The Stories of Denton Welch

by Denton Welch, Robert Phillips (Editor)

Twenty six stories drawn from his two published collections and from unpublished work in the Welch archive.

Genres: Short Stories, British Literature, Queer, LGBT

377 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Maurice Denton Welch was an English-American writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions.

Reviews

[elderfoil...the whatever champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the back of his best stories here (or my favorites, rather), which are certainly the best (favorite) things I've ever read from the weighty Welch, I'm loading up our good man with five stars. I say weighty because all his minutiae (details about socks and skin and decor and everything else that's tangible and usually meaningless) is mostly a light and airy breeze when ordinarily it would most likely probably be a sloggy burden stuck on our asses. And also because I'm just jabberin'.

Okay, my highlights of Denden's short fiction (which might well be "sleepers," not sure) are .......... "The Trout Stream" and "The Diamond Badge," both of which I laughed the whole way through and thought "holy Hell!!!" during most of them. They kept driving, driving, driving it in, pouring it on ... and I even broke down and had to wipe my face/brain a couple times! Ridiculous!!! Welch had already got me leaning in those directions with the first story in the book, "When I was Thirteen," where "Denton" likes smelling Archer's anything while also claiming it's impossible to get really dirty in Switzerland. Denton would deliver a wide but slow-developing grin if I asked him to describe the sweet aroma of Archer's farts.

Then in the very next set up, Flora Pinkston takes in/on the young GERMAN via "The Hateful Word." "You like the English countryside?" "Oh I like---I like VERY much." Jesus!

Surely this can't be serious.

But then, "I thought of the dead faces; the eyes, the nose, the mouth eaten away by fishes. But they were still able to weep from the holes where their eyes had been, and cries locked in bubbles escaped from the shapeless mouths." ..... his fantastic fixation with coffins in "The Coffin on the Hill."

And ... "They were holding one another's shoulders, patting one another's backs, wishing good wishes, saying good-byes, joking and chaffing as they knew they should from the pages of Esquire. It was painful to watch, because you felt that they really had no love for one another at all." --- from "Memories of a Vanished Period"

By The Trout Stream, lines like "Everything was hard and ugly and beautifully kept" shine like Welchian lipstick, with ol' Denton pulling out the little dark demon in him ala Raymond Chandler. "Now that she had told her story she was a like a bird waiting for crumbs."

And then the invalids start coming...as well as speculation about their legs. (If he'd started smelling the crippled's feet I don't think I would have made it out of my little spot in the mud Saturday.)

In addition to those I've already mentioned, "Leaves from a Young Person's Notebook" and "The Earth's Crust" were also very good. But "The Trout Stream" and "The Diamond Badge," oh yeah ... those are some favorite pastimes.

I'd love to hear others call in to report on which were their favorite stories ...

You (I) have to hand it to Denton Welch: the editor and writer of the preface (Robert Phillips, who does a fine, fine job by the way, and is, almost shockingly, an American) states that narcissism, minutiae, suffering, homoeroticism, hedonism, and nostalgia were Welch's obsessions, and other than nostalgia, I rarely have the faintest interest (or even patience!) in the other matters, quite often turned off in fact. But Denton Welch pulls it off. Pulls me in. I keep reading him. Probably it's because he's got that honesty about him, or a purity. At the same time he's a lovely con artist: a mind that's encompassing and deep, all the while making us feel he's stuck on little butterscotch candies and bicycles; a man bedridden with holes in his spine pushing us forward in curiosity and what I'd consider, ultimately, a skulking joie de vivre.

[Robb Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magical~

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love his precise descriptions of people and things; his pettiness about what he hopes someone will leave him; his observations.

[The Master · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating group of stories that, while not interconnected, collectively depict a very particular set of attitudes and mindsets in late 30s/early 40s England, that period that bridged the imperial past and the modern future. This collection includes stories of yearning and discovery, eccentric character studies, peculiar vignettes, even a ghostly tale. Plenty of universal themes, but the real delight is whenever Welch directs the reader's gaze to some fine visual detail, like the design of a brooch or an ugly sculpture, or the contents of a picnic meal, or the colours in the weave of a tweed jacket. Left me wanting more.

[Raymonds009 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uneven character development. An interesting expose on mores and morals of mid twentieth century in the English countryside. Not much is memorable.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating journal, not written to be published so it has all kinds of observations of Denton Welch's everyday life between 1942 and 1948 when he died aged 33; sadly aged 19 he had been involved in a serious bicycle accident that ruined his health. If you have read his wonderful Maiden Voyage you might well enjoy this book.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listed under my lgbt tag more for the underlying sensibilities than the storyline; subtle homoeroticism pervades several of these well-written stories from the 1940s.