Trainspotting

The ongoing fear of HIV/AIDS recurs throughout the novel. In Chapter 1, Johnny makes a joke about sharing needles, concluding that it’s unwise: “Hygiene’s important […] Ken wee Goagsie? He’s goat AIDS now” (10). It seems ironic that people who are so hooked on drugs still acknowledge this one health concern—even though they know, as Mark admits when he refers himself to a “coffin dodger” in Chapter 2, the drugs will kill them just as well as AIDS.

Later, Simon’s womanizing ways leave him reflecting on the topic: “[T]here’s no way you can get HIV in Edinburgh through shagging a lassie. They say that wee Goagsie got it that way, but I reckon that he’s been daein a bit ay mainlining or shit-stabbing on the Q.T.” (30). Simon’s concerns are intriguing because of his nickname, “Sick Boy.”

HIV/AIDS represents more than the scary scepter of an illness that seems to be always hovering in the background, waiting to claim one of the Skag Boys, whether via a needle or a “shag” with a “lassie.”

There is a repeated obsession with celebrity that appears among the various Skag Boys. In Chapter 1, it kicks off with Mark being set on watching a Jean-Claude van Damme video. In Chapter 4, Simon reveals his admiration for Sean Connery.

This obsession with celebrity already hinted at comes to a climax in Chapter 20. When Mark and Dianne have sex, Mark thinks of famous people to delay his orgasm, imagining “Margaret Thatcher, Paul Daniels, Wallace Mercer, Jimmy Savile and other turn-offs” but it’s to no avail: “Even the thought of rimming Wallace Mercer’s arse couldn’t have stopped him by that time” (141).

The boys even use Hollywood references unfavorably for other people. In Chapter 22, Simon pimps out his girl to an unattractive man the boys refer to as “Planet Ay The Apes” because “he looked like an exra fi that film” (173).