The Intersection of Class and Language in Kelman’s How Late It Was How Late and Welsh’s Trainspotting
In How Late It Was How Late and Trainspotting, written by James Kelman and Irvine Welsh respectively, we are presented with two novels which consistently use the Scottish vernacular throughout. The placement and way in which the vernacular language is used in these novels is very much juxtaposed against that of institutional authority, and therefore presents us with a conflict between said authority and class. Therefore, in many ways, the way in which the vernacular language is used represents a stark difference in class throughout both How Late It Was How Late and Trainspotting; it is arguably impossible to look at the way in which diglossia and vernacular language is used within these novels without also discussing class, and the way in which these literary techniques are used to represent the class system in Scotland.
Both novels immediately plunge us into the world of the Scottish vernacular, with How Late It Was How Late beginning with “Ye wake in a corner and stay there hoping yer body will disappear, the thoughts smothering ye”[1] and Trainspotting opening with “The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.”[2] These opening sentences immediately force us as the reader to be thrown head first into the troubled world which these characters reside in – but, equally importantly, it also immediately makes us aware of the way in which vernacular language will be a running theme throughout. As Robert A. Morace writes (with regards to the opening of Trainspotting), “Here is a world that offers no introduction and no apology, a world that simply presents itself on its own terms, in its own words.”[3] When it comes to Trainspotting, only four of the forty chapters of the novel are written in standard English; the other thirty-six remain written by Welsh in the vernacular language which the characters themselves speak in. Meanwhile, in How Late It Was How Late, Kelman continuously switches between the vernacular and standard English; there is not a single page in the whole novel which is written entirely in one of these forms. Both of these stylistic choices by Welsh and Kelman have a similar result – the creating of a world which actually reflects the one around us, where both standard English and the Scottish vernacular is spoken.
Something to point out which further builds upon this decision is the fact that in both Trainspotting and How Late It Was How Late, there is no glossary in the novels for the reader to look up definitions of the words (except for, with Trainspotting, the US edition). This was very much a conscious decision of fully immersing the reader within the reality that Kelman and Welsh knew from their lived experiences. For Kelman, “I need to break down narrative structure here, I need to be involved in oratory devices as well as literary devices […] Most of my stories were written from within my own culture, so you use the language as people use it. If you’re writing a story about a man in a pub, why can’t you use the language he speaks?”[4] Meanwhile, for Welsh, the importance of the vernacular representing an actual group of individuals as opposed to being seen as simply a stylistic ideal is clear: “The last thing I want is all these fuckers up in Charlotte Square putting on the vernacular as a stage managed thing. It’s nothing to do with them.”[5] The key point to take from these quotations from both authors is that, for them, in writing How Late It Was How Late and Trainspotting, they were not writing for show, or for some high level of literary praise; it was specifically about representing a group of people they felt were not represented within English literature, and to do that it was important to show said people in the way they actually speak. There is certainly a level of resentment for both authors in the way these individuals are treated and looked down upon, with Kelman saying how “someone will say, ‘Well, what are you doing here? You can’t use the word fuck.’ So I can’t write about that character? That area of male working-class community cannot exist within literature? […] I think that is an essential working-class experience […] Intimidation, provocation, sarcasm, contempt, disgust and so on.”[6] The way in which the vernacular is used within these novels is unquestionably tied to that of class, as it comes from a place of the authors feeling that specific group of society are direly unrepresented within the literary canon.
Using the Scottish vernacular within writing is not unique to Kelman and Welsh, and they are certainly not the first Scottish authors to use it within their writing, even if it can be argued that their impact has been much larger than authors who came before them. Indeed, the poet Tom Leonard had been writing in the Scottish vernacular before Kelman and Welsh came onto the scene, and his poetry features tough phrases written in extremely heavy Scottish vernacular, such as “get tay fuck ootma road, ahmaz goodiz thi lota yiz so ah um”[7]. However, using this poem as an example, the point Leonard was trying to make with his writing was showing the strength of the Scots, and using that strong and heavy language to be proving they were not inferior to the English in any regard (the “lota yiz”[8] mentioned refers to the English). This is obviously an entirely valid purpose for Leonard’s writing, but due to that being the aim of the poetry, it does not represent the typical everyday Scot in a day to day situation. In his 1948 novel Dance of the Apprentices, Edward Gaitens had tried to do essentially a much earlier version of what Kelman and Welsh explore in their writing, through having characters speaking in the Scottish vernacular throughout the novel: “Ah’m skinn’t! Ah’m leavin’ the school!”[9]. However, whilst the speech was written this way, the rest of the prose in the novel remained in standard English. This novel represents a step forward in showing every day people as they actually are, but it is in Kelman and Welsh which we truly see this taken to a new level.
For both Kelman and Welsh, the key idea behind the decision to write using the Scottish vernacular is in order to represent a part of the population who “simply do not exist as ordinary human beings [within English Literature]”[10]. Whilst both of their writing goes further than Gaitens’ writing does, with the continuous use of the vernacular throughout, it is also important to note that the use of the vernacular in speech is always used. This is something Kelman simply does throughout How Late It Is How Late through his continuous shifting between standard English and the Scottish vernacular, but when it comes to Welsh, this is particularly important to note that the four chapters of Trainspotting which are written in standard English still maintain that use of the vernacular within moments spoken out loud by the characters. Once again, this is a conscious decision being made to represent a group of people otherwise ignored within the literary canon. A commentary on society is being made through the simple means of writing people’s speech in the way that it actually sounds. The typical, authoritative tone of standard English is not used, as that is not the way these people actually speak.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brooks, Libby, ‘James Kelman: Intimidation, provocation, contempt – that’s the working class experience’, The Guardian, 15/07/2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/books-interview-james-kelman-working-class-experience
Gaitens, Edward, Dance of the Apprentices (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1990)
Kelman, James, How Late It Was How Late (London: Vintage, 1994)
Kelman, James, ‘The Importance of Glasgow in my Work’ in Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural and Political (Stirling: A. K. Press, 1992)
Leonard, Tom, ‘Good Style’, in Six Glasgow Poems (Glasgow: The Other People, 1969)
Morace, Robert. A, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Continuum, 2001)
Welsh, Irvine, Trainspotting (London: Vintage, 2013)
[1] Kelman, James, How Late It Was How Late (London: Vintage, 1994) p.1
[2] Welsh, Irvine, Trainspotting (London: Vintage, 2013) p.3
[3] Morace, Robert. A, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Continuum, 2001) p.25
[4] Brooks, Libby, ‘James Kelman: Intimidation, provocation, contempt – that’s the working class experience’, The Guardian, 15/07/2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/books-interview-james-kelman-working-class-experience
[5] Farquharson, Kenny, ‘Through the Eye of a Needle’, Scotland on Sunday, 08/08/1993
[6] Brooks, Libby, ‘James Kelman: Intimidation, provocation, contempt – that’s the working class experience’, The Guardian, 15/07/2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/books-interview-james-kelman-working-class-experience
[7] Leonard, Tom, ‘Good Style’, in Six Glasgow Poems (Glasgow: The Other People, 1969) Lines 5-6
[8] Ibid. Line 6
[9] Gaitens, Edward, Dance of the Apprentices (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1990) p.74
[10] Kelman, James, ‘The Importance of Glasgow in my Work’ in Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural and Political (Stirling: A. K. Press, 1992) p.82