "this is his worst work yet- a waste of time …", and so on. Ouch!


The glowing reviews on the cover of the book: "Vigorous, stunningly funny, whimsical, warm, surreal, grotesque and brilliant" (The Guardian), seem a bit wide of the mark. A real example of why you should not judge a book by its cover!

A few of the stories are based in the US, but Welsh just isn't convincing as an American. He only becomes convincing when he returns to his roots in the last story, Kingdom of Fife. It is Welsh at his gruesome best – a fest of drink, drugs, sex and violence, narrated largely in the Scots dialect of the main character. Not for the faint-hearted.

By pure coincidence, an hour after finishing the book, I came upon an article in the property pages of the Irish Times – Irvine Welsh is selling his house in Dublin, in order to buy another one nearer to the airport.

"A house with a history always has cachet but for "Generation Xers" the ultimate trip is to lay claim to a house that was once a hero's home. Number 41 Grove Park, a quiet residential street just over Rathmines bridge, is the place novelist Irvine Welsh calls home and should spawn many dinner party conversations for house hunters.

The creator of Trainspotting lives in Dublin 6 but travels weekly to the US and UK, and the round trips are taking their toll. The writer wants a base closer to Dublin Airport than his present address."

"The writer's office is on the second floor with views of the Dublin mountains. It's a great space for creative thinking. "When I need to take a break from pounding at that intensity, I kick back my chair, which is on wheels and look out the window," he says".


The article notes that If You Liked School, You'll Love Work was written in this room.

Welsh has picked a bad time to move house, as the Irish housing market is crashing at present. However, since he intends to stay in Dublin, he'll be able to buy a new place cheaper too.