The Other, the New, and the Old. Three Images of Leith in Irvine Welsh’s Porno

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on Irvine Welsh’s novel Porno (2002), the sequel to Trainspotting (1993). Most of the events of the novel take place in Edinburgh, and the changing face of Leith, a working-class neighbourhood, becomes the central axis in the story. By drawing on Edward Relph (1976) and Harold M. Proshansky et al. (2014 [1983]), I focus on how the characters of the novel self-consciously reflect on the neighbourhood’s changing identity, as well as the implications these changes have for their own sense of self. Multiperspectivity becomes the mode Welsh employs to project a nuanced image of Leith, as seen from the subjective perspectives of five internal narrators. What I am interested in exploring is not the identity of Leith per se, but the different images of Leith that emerge through the way the narrators identify with the neighbourhood. Specifically, I distinguish and focus on three images of Leith that emerge in the novel.

Keywords

• Welsh
• Porno
• Leith
• Edinburgh
• city
• place