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    In Youth Is Pleasure
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    In Youth Is Pleasure
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    In Youth Is Pleasure
    Ebook186 pages3 hours

    In Youth Is Pleasure

    By Denton Welch

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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.’
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGalley Beggar Press
    Release dateSep 17, 2014
    ISBN9781910296301
    Unavailable
    In Youth Is Pleasure
    Author

    Denton Welch

    Denton Welch (1915–1948) wrote three novels and many short stories, journals, and poems. Born in Shanghai to an American mother and an English father, he was raised in England, and his principal ambition was to be a painter until a bicycling accident left him partially paralyzed at the age of twenty. After that, he began to write a series of autobiographical works. He died at thirty-three of complications resulting from his injuries. 

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    Reviews for In Youth Is Pleasure

    4.5/5

    32 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a lovely book by Denton Welch. It is probably mostly autobiographical, but is presented as fiction. In the meanest terms, it's the story of a boy's summer holiday with his family, which consists of two older brothers and his father. Orvil's mother passed away when he was twelve. A record of this summer's events from another person's perspective would be quite dull, but Welch infuses Orvil with all of his sensitivity, peculiarity and introspection. With these qualities, Orvil's minor misadventures and social gaffs take on a mythic quality.

      For those new to Denton Welch, this would be a good book with which to start. It's only 154 pages; an easy to devour morsel no less exquisite for its brevity. (By the way, reading Welch will have the adverse effect of making you talk or write like this, as well as using more Ys: tyger, tyre, pyjamas).
    • 5/5
      Denton Welch writes about a fifteen year old boy's summer holiday around 1930 spent with his father and two older brothers, the boy's name in the book is Orvil, although this is in fact basically autobiographical.The main part of Orvil's holiday is spent in a Surrey at a hotel near the River Thames, and while his two older brothers and at times some of their friends are there Orvil spends much of his time in his own company - apart from a few days spent with a school friend and his family in Hastings. Orvil is a inquisitive and adventurous boy with a vivid imagination, and people and places he sees conjure in his mind fascinating scenarios. He is especially taken by the sight of a man with two younger boys he sees rowing on the river, and sets out to spy on them, later he will encounter the man alone and spend some time with him, a curios meeting. This along with a number of other events clearly hint at Orvil's (Denton's) unmentioned sexual proclivities.What makes this a fascinating account is the unusual charm and honesty of the young boy. A boy with a fascination for small antique objects, no matter if they are damaged, in fact he is happy to find such for it means he is more likely to be able to afford them, and even in such matters as this his honesty is apparent, for it is clearly the object for its own sake that appeals rather than the object as thing of monetary value or for show. He is honest too in his analysis of the boy's thinking, often angry on the inside with others, or selfish in his reasoning, but rarely openly displaying such - although there are times when this aspect gets the better of him and he lashes out.For a fifteen year old boy he is remarkably sensitive and visually aware or observant. In addition to his liking for small objects he has a great appreciation for architecture, especially older buildings, and is quite knowledgeable about such, and not without his own views either.This is a most charming and beautifully written account about a young, somewhat tortured yet creative boy, an individual who does not and conform and is often at odds with those around him. The account concludes with his eventual return to school (for what in fact will be the last time), and there is a lovely incident in which Ben, his older brother by two years, who is also returning with him on the train to their school when seeing Orvil being taken advantage of unhesitatingly and very forcibly comes to his rescue - a moving conclusion to a delightful book.