Topic
Narrating Edinburgh: A Spatial Analysis of Irvine Welsh’s Porno
The following presentation is concerned with Edinburgh as a narrative space in Irvine Welsh’s novel Porno (2002). It offers a close reading of the functioning of spatial categories within selected chapters of the novel, showcasing the spatially rich nature of Welsh’s text. Relying on the conceptual lens offered by Ryan, Foote, and Azaryahu (2016), as well as Lottman (1977 [1970]), the analysis focuses on how the narrative content of the novel is created through the categories of space as both a universal and a particular feature of plot, as well as through the spatial category of boundary. It examines how universal spatial categories, such as inside/outside and centre/periphery, as well as the particular symbolic meanings attached to them, structure the experience of Edinburgh for different narrators of the novel, thereby constructing a socially complex image of the city. One of the aims of the presentation is to show how being sensitive to spatial relations and spatial categories can enrich the experience of reading a literary text, particularly in relation to character construction, revealing characters’ psychology and sense of self.
References
- Lotman, Jurij M. 1997 [1970]. The Structure of the Artistic Text. Translated by G. Lenhoff and R. Vroon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Ryan, Marie-Laure, Kenneth Foote, and Maoz Azaryahu. 2016. Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.
- Welsh, Irvine. 2002. Porno. London: Jonathan Cape.
Deividas Zibalas (Vilnius University)
Deividas Zibalas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English Philology, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University. Among his chief research interests are fictionalised representations of cities and adaptation studies. His doctoral dissertation focused on the relationship between cinema and the city, specifically the way Rome is represented in contemporary Hollywood cinema. His publications include ‘To Woody Allen’s Rome with Love: Four City Profiles’ (Journal of European Studies, 2023) and ‘Engaging with Ireland’s Traumatic Past: Mielants’s Adaptation of Keegan’s Small Things Like These’ (Literature/Film Quarterly, 2026).