This is certainly not the solid, socially acceptable and morally improving type of story. The main character is filth and makes no attempt to hide it from us. Just as i was disgusted with his behaviour I was intrigued by him and started to admire his honesty.

I love Irvine Welsh. I loved this novel, but I can see why some people might not like it so much. It is very, very ugly. The main character reminds me a great deal of my Dad. Well my Dad wasn't a corrupt cop, he was a lawyer, but he always struggled with his working class background and wanting to leave it behind. Telling you the most brilliant thing about this novel would spoil the whole thing. So I will only say this: Welsh presents the main character in a very complex way, and he is not a lik More...

Absolutely my favorite Welsh read.I loved the humor and Bruce was so relateable(to me and my type of humor) but sort of over-the-top in his slurs towards many controvercial subjects which only made me giggle,tsk and shake my head.He thought many of the things people would never admit to thinking in their own heads so they just right off the book as its namesake and dont read any further. But I loved the shocking twist and its completely original narrative style. And how Bruce and the tapeworm sl More...

With hints of "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Death of Bunny Munro", this is by far my most favourite read of the year so far. An unconventional story of bent coppers in Glasgow, written in thick Scottish plus also riddled with Rhyming slang and peculiar phrasings. Bruce Robertson being a complete anti-hero who carried the novel through many Hilariously dark events, forever being followed by foreboding Tapeworm and his barely present wife Carole. Not for the easily offended but personally I couldn More...

Like all my reviews of Irvine Welsh books, I shall start with a disclaimer saying I am a massive massive fan and will always find it hard to be objectively critical of his work. 'Filth' is by no means his strongest book though, and in my opinion is a slight departure from his normal modus operandi. The book is still set in Scotland and does not shy away from, well, filth! But rather than a frank and entertaining assessment of otherwise 'normal' life, Filth is a darker look at the psyche of madne More...

This is the most viscerally disgusting book I have ever read! Irvine Welsh outdoes himself - even the most mundane observations about the main character will revolt you. When you read this book you may well feel slightly nauseous or an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach as I did. This is not to say I do not like this book!

I was hooked from the beginning as I don't think I'd ever come across such a mundane yet revolting character in anything I have read and he is so well described. Hi More...

This has echoes of Martin Amis's "Money" in it's presentation of a truly vile lead character: Bruce Robertson, is a scheming,racist, sexist and bigoted Detective Sergeant, investigating the murder of a black man outside a nightclub. Not that he has much time for solving crime; the constant bouts of: heavy drinking, porn, cocaine abuse, skiving work and his serial philandering occupy most of this. But, this is Welsh and you wouldn't expect deities and social heirs and graces.

There's plenty of twi More...

Imaginem um tipo que é corrupto, violento, sádico, machista, racista, misantropo, alcoólico, consumidor de drogas, apreciador de fast-food (principalmente peixe frito e caril), consumidor dos serviços de prostitutas sem usar protecção, pulha com os amigos que, para além de os enganar, ainda tenta engatar as mulheres deles, adúltero e promíscuo (tudo o que vem à rede é peixe e não tem o mínimo respeito pelas mulheres, todas elas servem para as suas necessidades) e, finalmente, vive atormentado co More...

"Filth," by Irivine Welsh certainly lived up to its name. Pretty filthy, in several ways the word can be used, from beginning to end.

It's told in first person by the main character, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of the Leith Police, who's approaching middle age and is one of the detectives competing for the single available promotion to Detective Inspector. He feels he's entitled to it because he gave up a few years of rank by working in Australia when his wife Carole wanted to live near he More...

Filth is about a less-than-charming Scottish Detective Sergeant, Bruce Robertson. He is an angry young man who is betting high on his upcoming promotion in the Edinburgh police force, and is willing to do whatever it takes to reach that goal..

Filth is a novel written by Irvine Welsh, released in 1998.

Plot synopsis (no spoilers)

It is about a less-than-charming Scottish Detective Sergeant, Bruce Robertson. He is an angry young man who is betting high on his upcoming promotion in the Edinburgh poli More...

Wow, the book definitely lives up to it's title "Filth"!

Detective Sgt. Bruce Robertson is one despicable bastard!

He takes drugs, abuses his police power, is addicted to pornography, takes bribes, masterbates compulsively, is a sex fiend, has a nasty bit of eczema below the belt & has a tapeworm in his gut!

D.S. Robertson is a filthy human being, he back stabs his friends & co-workers, tells extremely harmful and deceitful lies to women to sleep with them and he stinks "literally"!

Once More...

What a throughly disgusting book in many senses. I actually read the translated version of Filth in Finnish, and the translated title of the book was "Paska", which translates literally into shit. So you know, this one is definitely a fitting translation of the title into a foreign language, for once.

As for the contents of the book, I found it abhorrent. But in a good way. It was shocking and disgusting, but yet again in a good way. The plot of the book was often quite twisted, and the situation More...

Phew. Now THIS is a novel. I understand that the generally held vision of a good novel is one that encapsulates human endeavour at it's finest and uplifts the reader. By that definition, Filth wouldn't even get into the queue. It is a no-holds barred (and I really mean no -holds barred) odyssey of everything that is politically incorrect in today's supposedly sanitised world.

The book starts with a chapter called THE GAMES, and these two paragraphs.

Woke up this morning. Woke up into the job.

T

More...

Any book written in the first person has to deal with the problem of getting across to the reader all those things the narrator doesn’t know or isn’t prepared to acknowledge. It takes a special sort of author to think: “I know, let’s use a talking tapeworm”.

And so here is a novel about a bent policeman, a man with so many prejudices they are impossible to count, who treats both his enemies and his friends with breathtaking contempt, who drinks, takes drugs, and refers to all women as “hoors”. Th More...

For those readers inclined to distrust the police and view them as corrupt or dirty, this book will do nothing to reassure you of the contrary. The lead character, a police detective, is so full of anger, contempt, and frustration that it's almost hard to believe him until you catch glimpses of why he's ended up in this headspace. You may find it almost shocking (as I did) at the climax to feel a certain sympathy for him, even after everything that he does over the course of the story. As I ment More...

"Filth" comes close to living up to its name. Welsh's central character, Bruce Robertson, is a detective placed in charge of the investigation of a murdered young black man. Robertson, however, has other things on his mind. First there is his planned vacation to Amsterdam where he goes every year for drugs and debauchery. Then there is his desire for a promotion and the various "games" he plays with his fellow officers, attempting to pit them against one another and knock out his competition. On More...

Yohoho, what a delicious train wreck!

Welcome aboard the Bruce Robertson Express. Its cargo: one - soon to be two - tapeworm, and a whole lot of malice and hate.

From the moment the RBE rides into town you know what the book is going to be about - Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and only Bruce. And what a fascinating character!

He's the ultimate anti-hero, so anti you need three more 'anti's just to capture the depths of his negativity. He's an anti-anti-anti-anti-anti-hero who doesn't have any redeemable qua More...

There are several reasons why I will never forget this book. The main reason is Bruce Robertson, the main character of "Filth".

Bruce Robertson is a Police Investigator in Edinburgh. He's also, in every sense of the word, the WORST human being you can imagine. He's depraved, completely void of morality, racist, and worst of all, believes in what he does. Reading this book actually makes you fearful that there are people out there like this in positions of power. His actions are awe-inducing in th More...

The ending, the damn ending to the book.

It’s been like five years since I last cried with a book, I actually had to step out of the office (I started reading the book on the bus ride to work, I had 20~ pages to go when I arrived and I sure as hell wasn't going to stop reading) and to the bathroom to try and cool myself down (view spoiler)[when I read the last two pages (hide spoiler)].

The book is disgusting in every imaginable way, but it somehow keeps you going. Even though the situations he puts himself into are a bit on t More...

Having watched Trainspotting and read Marabou Stork Nightmares, I can say this book stays true to the general feel of the other two in setting (Edinburgh), multi-dimensional characters, recreational drug abuse and even overlapping of characters from the previous novels.



It gives insight to the mind of a disturbed, sociopath of a police officer, making certain things seem too easy to be true, and narrates in great detail on mundane happenings while underexposing key turns in the plot. Nevertheless More...

Racist. Sexist. Homophobic. Misanthropic. And a policeman. This is Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson. Ugly and stinking, inside and out. He is filth.

Ostensibly investigating a murder (about which he knows more than he is letting on), he spends most of his time undermining colleagues and friends.

In this novel, Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, invites us into Robertson's head and into his gut. In his gut, there lives a tapeworm, whose burgeoning self-consciousness gives voice to some explan More...

Il lercio non è davvero un libro da buttare, ma di sicuro non mi invoglia a leggere altri romanzi di Welsh. Il protagonista è un uomo con cui è davvero impossibile simpatizzare, anche se talvolta emergono degli sprazzi di umanità nel suo comportamento e nei suoi pensieri. La trama del romanzo è quasi inesistente, si tratta infatti della parabola discendente di un uomo che già partiva da un livello davvero terribile, e per di più di una parabola raccontata con una buona dose di ripetizioni. Perso More...

A good book, following the exploits of the world's second worst police officer through the things he does.

Unfortunately the main character is so difficult to relate to (he does the most awful things for no reason other than he can/wants to, and I can't understand that) that by the time of his trip to Amsterdam you're left numb. The constant series of horrors (which are entertaining and shocking to begin with) become something that you are accustomed to, the horror you were feeling at his physica More...

I had a love/hate relationship with Bruce throughout the book. He was so irredeemably awful, yet I couldn't help but stay with him. The tapeworm's interjections throughout were interesting as well and kept the book from just being about a bad guy that does a lot of bad things.

One of the things I like about Irvine Welsh's characters (and I've only ever read this and Trainspotting, so it's a limited observation I'm making here) is that they are presented as flawed, sometimes awful, people but ther More...

This book struck a cord within me, i was no different or better than the main character, Irvine Welsh put a man in a borderline situation. It was believable, anyone can be this guy, this piece of scum, this depraved, drugged up, corrupt cop. I saw a bit of myself and i saw humanity in the character. In fact i had hope for a different ending...the ending Irvine Welsh chose teared me appart. This is surely one his best books and i highly recommend it to people that don`t have a weak stomach and ar More...

Wow... yeah. Not sure what I think of this one. It's well done, Irvine Welsh has a distinct voice and willingness to go all out, no doubt. That includes passages narrated by a tapeworm in the protagonist's body and all manner of fucked-up behavior, casual virulent racism, graphic depictions of anal rashes... it's a compelling read, but after you've fought through the journey, you might questions whether it was worth it. It's stuck with me, for better or for worse, but I'm not sure that I'd recom More...

Unmitigated rubbish from a writer who appears to have shot his bolt. The characters are cartoon like. The story line is blah blah blah. I finished it on a transatlantic flight and quite happily left it on the plane. Welsh appears to have lost the ability to write pathos and perception that was so evident in, and what made Trainspotting an absolute standout of a book in Scottish contemporary fiction. If he intends to turn out utter crap like this he should stick to DJ-ing and picking up the bucks More...

One of my favourite reads of all time! This book is brilliant! Bruce Robertson is one sick bastard but i couldnt help but love him. Throughout, i was laughing out load at his snide comments and games.
Robertson is constantly trying to put one over his collegues and friends. He is sexist, rasist and anything else that ends in ist! He has terrible hygene problems, which makes your stomach wretch while reading about his sexual exploits. Dark humour indeed. If you have never read this book then you More...

My personal favourite Welsh book (along with Trainspotting, obviously). I know people who had to stop reading halfway through because they hated the protagonist so much, but that just made the book even more entertaining in my opinion. Hateful characters are captivating, just look at Begbie. It also play's with traditional narrative structures and typography through the use of a tapeworm, it sounds strange but works fantastically. I would actually recommend this book to anybody, especially the e More...

Pigs have not been for unfairly treated since Ned Beaty's famous scene in Deliverance! ... Robbo - the porcine protagonist of Welsh's meaty tome is a legend on the force - he's also a complete nightmare of a human being. Think Robocop made flesh with a major inability to pass a Gregg's the Baker shop! I could list some of Robb's peccadilloes here but I am sure the webmaster would have them down in a flash. How do you recommend a book like this highly enough ... it's a laugh riot. Total genius fr More...