Discuss national identity. Why do some characters in the novel care so little about Scotland and other care intensely? What does Mark Renton feel about the Union? Are there people in the United States with a similar opinion of our Union?

Trainspotting is a novel of incredible filth and squalor, with prodigious amounts of semen, urine and feces. What is the author saying about the lives of these characters? Why all the scatology? What purpose does it solve?

Sick Boy says that there are no friends in life, only associates. How does this represent his worldview specifically? What does it say about the life of a heroin addict? Is it possible for addicts to develop real human relationships?

Discuss humor and its use in the novel. Where does the humor of these squalid lives originate from? Why does the reader laugh at certain points...