Welsh Filth Essay Example for Free

welch Filth EssayIf Marabou Stork Nightmares diagnoses the ineffectiveness of the philander system, Welshs third novel Filth turns its gaze on another state institution, the police. In contrast to the decentred nature of in the first place fictions, Filth mimics the annals logic of discourtesy writing whereby the plot traditionally revolves around an outspoken detective figure and his attempts to solve a murder. In this case Detective police sergeant Bruce Robertson is on the hunt for the killer of Efan Wurie, a journalist whose father is the ambassador for Ghana. As with many forms of discourtesy writing, the plot exists as a loose framework upon which to hang the figure of the detective. Critic John Scaggs describes the Private I. of detective fiction as a form of Private Eye, one which grants the ref a unique perspective on the world of the text . i In contrast to the quixotic Marlowe of Raymond Chandler or the stubbornly righteous Rebus of Ian Rankin, Bruce Robertson is an anti-hero, an accumulation of all that is most loathsome in Welshs earlier creations.Far from the enigmatic justice seeker, Robertson is a racist, misogynistic, homophobe. He combines a misanthropic personality with heavy drinking, medicate taking and a ruthless desire to climb the career ladder within the police. Similar to Roy Strang in Marabou Stork Nightmares, Robertson is a character that it is difficult to spend time with. As the novel progresses we learn that, off the beaten track(predicate) from hunting Wuries killer, the detective is attempting a cover up as he in incident is the murderer. Unable to form bonds with family, friends or colleagues the novel ends with Robertson committing suicide.If Filth sees the development of more extravagant plots, the same could in like manner be said about the novels form. Welsh attempts to develop, arguably with limited success, the kind of narrative experimentalism that defined his earlier fiction. Robertsons first person narr ative is sporadically interrupted by that of a tapeworm which, due to his unhealthy lifestyle, is slowly gestating in his stomach. The worms voice appears in mother tongue bubbles over the top of the main narrative, gradually taking up more space as the bulk progresses.The tapeworm becomes the voice of Robertsons conscience which, by the end of the novel, reveals his personal history and the events which moulded his detestable character. Welshs sojourn into crime writing is indicative of his earlier fiction in that it is the sociological implications capable up by the genre he is particularly interested in. As Aaron Kelly argues Welsh makes subversive utilization of the detective thriller in Filth to turn the genres formal logic of pursuing crime towards a questioning of the very legitimacy of the police and the state.