Reading...

Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh -- three short stories, billed as "chemical romances," full of the usual sex&drugs&rock&roll, and this time including necrophilia, bestiality, mutilation, torture, burglary, and lots and lots of MDMA.

The first story was a satire of a romance novel, with the story of the sufferings of an authoress intercut with rough drafts of her new, very non-traditional, direction. This didn't work so well. It was pure shock value, and Welsh is one of the last guys who should point out the hidebound conventions of anybody else's literary form.

The second story had a Begbie-esque hooligan falling for a girl with no arms. Again, the casual brutality and amorality was there, as usual, but it didn't really all come together.

The third story featured a character a lot like Roy Strang from Marabou Stork Nightmares, or any of a number of other schemies throughout Welsh's books, and a frustrated heroine. This one worked better. Not classic stuff, and without the manic set pieces of his great novels, but still perverse and entertaining. I still looooove this stuff beyond all reason.