''Marabou Stork Nightmares'' is an experimental novel by
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel ''Trainspotting (novel), Trainspotting'' was made into a Trainspotting (film), film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, ...
, and his second novel, published in the UK in 1995.
The book's narrative is split into two styles: a conventional
first-person account of the past and a more
surreal,
stream-of-consciousness account of an otherworldly present. Like many of Welsh's novels, it is written in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
Scots dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
. The plot consists of the memories and hallucinations of the protagonist, Roy Strang, making him an extreme example of an
unreliable narrator
In literature, film, and other such arts, an unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in a wide range from children to mature characters. While unreliable narrators are al ...
.
Plot summary
Roy Strang narrates the book from an (at first) unexplained coma, which he has been in for the previous two years. His life in this state is a miserable affair, surrounded by uncaring doctors and his extremely dysfunctional family. In his fantasy life, he is an adventurer in the wilds of South Africa, where he and his loyal guide, Sandy Jamieson, hunt for the
marabou stork
The marabou stork (''Leptoptilos crumenifer'') is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae native to sub-Saharan Africa. It breeds in both wet and arid habitats, often near human habitation, especially landfill sites. It is sometim ...
.
When not hallucinating, Strang tells his life story, beginning in a "scheme" (
local authority housing) in
Muirhouse
Muirhouse is a housing estate in the north of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
Location
The housing estate of Muirhouse (Pennywell and Muirhouse) is bounded by Muirhouse Parkway to the North, Pennywell Road to the East, Ferry Road to the So ...
, Scotland, with his violent, delusional parents, two half-brothers (one a womanizer, the other flamboyantly gay), and his promiscuous sister, all of whom he despises. When Strang is 12, he and his family relocate to
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
-era South Africa, where he is repeatedly molested by his uncle. After his father is jailed for the violent assault of a taxi driver and his uncle is killed in a
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...
bombing, the Strangs are forced to return to Scotland, a mere 18 months after they left.
Strang grows into a violent, misogynistic thug. He maintains a full-time job as a systems analyst for the fictional investment group, "Scottish Spinsters" (a reference to
Scottish Widows
Scottish Widows Limited is a life insurance, pensions and investment company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a part of Lloyds Banking Group. The company has been providing financial services to the UK market since 1815 and its product range ...
). He joins a gang of
football hooligans who are attached to
Hibernian F.C., the
Capital City Service, and led by the fearsome Lexo. Strang enjoys his life as a "top boy," feared by the entire town, until the gang kidnaps a young woman who rejected their advances and
gang rape
In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrato ...
s her; Strang is horrified but also takes an active part in her rape, justifying it to himself by contemplating how the gang would turn on him if he didn't.
The gang evades prison, but Strang is stricken with guilt and withdraws completely into
depression. He briefly revives a few months later when he meets a woman and genuinely feels love for the first time. Around the same time he begins to take
ecstasy, and befriends his gay half-brother. His happiness is short-lived, however; the memory of what he has done continues to haunt him, and his depression soon completely engulfs him, taking him away from his lover and his drug-driven escapism. He attempts suicide by asphyxiation, but survives, putting him in a coma.
One day, the gang's rape victim visits him in the hospital. She tells him that she has been murdering her rapists one by one, and now she has come for him, revealing that he was by far the most brutal. She then cuts off his penis and stabs him to death. In his final moments, Strang realizes that the only person he has ever really hated is himself, and makes peace with everyone he has wronged and who has wronged him.
The novel's other, more stream-of-consciousness narrative, intertwined with the story of Strang's past, takes place in the fantasy world he creates for himself in the coma. At first a bizarre but rousing adventure, it gradually becomes darker as Strang reveals the uglier parts of his life and personality, involving surreal images of brutality and sexual violence.
Reception
Boyd Tonkin at ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'' praises Welsh for the power of his fiction and writes: "Here was a voice, out of Edinburgh by way of Hades, that would never have a problem with energy, wit or compassion. Finding the right form for all this incendiary talent might prove trickier." Tonkin suggests that Welsh does not know what to do with his fatalism, but that the story "gives a shockingly funny shape to that impasse".
Analysis
As in many of Welsh's novels, there are many allusions to music and underground youth culture, especially
rave culture,
punk rock
Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...
, comic books, and football hooliganism.
There is a strong message against violence towards women from men in the book; one passage is in fact set out in a capital "Z", which is the symbol for Zero Tolerance, a women's rights group based in Scotland.
The South African narrative is written in a ''
Boys' Own'' style.
The
sociopathic Francis Begbie, one of the main characters in ''
Trainspotting'', makes a
cameo appearance.
References
External links
{{Irvine Welsh
1995 British novels
Novels with unreliable narrators
Fiction about gang rape
Jonathan Cape books
Novels by Irvine Welsh
Novels set in Edinburgh
Trainspotting