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Available
Call number
Description
Escoria es un libro escrito por Irvine Welsh, que relata los pensamientos y vivencias de un sargento de la policía de Escocia.
El «señor» Bruce Robertson.
Lejos de ser un ciudadano y policía ejemplar, es violento, manipulador, racista y machista. Además es adicto a los malos hábitos, de forma habitual consume pornografía, servicios de prostitutas, cocaína, alcohol y comida rápida…
Todos estos vicios le convierten literalmente en «el trocito de excremento humano más furtivo, malvado y vil que jamás ha pisado este planeta...».
Como consecuencia de sus malos hábitos se le reproduce un gran herpes genital y también, la solitaria, un parásito intestinal. Este parásito acaba por convertirse en la voz de su conciencia y nos ayuda a entender tal comportamiento.
Descubre como este sargento, junto con su equipo, tratan de resolver el brutal asesinato del hijo de un diplomático africano.
Escoria es una novela punzante, polémica, irónica y mal oliente, que poco a poco te abduce dentro de su locura. Viaja a través de sus párrafos y entiende y sigue el hundimiento de este polémico personaje, que a pesar de todo, te hará reír.
El «señor» Bruce Robertson.
Lejos de ser un ciudadano y policía ejemplar, es violento, manipulador, racista y machista. Además es adicto a los malos hábitos, de forma habitual consume pornografía, servicios de prostitutas, cocaína, alcohol y comida rápida…
Todos estos vicios le convierten literalmente en «el trocito de excremento humano más furtivo, malvado y vil que jamás ha pisado este planeta...».
Como consecuencia de sus malos hábitos se le reproduce un gran herpes genital y también, la solitaria, un parásito intestinal. Este parásito acaba por convertirse en la voz de su conciencia y nos ayuda a entender tal comportamiento.
Descubre como este sargento, junto con su equipo, tratan de resolver el brutal asesinato del hijo de un diplomático africano.
Escoria es una novela punzante, polémica, irónica y mal oliente, que poco a poco te abduce dentro de su locura. Viaja a través de sus párrafos y entiende y sigue el hundimiento de este polémico personaje, que a pesar de todo, te hará reír.
Description
With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves. But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition - in the form of truth and ethical conscience - from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction , and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.… (more)
Collection
Publication
Anagrama (2003), 440 pages
Media reviews
Booklist
Those who make it through Bruce's gruesome abuses and the difficult Scottish dialect will be left with something to think about.
Publishers Weekly
As in the past, Welsh himself sometimes seems rather compromised as a satirist by the glee he takes in his characters' repulsiveness. Yet if this hypnotic chronicle of moral and psychological ruin (funnier and far more accessible than Welsh's last full-length novel, Marabou Stork Nightmares) fails
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to charm a wide readership, it will not disappoint devotees. Show Less
Physical description
440 p.; 8.11 inches
User reviews
LibraryThing member EvilCreature
This is one of my favourites books and film adaptations. This book was a laugh-out-loud funny, but sometimes I felt offended because the main character is the disgusting, offensive, insensitive, racist, homophobic, sexist arsehole that I have ever read about. The main character is an arsehole but
I really liked the strange Scottish slang that was used in this book but I did have to look it up online to decipher what it means, so people may have the same problem while reading this book as well, but it was fun to figure out what it means.
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he is the type of arsehole that you would love to hate so that's why it made me laugh so much. The main character is very selfish and everything he does he will onlyndo it if he gains something from the situation or a person, so while at work he is hoping to gain a promotion, by individually manipulating people so they would ruin their chance of a promotion without realising this. He does have friends but he hates them and so long as they provide them with drugs, alcohol or women to have sex with then he is satisfied, but the moment they no longer serve their purpose then they are useless. Eventually he starts to realise that maybe his lifestyle, unhealthy diet and antisocial way he deals with people is offensive and disgusted he decides to end his life on his own terms. In my own opinion even though the main character is a arsehole and a pervert at least he eventually realised that. Some people really need to adapt to the modern world/the outside world. I really liked the strange Scottish slang that was used in this book but I did have to look it up online to decipher what it means, so people may have the same problem while reading this book as well, but it was fun to figure out what it means.
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LibraryThing member Duranfan
You'll feel like taking a shower with oven cleaner after reading this. I love how Welsh can create characters so vile yet believable. And writing from the perspective of the parasite...? Brilliant!
LibraryThing member TheBeerNut
Welsh's tightest novel: perfectly paced and deeply involving, due to the first-person present-tense narrative.
LibraryThing member Hera
I really enjoyed this novel. It reminded me of Sterne. Interesting to have an utterly loathsome main protaganist and yet you still keep reading. A horrifying read, but worth it.
LibraryThing member amandrake
I had to give this 1 star as it is well written, but it is one of the few books I couldn't finish. It started to get boring wanting to strangle the main character all the time, and the other review which says you'll want to take a shower after reading it was dead on. I will probably try to get
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through it again, as I do like his work in general. If you haven't read him yet, I'd recommend starting with Ecstasy (if you like short stories) or Trainspotting (if you prefer novels.) Oh, and for all you non-Brits out there (like me) "the filth" is slang for the police. Show Less
LibraryThing member sailornate82
Yes, this book (and most others by Welsh) is about unseedy behavior, and, up until page 80, where I put the book down for good, that's about all that "Filth" contributes.
The Scottish brogue is not as daunting as I thought it might be, but the lack of a point, an insight, a reason to the
However, I have heard a few good things about Welsh's other books, so I would like to give him another shot.
The Scottish brogue is not as daunting as I thought it might be, but the lack of a point, an insight, a reason to the
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incorrigible behavior is. It seems tailor-made for those who enjoy discovering dirty words and prurient thoughts as they read, with little else to get in the way of their adolescent enjoyment.However, I have heard a few good things about Welsh's other books, so I would like to give him another shot.
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LibraryThing member sailornate82
Yes, this book (and most others by Welsh) is about unseedy behavior, and, up until page 80, where I put the book down for good, that's about all that "Filth" contributes.
The Scottish brogue is not as daunting as I thought it might be, but the lack of a point, an insight, a reason to the
However, I have heard a few good things about Welsh's other books, so I would like to give him another shot.
The Scottish brogue is not as daunting as I thought it might be, but the lack of a point, an insight, a reason to the
Show More
incorrigible behavior is. It seems tailor-made for those who enjoy discovering dirty words and prurient thoughts as they read, with little else to get in the way of their adolescent enjoyment.However, I have heard a few good things about Welsh's other books, so I would like to give him another shot.
Show Less
LibraryThing member wpschlitz
I tried reading this book a few years ago, and like many of the other reviewers found it just too distasteful to continue... the Scottish writing and slang notwithstanding... it's hard to get into a book where you despise the main character from the get go.
But I tried it again, and I'm glad that I
Like most unpleasant things, if you just try to power through it you can get to something rewarding.
Once things really start falling apart for Mr. Robertson I couldn't put the book down... my poor neglected girlfriend can attest to that.
Now that I'm done I'm going to take a shower and read something fuzzier... like the new Stephen King I just got.
But I tried it again, and I'm glad that I
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did... Like most unpleasant things, if you just try to power through it you can get to something rewarding.
Once things really start falling apart for Mr. Robertson I couldn't put the book down... my poor neglected girlfriend can attest to that.
Now that I'm done I'm going to take a shower and read something fuzzier... like the new Stephen King I just got.
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LibraryThing member sydculture
Not a book for everyone but I highly enjoyed the creativity invovled with the tape worm. I also admire how the character is portrayed even though he's a complete fucking asshole but he's honest about it. I love the twist concerning his ex and how tragically it ends. Makes you hope for the best just
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to completely smash that hope to pieces. Beautiful. Show Less
LibraryThing member mearso
Found it pretty easy to get along with the Scottish dialect that the main character speaks in, though could imagine it'd a bit tough.Thought that the pace was a little slow at first but was then glad of the build up because the adventures of Bruce Robertson really started gathering some pace.
At
In passing, I thought it might make a compelling bit of controversial telly.
At
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turns found myself laughing and horrified by Bruce and then Welsh manages a startling about turn that makes one really care about the character.In passing, I thought it might make a compelling bit of controversial telly.
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LibraryThing member hippietrail
I forced my way through this, I couldn't really say I enjoyed it though.
LibraryThing member AnnieHidalgo
Appalling and compulsively readable. You find out something in the end that will shock you and throw everything in the preceding x-hundred pages into an entirely different light. If you dislike bad language, this book is not for you. I find Irvine Welsh intriguing, though. He also wrote
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Trainspotting. Different subject matter, different voice, same flair. Show Less
LibraryThing member CharlieWade
For me, his best work. Take a police detective with more than dubious morals, add Welsh's unique style and voice and a tapeworm and you have a winner. Shocking and not to everyone's taste but compulsive reading.
LibraryThing member jayne_charles
Any book written in the first person has to deal with the problem of getting across to the reader all those things the narrator doesn’t know or isn’t prepared to acknowledge. It takes a special sort of author to think: “I know, let’s use a talking tapeworm”.
And so here is a novel about a
I struggled to get into it in its early stages. It was wall-to-wall egregious behaviour, and it made me think how important it is, even in a book about someone utterly amoral, to have some spark of goodness to lighten the way, so there I was like a man dying of thirst in the desert desperately searching for some evidence of humanity in this character’s corrupt soul. Eventually there was that chink of light, and as with all Irvine Welsh novels, this turns out to have depths I didn’t suspect, and by the end I was quite in awe of its complexity, its extensive cast, and the way the action was sustained evenly over so many pages. There was some tremendous dark humour too (I loved the bit with the dog on the farm).
It can be an unsettling read. The Scottish slang talk, the phonetic spelling, the shocking events and the depths it plumbs are just the same as those in Trainspotting, yet it’s harder to laugh at this one. I think that’s because Trainspotting is about junkies and we expect the worst of them, whereas this is about the police and we want to expect the best from them. I had the feeling the author was drawing our attention to the real dangers of freemasonry within the police, and suggesting that all coppers are bent, they all take drugs, they all have 100% contempt for the public. Maybe I am being naive but I don’t want to believe it.
And so here is a novel about a
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bent policeman, a man with so many prejudices they are impossible to count, who treats both his enemies and his friends with breathtaking contempt, who drinks, takes drugs, and refers to all women as “hoors”. The content is often shocking and extreme, and borders on too much information as he attempts to expel the said talking tapeworm from his scab encrusted rear.I struggled to get into it in its early stages. It was wall-to-wall egregious behaviour, and it made me think how important it is, even in a book about someone utterly amoral, to have some spark of goodness to lighten the way, so there I was like a man dying of thirst in the desert desperately searching for some evidence of humanity in this character’s corrupt soul. Eventually there was that chink of light, and as with all Irvine Welsh novels, this turns out to have depths I didn’t suspect, and by the end I was quite in awe of its complexity, its extensive cast, and the way the action was sustained evenly over so many pages. There was some tremendous dark humour too (I loved the bit with the dog on the farm).
It can be an unsettling read. The Scottish slang talk, the phonetic spelling, the shocking events and the depths it plumbs are just the same as those in Trainspotting, yet it’s harder to laugh at this one. I think that’s because Trainspotting is about junkies and we expect the worst of them, whereas this is about the police and we want to expect the best from them. I had the feeling the author was drawing our attention to the real dangers of freemasonry within the police, and suggesting that all coppers are bent, they all take drugs, they all have 100% contempt for the public. Maybe I am being naive but I don’t want to believe it.
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LibraryThing member JWarren42
So delicously revolting. Welsh is at his best, here. The metaphor is spot on. The dynamic narrative device is shocking and perfect. Bruce Robertson is a nasty, nasty piece of work, making Francis Begbie look positively choirboy-like in comparison. The twist, when it comes (and that's not a
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spoiler--it's Welsh, so you knew there would be one) is shocking and yet fits so perfectly all at the same time that it seems to have been crystal clear from the beginning. Not for the faint of heart, but if you want to see the power of disgust explored by a master of the craft, get this book immediately. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member MiaCulpa
A truly filthy and depraved novel by Irvine Welsh, which is what we have come to expect from the Bard of Edinburgh.
"Filth" covers the life of an Edinburgh detective named Bruce Robertson who has a tapeworm inside him, a severe mental health issue, and his life spiraling out of control. Robertson
Everyone needs to read some Irvine Welsh and "Filth" is as good an entry to Welsh's oeuvre as any.
"Filth" covers the life of an Edinburgh detective named Bruce Robertson who has a tapeworm inside him, a severe mental health issue, and his life spiraling out of control. Robertson
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loves nothing more than to annoy his fellow human beings, take copious drugs, sex it up and dress in woman's clothing. It's unclear how much the tapeworm has to do with all this.Everyone needs to read some Irvine Welsh and "Filth" is as good an entry to Welsh's oeuvre as any.
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LibraryThing member KevinRubin
"Filth," by Irivine Welsh certainly lived up to its name. Pretty filthy, in several ways the word can be used, from beginning to end.
It's told in first person by the main character, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of the Leith Police, who's approaching middle age and is one of the detectives
Sometime before the beginning of the story Carole has gone away to spend some time with her Mum, who's back in Scotland, and Bruce is on his own. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to cook or use the machine to wash clothes and as the story progresses his clothes get filthier and filthier, and with his bachelor lifestyle, that's mud, food, sweat, semen, alcohol and anything else that could possibly spill…
Bruce isn't a very nice guy, either. He's mean, vicious, vulgar, racist, sexist, alcoholic, wasted on cocaine and wants that promotion. He's in charge of a racial murder that's taken place does what he can to put his colleagues in situations to keep them from getting their job done.
For himself, almost every day he starts work late, goes for long, alcoholic lunch breaks and usually knocks off early so he can go shag some woman or watch some adult videos at home. About the most work he seems to do is filling in his overtime pay forms.
At the beginning he's in charge of everything around him, but slowly through the novel everything degenerates. We see, from his eyes, what even he doesn't see himself as he loses control and that his coworkers he considers pathetic are much more on top of things than he is…
Welsh is crude, vulgar, sick and very filthy in this book, and spins out a fantastic tale.
It's told in first person by the main character, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of the Leith Police, who's approaching middle age and is one of the detectives
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competing for the single available promotion to Detective Inspector. He feels he's entitled to it because he gave up a few years of rank by working in Australia when his wife Carole wanted to live near her Mum down there.Sometime before the beginning of the story Carole has gone away to spend some time with her Mum, who's back in Scotland, and Bruce is on his own. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to cook or use the machine to wash clothes and as the story progresses his clothes get filthier and filthier, and with his bachelor lifestyle, that's mud, food, sweat, semen, alcohol and anything else that could possibly spill…
Bruce isn't a very nice guy, either. He's mean, vicious, vulgar, racist, sexist, alcoholic, wasted on cocaine and wants that promotion. He's in charge of a racial murder that's taken place does what he can to put his colleagues in situations to keep them from getting their job done.
For himself, almost every day he starts work late, goes for long, alcoholic lunch breaks and usually knocks off early so he can go shag some woman or watch some adult videos at home. About the most work he seems to do is filling in his overtime pay forms.
At the beginning he's in charge of everything around him, but slowly through the novel everything degenerates. We see, from his eyes, what even he doesn't see himself as he loses control and that his coworkers he considers pathetic are much more on top of things than he is…
Welsh is crude, vulgar, sick and very filthy in this book, and spins out a fantastic tale.
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LibraryThing member runner56
If you indulge in Irvine Welsh then expect to be shocked, his writing and his descriptions are at times excruciatingly painful to read. Sergeant Bruce Robertson is a typical Welsh character, he takes what he wants lives life to access and does not care if his actions harm or destroy anyone in the
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process. He is at heart a narcissist possessing an inflated sense of his own importance involved in numerous female liasions with little or no empathy for others. However underneath this facade is a very troubled possibly suicidal man, and the author uses a very clever way to disclose this to the reader. Robertson's use of alcohol and recreational drugs, with little or no intake of nutrition, have caused a deterioration in his health and he appears to be harboring an intestinal worm. This parasite becomes the main source of information for the detectives's increasingly bizarre behaviour, a very original and highly entertaining element in a narration not for the faint hearted. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ken-Me-Old-Mate
Filth You know about hard boiled crime fiction and noire?....well this is more than that.....it is putrid, it is decaying, rotting, stinking, disgusting, it is foul. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth as you read it. You will start to itch and feel scabby. You will want to vomit ad probably will
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then wish you hadn't. You will want to hold your nose and block your ears. You will cringe and shrink from normal human beings, you will forget about nice and wonder if you will ever know clean again. But you won't put it down until it is finished. It is vile. Show Less
LibraryThing member summonedbyfells
An unremitting tide of unpleasant drivel, chronic in it's want of story-telling balance and worth a single star for the accuracy of it's title alone. There is good advice from the main character early on, page 10 to be precise "... One of my mottoes aboot the job is: better you wasting some cunt
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else's time than some cunt wasting your time". A waste of time, yup. Show Less
Subjects
Call number
118
Language
Original language
Spanish
ISBN
843396741X / 9788433967411
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