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Irvine Welsh inspired a generation of young Scottish writers and showed there was literature to be found in the lives of the Scottish underdog. Two of the leading lights of that next generation are Alan Bissett and Ewan Morrison. Both authors boast third novels and follow hot on the heels of Welsh's trailblazing. The List thought it would be a cracking idea to gather the three together to chew over pop culture, sex, the state of Scottish literature and more besides
lnterview: Doug Johnstone Photos: Neale Smith
Your work is peppered with pop culture references, is that inevitable in this day and age?
Ewan Morrison Because we‘re living in a culture which is completely saturated. your books are inevitably going to be influenced by that stuff. When I was a student. I'd walk around thinking I was in Wit/mail and I. or say things like. ‘Watch out for that cunt. he looks a bit like Begbie‘. Your worldview is completely coloured by all the culture in you.
Irvine Welsh Iiwan's book is all about the limits of that post—modernist thing. when does it become ridiculous? ()ne of the hooks I really enjoyed over the last five years was James Meek’s The P 'ople '3‘ Act (if/me. and I realised I loved it because it's historical. so it didn‘t have any of those cultural references in it. I‘ve been a guilty party for doing that all the time in my writing. but I realised I‘d got a bit sick of it. If you set a book in the present time. you can‘t avoid those cultural references.
Alan Bissett But if you‘re smart enough. there‘s an interesting tension between that consumerisin-saturated culture and authentic feeling and emotion. the reality beneath. and that‘s where Ewan’s coming from. In Menage. the characters get so involved in this art scene in London in the 90s. but underneath it they're all in pain. Ewan looks at the possibilities for real feeling when you're just surrounded by commerce.
EM Isn‘t it funny how Ken I.oach has suddenly acknowledged the existence of media in the world‘.’ Before. you never saw music. film or television in his films. as if they didn‘t exist. now he's got this meta-fictional thing using (‘antona as a fairy godmother. it‘s a real change for him. You can say the same thing about all James Kelman's work as about
Loach‘s earlier work.
AB I was wondering when we'd get to this — me and Iiwan could spend all day arguing about Kelman.
EM You rarely hear reference to music or film or television or anything in his work. it's almost as if he‘s blanked them out of his reality.
How much of what you write is a reaction to what’s gone before?
IW To an extent you’re always reacting against what‘s gone before. trying to establish your own identity. With Kelman and Alasdair Gray. you see how they were reacting against that Kailyard tradition. With Rebel Inc. we were reacting against them. In their fiction. they had those 70s ideas that there was still a socialist aspirational element to society. a radical working class. We were looking at how people had adapted to the new order.
EM In ‘The Rosewell Incident' la Welsh short story] you’ve got a brilliant couple of paragraphs that are like a sociological analysis of why schemies party.
IW Our fiction wasn't about challenging the state. the state had won. you just had to find a way to live with it. What happens next‘.’ Do we lie down in our ghettos or do we get out and fucking party and try to live‘.’
What place do you think morality has in literature?
[W I think writing a novel is an intrinsically moral act. I don‘t think you can avoid it.
AB It‘s difficult to write an amoral book. cos at some point you have to decide on the fate of your characters. With books like 'Irainspnning and American l’syelm. the writers didn't judge their characters. but they did show at the end
that these characters are trapped in hell. so even if there‘s no judgement in the story. the reader still sees that they're damned.
M It doesn‘t matter how much evil behaviour you show. as long as you show the consequences.
AB Sometimes you worry about people not getting it. though. I mean. it‘s clear that Michael Douglas‘s character in Wall Street is the bad guy. and yet there was a whole generation of bankers who saw him as a hero. Same goes for Begbie: he was a poster on student walls.
IW There is an attractiveness in those evil characters. We all subconsciously want to break the rules. so someone who does that becomes quite an empowering figure. not necessarily for good reasons.
EM I like the idea of actions that don‘t have consequences in books. but it maybe asks a lot of the reader. I mean. we live in a time where people do get away with shit all the time. why not represent that'.’
How do you feel about criticism in reviews?
M I don't read reviews. So many reviewers are failed writers. it‘s as if the review is constructed through the lens of their own disappointment.
AB You sometimes get ideological criticism. like. this isn't how literature should he. therefore it‘s a bad book. You do wonder sometimes if there’s a class agenda in these things. maybe I'm just being paranoid. In the wake of 'l'rains/mrting. anyone who had seen Brave/tear! was getting signed up cos it was trendy. in the same way that different ethnicities have been signed tip in waves. like Asian writers in the wake of Brick Lane . . .
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