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Ésta es la primera colección de cuentos de Welsh desde aquel tremendo Acid House que cambió nuestra mirada sobre una época y una generación.
En «Serpientes de cascabel», dos chicos y una chica, muy drogados y enrollados, vuelven del festival Burning Man en Nevada, y el coche se les para en medio del desierto. Y tampoco tienen cobertura en el móvil para pedir ayuda. Montan la tienda y se preparan a pasar la noche. Pero al conductor lo pica una cascabel en la parte del cuerpo que tenía en la mano mientras soñaba con la chica del triángulo. Teniendo en cuenta el lugar de la mordedura, pretende que sea ella quien lo salve chupándole el veneno, pero es su compañero quien se ofrece para el sacrificio. Y entonces llegan dos jóvenes hermanos mexicanos, homófobos, armados, y muy resentidos tras el fracaso de su sueño americano.
En el relato que da título al libro, Mickey es un expatriado inglés que tiene un bar en las Canarias, una ex mujer que le hace la vida imposible en Inglaterra y una hija adolescente que llega de improviso. Y Mickey tendrá que hacer verdaderos juegos de prestidigitación con sus diferentes amantes, además de vigilar a dos presuntos gángsters que parecen estar planeando un golpe. A continuación, el lector se encontrará con unas chicas muy esnobs, muy Paris Hilton y muy malas, que se reúnen en un restaurante coreano de novísima cocina. A una de ellas le desaparece el perro y sospecha de su vecino, un enigmático coreano que es, precisamente, el chef del restaurante...
En «Miss Arizona», un joven realizador y guionista entrevista a Yolanda -una especie de terrorífica Gloria Swanson de Sunset Boulevard-, que fue la última esposa de un famoso realizador indie y maldito que él admira. Pero Miss Arizona tuvo varios maridos más, y le reserva algunas sorpresas al joven cineasta...
Y en «El reino de Fife», Welsh vuelve a su territorio, la Escocia profunda, con una historia de amor con sexo y drogas, y también mucho de comedia de enredos. Jenny es una princesa suburbana, aficionada a la equitación, con un padre que se ha hecho a sí mismo, también ha hecho mucho dinero, y ha adquirido en el camino una considerable fama de mafioso. Jason es un yóquey frustrado, campeón de futbolín e hijo de un proletario socialista muy iracundo.
En «Serpientes de cascabel», dos chicos y una chica, muy drogados y enrollados, vuelven del festival Burning Man en Nevada, y el coche se les para en medio del desierto. Y tampoco tienen cobertura en el móvil para pedir ayuda. Montan la tienda y se preparan a pasar la noche. Pero al conductor lo pica una cascabel en la parte del cuerpo que tenía en la mano mientras soñaba con la chica del triángulo. Teniendo en cuenta el lugar de la mordedura, pretende que sea ella quien lo salve chupándole el veneno, pero es su compañero quien se ofrece para el sacrificio. Y entonces llegan dos jóvenes hermanos mexicanos, homófobos, armados, y muy resentidos tras el fracaso de su sueño americano.
En el relato que da título al libro, Mickey es un expatriado inglés que tiene un bar en las Canarias, una ex mujer que le hace la vida imposible en Inglaterra y una hija adolescente que llega de improviso. Y Mickey tendrá que hacer verdaderos juegos de prestidigitación con sus diferentes amantes, además de vigilar a dos presuntos gángsters que parecen estar planeando un golpe. A continuación, el lector se encontrará con unas chicas muy esnobs, muy Paris Hilton y muy malas, que se reúnen en un restaurante coreano de novísima cocina. A una de ellas le desaparece el perro y sospecha de su vecino, un enigmático coreano que es, precisamente, el chef del restaurante...
En «Miss Arizona», un joven realizador y guionista entrevista a Yolanda -una especie de terrorífica Gloria Swanson de Sunset Boulevard-, que fue la última esposa de un famoso realizador indie y maldito que él admira. Pero Miss Arizona tuvo varios maridos más, y le reserva algunas sorpresas al joven cineasta...
Y en «El reino de Fife», Welsh vuelve a su territorio, la Escocia profunda, con una historia de amor con sexo y drogas, y también mucho de comedia de enredos. Jenny es una princesa suburbana, aficionada a la equitación, con un padre que se ha hecho a sí mismo, también ha hecho mucho dinero, y ha adquirido en el camino una considerable fama de mafioso. Jason es un yóquey frustrado, campeón de futbolín e hijo de un proletario socialista muy iracundo.
Description
In his first short-story collection since The Acid House, Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questions. In 'Rattlesnakes' how do three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, and why does one find himself performing fellatio on another while being watched by the bare-breasted Madeline and two armed Mexicans? Who is the mysterious Korean chef who has moved upstairs to Chicago socialite Kendra Cross, in 'The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park', and what does he have to do with the disappearance of her faithful pooch Toto? In the title story, can Mickey Baker - an expat English bar-owner ducking and diving on the Costa Brava - manage to keep all his balls in the air- maintaining his barmaid Cynthia's body weight at the sexual maximum while attending to the youthful Persephone and dodging his persistent ex-wife and a pair of Spanish gangsters? By what train of events does Raymond Wilson Butler, writing a biography of a legendary US film director in 'Miss Arizona' come to end up as a piece of movie memorabilia? And how, in the novella 'The Kingdom of Fife' will Jason King - diminutive ex-trainee jockey and Subbuteo star of Cowdenbeath - fare in the world of middle-class female equestrians, and will he ever enjoy the tender and long-anticipated charms of Jenni Cahill and her remarkable jodhpurs? All of these questions are posed, and answered, in these five extraordinary stories- stories that remind us that Irvine Welsh is a master of the shorter form, a brilliant storyteller, and - unarguably - one of the funniest and filthiest writers in Britain.… (more)
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Collection
Publication
ANAGRAMA (2010)
User reviews
LibraryThing member kalafudra
If You Liked School, You'll Love Work is a short story collection by Irvine Welsh. There are five stories in it, almost all around the length of fifty pages (The last one could actually be called a novel, it's got almost 190 pages).
What I like most about Irvine Welsh is the way he can - seemingly
All the stories had me hooked, although it always took me a couple of pages to get into them, to get used to that sudden change of voice.
Rattlesnakes
In the Nevada desert, two young men and a young woman are stranded, after attending a rave. And as if things weren't complicated enough without that, one of them gets bitten by a rattlesnake.
The story is funny, but in a "I rather laugh than think about that" way. It builds up to a big explosion in the end and delivers (not literally, though) just that. The end's open and in this case, I would have liked it to go on a bit more and show us what happens next.
If You Liked School, You'll Love Work
On Fuerteventura, an English bar owner is torn between the women in his life: his ex, his daughter, his lover, his sometimes lover and his next conquest.
The story is divided in five parts and each part concentrates on one of the women, but it's still a stringent story. Mostly, he talks about sex, in a direct way, and with pretty frank details. I like that.
The DOGS of Lincoln Park
Three yuppie girls meet regularly in an Asian restaurant, where they talk about guys and bitch about each other, at least inwardly. When the chef of the restaurant moves into the same apartment building like one of them, worlds collide.
The way the girls treat each other strongly reminded me of American Psycho, even though the story goes into a different direction. The DOGS... kind of takes the yuppie lifestyle as a given, and does not explore that, but our prejudices. It's funny, but the ending seems a bit uninspired.
Miss Arizona
A director/writer sets out to write a biography about a recently deceased independent filmmaker. For that, he interviews his widow, the former Miss Arizona, by now old and washed up, who lives alone in the desert.
The story is meant to be surprising, I think, but it utterly fails to do that. But I enjoyed it anyway, especially the way the relationship between Miss Arizona and the writer unfolds slowly.
Kingdom of Fife
A young, unemployed man more or less stalks a rich horse rider. The horse rider's best friend struggles with her family and place in life.
The story takes place in Fife, Scotland and is written alternatively from the man's and the best friend's perspective. When the young man's talking, the book looks like this (that's the first paragraph):
Ya hoor, sor; the conversation in this place wid make a pornographer blush. -- You ken Big Monty, it's no as if eh isnae well hung or nowt like that. Eh'd goat a hud ay that crystal meth fae some boy in Edinbury n it wis up like two fucking cans ay Tennent's, yin oan toap ay the other; his words no mine, the Duke ay Musselbury says aw sagely, liftin the pint ay Guiness tae ehs lips n takin a swallay. Thir's a ridge ay foam, or cream as the Porter Brewery chaps in Dublin wid like ye tae think ay it, hingin fae the dirty ginger mowser oan ehs toap lip. Early Seturday n we're the only cunts in the Goth, wur local boozer. Great place, the Goth, an awfay warm howf, wi aw thon mahogany-coloured wood everywhaire. Thir's a big screen oppposite the bar for the fitba, usually just Scottish (borin, only two teams kin win), or English (worse, only one team kin win), bit they sometimes show Le Liga or the Bundeslegia. Thir's a big partitioned pool room at the side, surrounded by gless, makin aw the bams in thaire look like goldfish.
Admittedly, writing in dialect like that, slows the reading down at first. A lot. But that's all made up by the cool-factor, and my obsession with Scottish. And you get used to it pretty quickly, so the tempo goes up again and the coolness stays the same.
The story is really sweet, sweeter than I'm used to, coming from Irvine Welsh. I really liked the two main characters, always a good thing. I think it's my favourite from the collection.
What I like most about Irvine Welsh is the way he can - seemingly
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without effort - include dialects in his writings. He usually writes from a third- or first-person point of view and he really knows how to nail a character's voice. The language and the dialect is always perfectly in tune with them. In this short story collection, where he changes from a young American guy, to a middle-aged English man and then again to a very posh Chicago woman etc., this is especially obvious.All the stories had me hooked, although it always took me a couple of pages to get into them, to get used to that sudden change of voice.
Rattlesnakes
In the Nevada desert, two young men and a young woman are stranded, after attending a rave. And as if things weren't complicated enough without that, one of them gets bitten by a rattlesnake.
The story is funny, but in a "I rather laugh than think about that" way. It builds up to a big explosion in the end and delivers (not literally, though) just that. The end's open and in this case, I would have liked it to go on a bit more and show us what happens next.
If You Liked School, You'll Love Work
On Fuerteventura, an English bar owner is torn between the women in his life: his ex, his daughter, his lover, his sometimes lover and his next conquest.
The story is divided in five parts and each part concentrates on one of the women, but it's still a stringent story. Mostly, he talks about sex, in a direct way, and with pretty frank details. I like that.
The DOGS of Lincoln Park
Three yuppie girls meet regularly in an Asian restaurant, where they talk about guys and bitch about each other, at least inwardly. When the chef of the restaurant moves into the same apartment building like one of them, worlds collide.
The way the girls treat each other strongly reminded me of American Psycho, even though the story goes into a different direction. The DOGS... kind of takes the yuppie lifestyle as a given, and does not explore that, but our prejudices. It's funny, but the ending seems a bit uninspired.
Miss Arizona
A director/writer sets out to write a biography about a recently deceased independent filmmaker. For that, he interviews his widow, the former Miss Arizona, by now old and washed up, who lives alone in the desert.
The story is meant to be surprising, I think, but it utterly fails to do that. But I enjoyed it anyway, especially the way the relationship between Miss Arizona and the writer unfolds slowly.
Kingdom of Fife
A young, unemployed man more or less stalks a rich horse rider. The horse rider's best friend struggles with her family and place in life.
The story takes place in Fife, Scotland and is written alternatively from the man's and the best friend's perspective. When the young man's talking, the book looks like this (that's the first paragraph):
Ya hoor, sor; the conversation in this place wid make a pornographer blush. -- You ken Big Monty, it's no as if eh isnae well hung or nowt like that. Eh'd goat a hud ay that crystal meth fae some boy in Edinbury n it wis up like two fucking cans ay Tennent's, yin oan toap ay the other; his words no mine, the Duke ay Musselbury says aw sagely, liftin the pint ay Guiness tae ehs lips n takin a swallay. Thir's a ridge ay foam, or cream as the Porter Brewery chaps in Dublin wid like ye tae think ay it, hingin fae the dirty ginger mowser oan ehs toap lip. Early Seturday n we're the only cunts in the Goth, wur local boozer. Great place, the Goth, an awfay warm howf, wi aw thon mahogany-coloured wood everywhaire. Thir's a big screen oppposite the bar for the fitba, usually just Scottish (borin, only two teams kin win), or English (worse, only one team kin win), bit they sometimes show Le Liga or the Bundeslegia. Thir's a big partitioned pool room at the side, surrounded by gless, makin aw the bams in thaire look like goldfish.
Admittedly, writing in dialect like that, slows the reading down at first. A lot. But that's all made up by the cool-factor, and my obsession with Scottish. And you get used to it pretty quickly, so the tempo goes up again and the coolness stays the same.
The story is really sweet, sweeter than I'm used to, coming from Irvine Welsh. I really liked the two main characters, always a good thing. I think it's my favourite from the collection.
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LibraryThing member MikeFarquhar
Irvine Welsh's novel from last summer was fairly disappointing, so I approached his new volume of short stories, If You Liked School, You'll Love Work, with an air of cautious trepidation. Sadly the magic of his earlier short story collections is equally missing here, and - a few phrases and images
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aside - this fails to captivate. Show Less
LibraryThing member prophetandmistress
I actually quite enjoyed this book. (That being said, I did read it on a 9 hour transatlantic flight and anything is better then the romantic comedies you are subjected too.)
[If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work] is a collection of short stories and one novella so comparing it to any longer
Or in some cases, you think you hear the train and just as you are about to turn and look into its headlights, scene.
Personally, I am a big fan of gore, squalor and a bit of the ol’ ultra violence in my beach reads and it definitely delivers that. As for applying in depth analysis or even critical theory to this book, don’t bother. It’s enjoyable and smart escapism.
-The Mistress
[If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work] is a collection of short stories and one novella so comparing it to any longer
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books (like [Trainspotting] which will probably be the one he is remembered for), just isn’t a fair comparison. The first few stories are good, not because of his famed vernacular writing style, but because much like his American counterpart [[Chuck Palahniuk]] you can see the train wreck coming. It fills you with dread and anticipation: Which character will survive? Can things get any worse? What’s with the author’s love of the large ladies?Or in some cases, you think you hear the train and just as you are about to turn and look into its headlights, scene.
Personally, I am a big fan of gore, squalor and a bit of the ol’ ultra violence in my beach reads and it definitely delivers that. As for applying in depth analysis or even critical theory to this book, don’t bother. It’s enjoyable and smart escapism.
-The Mistress
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LibraryThing member sublunarie
It's incredibly hard to rate this book. Irvine Welsh has been one of my favorite authors for over a decade, and I've never disliked anything he's had his hand in. The same goes here. Mostly it was a good collection of short stories. It could have, however, benefitted from the abscence of "The
Not his best work, but from what I understand these were stories he was writing when he had a moment here and there of spare time between other projects. If I can think of it that way - like you would a musical side project - then it's well good enough.
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D.O.G.S. Of Lincoln Park". While I appreciate what he was trying to do with the story, it felt like it really came up short. It also took nearly 60 pages of "The Kingdom Of Fife" to sell me on that story. Not his best work, but from what I understand these were stories he was writing when he had a moment here and there of spare time between other projects. If I can think of it that way - like you would a musical side project - then it's well good enough.
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LibraryThing member JoelvdWeele
Stories of various quality, but the last one, a novella really sees Welsh back in true form.
LibraryThing member Daftboy1
This is a various short story collection by Irvine Welsh.
Highlights for me were the following stories
If you liked school you will love work about an ex London gangster who runs a Pub in Spain
Dogs of Lincoln Park about a woman who think a Korean chef cooked her Dog
Kingdom of Fife about a young Guy
All good stories.
Irvine has an amazing imagination.
Highlights for me were the following stories
If you liked school you will love work about an ex London gangster who runs a Pub in Spain
Dogs of Lincoln Park about a woman who think a Korean chef cooked her Dog
Kingdom of Fife about a young Guy
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who plays Subbeto and falls in love with a horse riding girl. All good stories.
Irvine has an amazing imagination.
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Call number
118
Language
ISBN
8433975048 / 9788433975041
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