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The painting and writing of Denton Welch, much admired by such disparate people as Edith Sitwell and William Burroughs, is at once seemingly artless and immensely considered. There is really no one quite like him. Frail and desperately sensitive, Welch died young at the age of 33, leaving behind an intense corpus of work that had earned him widespread admiration both artistically and as a writer. James Methuen-Campbell has delved deep into Welch's short life, balancing analysis of his work with a detailed study of his life, enhanced by countless interviews with those who knew Welch best.
First published in 1945, In Youth Is Pleasure recounts a summer in the life of 15-year-old Orvil Pym, who is holidaying with his father and brothers in a Kentish hotel, with little to do but explore the countryside and surrounding area. 'I don't understand what to do, how to live': so says the 15-year-old Orvil - who, as a boy who glories and suffers in the agonies of adolescence, dissecting the teenage years with an acuity, stands as a clear (marvelously British) ancestor of The Catcher In The Rye's Holden Caulfield. A delicate coming-of-age novel, shot through with humour, In Youth Is Pleasure, has long achieved cult status, and earned admirers ranging from Alan Bennett to William Burroughs, Edith Sitwell to John Waters. 'Maybe there is no better novel in the world that is Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure,' wrote Waters. 'Just holding it my hands... is enough to make illiteracy a worse crime than hunger.'
Leven en werk van de Engelse schrijver Denton Welch (1915-1948).
The record of a thrilling and tormenting gay love affair in World War II England, these letters also reveal a devastating experience of disability and, above all, the awakening of a remarkable and unforgettable literary voice.
A beautiful and unassuming coming-of-age novel. Painfully sensitive and sad Orville Pym is fifteen, and the novel recounts the summer holiday after his first miserable year at public school. As in all of Welch's work, what is most important are the details of Orville's surroundings, as reflected through his remarkable perception. Includes a foreword by William Burroughs, who said of Welch's work 'It is time Denton received the attention he deserves.'