"Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is"
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Writing, for Irvine Welsh, isn’t a tasteful hobby or a gated “literary” practice; it’s a contact sport with society. The line is deliberately blunt, almost impatient: culture isn’t one subject among many, it’s the medium you’re already breathing. By insisting writing “should be about everything,” Welsh rejects the polite boundaries that decide which lives count as material and which get filed under “too rough,” “too specific,” “not relatable.” It’s an argument for maximal subject matter and minimal squeamishness.
The subtext is class and gatekeeping. Welsh came up writing from the vantage of people routinely treated as background noise: working-class Edinburgh, addiction, masculinity, violence, humor as survival. Saying writing is “about culture” flips the usual hierarchy. Culture isn’t the museum version; it’s slang, habits, shame, money, the body, the state, and the grind of daily life. His fiction’s famous vernacular doesn’t just add flavor; it’s a power move, forcing standard English to share space with voices it typically disciplines or erases.
Contextually, Welsh is pushing back against the idea that art should be “above” the mess. Post-80s Britain, Thatcherism’s aftershocks, and the commodification of “grit” as an aesthetic all hover behind the statement. The final clause - “That’s what makes it what it is” - sounds tautological, but it’s the point: writing that narrows its field stops being writing-as-cultural record and becomes decoration. Welsh’s intent is to remind you that literature isn’t a refuge from culture; it’s one of the places culture gets fought over.
The subtext is class and gatekeeping. Welsh came up writing from the vantage of people routinely treated as background noise: working-class Edinburgh, addiction, masculinity, violence, humor as survival. Saying writing is “about culture” flips the usual hierarchy. Culture isn’t the museum version; it’s slang, habits, shame, money, the body, the state, and the grind of daily life. His fiction’s famous vernacular doesn’t just add flavor; it’s a power move, forcing standard English to share space with voices it typically disciplines or erases.
Contextually, Welsh is pushing back against the idea that art should be “above” the mess. Post-80s Britain, Thatcherism’s aftershocks, and the commodification of “grit” as an aesthetic all hover behind the statement. The final clause - “That’s what makes it what it is” - sounds tautological, but it’s the point: writing that narrows its field stops being writing-as-cultural record and becomes decoration. Welsh’s intent is to remind you that literature isn’t a refuge from culture; it’s one of the places culture gets fought over.
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| Topic | Writing |
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