Młodości, w tobie uciech siła

by Denton Welch, Marcin Szuster (Translator)

Denton Welch (1915–1948), angielski pisarz i malarz, autor trzech powieści, dziennika i kilkudziesięciu opowiadań. Zaczął pisać po wypadku, któremu uległ jako dwudziestolatek. Cała jego kariera literacka trwała niespełna dekadę. Pisał głównie o sobie, nadwrażliwym, nieprzystosowanym społecznie chłopcu. Tutaj wciela się w piętnastoletniego Orvila Pyma, który spędza wakacje w eleganckim hotelu z ojcem i dwoma starszymi braćmi. Styl Welcha jest prosty i klarowny, łączy w sobie naiwność dziecka i finezję estety. Autor oddaje bogactwo nastoletniej percepcji świata, ani na chwilę nie tracąc dystansu do siebie. Jest zmysłowy, a zarazem nieprzeparcie komiczny. Odmalowuje lekko perwersyjny krajobraz emocjonalny, który może nam się wydać dziwnie znajomy.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Queer, LGBT, Literature, Novels, Gay

192 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1945

About the author

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

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Youth Is Pleasure is an unobtrusive coming-of-age story. At first glance it may seem superficial but actually the story is deep.

All round the room his family and the school authorities were prowling like wild beasts. They had long teeth and claws like the mad Nebuchadnezzar; but they were powerless; for the door had double Yale padlocks and four bolts, and the windows bullet-proof glass.

When you’re fifteen it seems that you stand alone against the whole world and all the human beings are your enemies…
And then one attempts to find a shelter in the loneliness and seclusion and to hide from the world in one’s fantasies… But the world lies in ambush waiting…

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

VIAGGIO INAUGURALE


Denton Welch dipinto da Gerald Mckenzie.

Quale altro scrittore mi ha condotto a Denton Welch, come è entrato anni fa nella mia lista di libri da leggere?
Non sapevo proprio nulla di lui, mai sentito nominare. E adesso son qui che pregusto il prossimo.

E capisco perché è un autore di culto, a cominciare dall’ammirazione dichiarata da William S. Burroughs nella prefazione:
Quando mi chiedono chi sia lo scrittore che ha influenzato nel modo più diretto la mia opera, posso rispondere senza esitazione Denton Welch.

Ma chi si aspetta viaggi lisergici, ribellioni o intrecci arditi rimarrebbe deluso. La grandezza di Welch si manifesta su ben altri registri: la sua scrittura fonde nostalgia e ricordo, fa venire in mente un ferro battuto barocco, ricca, ornata, dettagliata, mai eccentrica, e solida trasparente avvolgente.


Denton Welch e l’amico Eric Oliver.

Nato a Shangai, da famiglia più che abbiente, padre uomo d’affari, orfano di madre dall’età di undici anni, tre fratelli maschi, (fin qui sono tutti elementi che si ritrovano in questo romanzo, Orvil il protagonista sembra ricalcato su Maurice Denton Welch), studi in Inghilterra in Belle Arti, avrebbe voluto fare il pittore, ma a 20 anni fu investito mentre pedalava in bicicletta e riportò gravi danni alla colonna vertebrale, restando paralizzato per il resto della sua breve vita – la pittura diventò impossibile, e la scrittura sembrò l’unica giusta compensazione – ma i dolori erano così intensi che poteva scrivere per soli tre/quattro minuti alla volta – morì a 33 anni.


Denton Welch: Autoritratto. 1940-42.

Orvil e il romanzo che lo racconta sono stati spesso paragonati a Holden o Törless e altri adolescenti celebri della letteratura: è una buona e bella compagnia, Orvil si ritaglia il suo spazio, non brilla della stessa intensità, ma lascia una traccia forte.

L’arco temporale della narrazione abbraccia un’estate: la vacanza di Orvil col padre e i due fratelli maggiori in un albergo di campagna lungo il fiume. Orvil ha quindici anni, il padre vive in Cina e torna ogni tre anni a trovare i figli, li riunisce, li porta in vacanza.
Orvil sembra anche più piccolo della sua età, nettamente più piccolo dei fratelli che hanno solo pochi anni in più; a rimarcarlo, il padre lo ha soprannominato Microbo.


Denton Welch fotografato a Hadlow Road, Tonbridge, 1937.

Mancano ancora alcuni anni alla devastazione della Seconda Guerra Mondiale e dell’età adulta: siamo ancora in un’ansa del tempo apparentemente protetta.

È un racconto che poggia sull’atmosfera, non succede molto, anzi, la trama è fatta di niente: Orvil e le sue fantasie, i suoi pensieri, le sue paure, le sue scoperte e la sua energia.
Tutto immerso in quello che Welch chiamerebbe l’armadio dei sogni, lo scrigno segreto che Orvil ha dentro: identico e totalmente diverso dai suoi coetanei, al principio della scoperta di se stesso, Orvil è la quintessenza dell’Adolescenza, sacra età della vita. I suoi attimi estivi riflettono e assorbono i momenti salienti dell’adolescenza di me lettore (e credo di essere in fitta compagnia).


Denton Welch: Autoritratto.

Un mondo troppo maschile per Orvil, che sente forte l’assenza della madre: è circondato da troppi uomini, il padre, i fratelli, gli insegnanti, gli altri studenti del collegio dove si sente recluso.

Il titolo è ambiguo e spiazzante: la densa atmosfera creata da Welch è composta di tenerezza, ma anche da lacrime frustrazione amarezza.
Dov’è il piacere nella giovinezza? Forse nel risveglio sessuale di Orvil che, senza alcun sesso, scopre il suo corpo… Oppure nella sua immaginazione che non conosce confini…?
Welch non lancia messaggi, ma regala un libro che coglie alla perfezione lo straziante e delicato momento degli anni verdi.

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title suggests something nostalgic, possibly fey, even cloying, but the contents are all straightforward weird and generally pained, the contrast suggesting that Welch was something of a masochist. This is pleasure? Sure it is, to me, as the details are all so sensuous and consuming, so pointed and distinct, so unpackaged and fully explored. Nearly everything Welch wrote was thinly veiled autobiography, so this book details what I assume is a summer he actually spent in a hotel with his father and two brothers, all three of whom he dislikes to different degrees. He was 14 at the time, and was a seething blend of incipient knowledge and raw naivete, all tamped down somewhat by an English propriety. But this propriety does not prevent him from speaking his mind and insinuating himself into peculiar circumstances. At one point, in his desire to distance himself from everyone he knows, he ends up in a woods where he comes upon a rustic cabin with a man and two boys inside. There are weird unspoken hints of pederasty between the three(or was that just my twisted & suspicious mind?) as Welch observes them from a hidden place. In a later chapter he comes upon the man again, and this time approaches him and ends up in the cabin himself, where he polishes the man’s boots and gets weirdly intimate considering the remoteness of the cabin and the fact that he’s alone in it with a total stranger. Nothing happens, or at least nothing is mentioned in the text, but it is clear that Welch intentionally encourages the reader to fantasize about what could’ve happened. This anecdote, like every anecdote in the book, and it is more a string of anecdotes than a novel proper, is presented in a naked fashion with no extraneous analysis and/or interpretations, as simply a wonderful (in the strict sense of the term) experience, tangible yet innately mysterious. Which suggests what I like so much about Denton Welch in general – he is learned and literary, and writes with a spontaneity and natural ease, but he does not try to make his books into more than they can accommodate; there is an organizing intelligence at play, but there is absolutely no contrivance in the narrative, no forced overlay of meaning or larger purpose. His books read as deep experience transcribed to the page, and so when read become again an experience in the reader, as partially transcribed by the reader’s store of personal memories, with all the various mysteries of experience and individual sensibility perfectly intact. And as odd a stylist as Welch can be, and as particular a sensibility, there is still the feeling (at least in my mind) that to read him is to learn about one's self and one's apprehension of the things of the world, which attests to the ultimate naturalness of his expression.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some voices which reach out from the past because they feel so alive with mischievous humour and a startlingly singular point of view. Prose can strongly encapsulate such a sensibility when it's written with as much feeling and precision as Denton Welch used to embody his 15 year-old character Orvil's perspective. We follow him during his idle summer holiday spent at a hotel with his aloof father and older brothers. The slim novel “In Youth is Pleasure” was first published in 1945 and its author only lived for a few more years (dying when he was 33 years old), but this text is still breathing and giving us the side-eye.

Orvil does a lot of looking, a lot of observing and a lot of judging in this story. He could be classified as a voyeur as he watches from behind a bush some boys and their schoolmaster out on a peculiar boat trip where “Jane Eyre” is read aloud. In another scene he spies from the shadows his eldest brother making love to a woman. From a window he looks through another window at a man dancing to music and dressing after his ablutions. There's a safety found in his solitary observations where he can silently appraise some people as “rather fat” or certain behaviour as “vulgar”. He seems to be equally harsh on himself as it is stated “He was afraid that now, at fifteen, he was beginning to lose his good looks.”

Through his gaze the world is transformed in a brutally bizarre and imaginative way. For instance, he describes a man's flabby pecs as “so gay and ridiculous; like two little animated castle-puddings” and a woman's breasts become “miniature volcanoes with holes at the top, out of which poured clouds of milky-white smoke, and sometimes long, thin, shivering tongues of fire”. Bodies morph into absurdities, but he also regards people with a kind of detached fascination so that we understand the sharp barrier between him and the world. When this barrier is removed it elicits terror and violence but also ecstatic jubilation. In doing so, Welch captures Orvil's intensely solitary state where he longs to be with other people but is also repulsed by them.

Read my full review of In Youth is Pleasure by Denton Welch on LonesomeReader

[Hux · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been putting off reading Welch for a while because, due to various opinions I respect, my expectations have been raised to quite a significant level (the English Proust, you say?). This seems like a good place to start and while I enjoyed the book and was impressed by the writing, it never really became anything more than a charming tale of adolescence.

The story revolves around Orvil Pym, a fifteen year old boy who, for a few days in the summer holidays, leaves his boarding school to spend time in a hotel in Surrey with his father and two brothers (plus an additional trip down to Hastings). He never really feels connected to his brothers (especially the eldest, Charles) and finds himself wandering alone by the river or investigating abandoned buildings. He has various flights of fancy and creates a myriad of imagined scenarios (often self-indulgent and self-pitying) but ultimately feels dread at the idea of having to go back to school. Meanwhile the plot (such as it is) has a curious exploration of proto-sexual feelings, most of which are directed at the newlywed Aphra but which also seem to be aimed (subtly) in the opposite direction until a genuine sense of homoerotic tension is cultivated. It's very respectfully done and always maintains an ambiguous nature.

All in all, the book is very light and bounces along without ever offering anything too challenging. There are moments where you can really see why people have such a high opinion of Welch, where his prose becomes utterly drenched in metaphor and simile, with rich, inventive descriptions and clever analogies. It makes for a highly nourishing experience but, for me, it never quite hit the heights I was hoping for.

But I could see what people are talking about. The book is very charming and I look forward to reading more of his work. It's closer to a 3.9.

[Zeynep T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duygu sömürüsü içermeyen anlatımıyla içe işleyen bir hikaye Gençlik Hazları. Annesini yakın zamanda kaybetmiş, üç yılda bir gördüğü donuk babası ve işe yaramaz iki abisiyle yaz tatili yapan 15 yaşındaki Orvil Pym'i takip ediyoruz metinde. Anlatılanların yazarın hayatından izler taşıdığını bilmek beni daha da üzdü. Orvil aile içinde dillendirilmeyen kayıpla yeni keşfetmeye başladığı cinsel yönelimi arasında bocalarken o kadar yalnız ki kendilerinden insanca sıcaklık yayılan küçük bir topluluk görünce gözleri doluyor. Üstelik çok hassas bir çocuk. Ergenlikteki garip davranışlar, büyüme sancıları, arayışlar doğal biçimde verilmiş. Yazarın genç yaşta ölüp gitmesi büyük kayıp gerçekten. Bulutun İçinden Bir Ses kitabını da okumak istiyorum.

Çevirmen Emre Ağanoğlu'nun, editör Zeynep Tür'ün, son okumayı yapan Mustafa K. Aydın'ın, kapak tasarımını yapan Esen Karol'un ve sayfa tasarımını yapan Adem Şenel'in emeklerine sağlık.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gençlik Hazları, 33 yaşında ölen yazar/ressam Denton Welch’in sağlığında yayınlanan son romanı. Hikayeyi kısaca özetlemek gerekirse, 15 yaşında bir ergen olan Orvil Pym’in, soğuk, iş insanı babası ve kendisinden büyük iki abisiyle yaptığı bir tatili okuyoruz. Romanda büyük çatışmalar, dönüşümler içeren bir hikayeden ziyade Orvil’in bazen kendi başına bazen de başkalarıyla yaptıklarını anlatıyor yazar. Orvil yakın zamanda kaybettiği annesinin yokluğunu hala kabullenememiş halde. Babasıyla ve maço abileriyle de hiçbir zaman yakın bir ilişkisi yok. Bu da Orvil’i derin bir yalnızlığa itiyor. Bu yüzden metruk yerlere girip çıkıyor, yabancılarla konuşuyor, bir şekilde zaman geçirmeye, kendini bulmaya çalışıyor. Tabii burada Orvil’in eşcinsel/mazoşist eğilimlerinin olmasının da payı var. Yani bulunduğu ortama göre her şeyiyle “ayrıksı” kaçıyor. Yazar Orvil’in bu kalıplara sığmayan biricik halini bence çok güzel anlatmış. Çok kolay içine girilen, kolay okunan bir kitap değil Gençlik Hazları. Orvil’i anlamak, içselleştirmek de çok kolay değil ama belli bir oranda yakınlaşınca kitabın hazzına varıyorsunuz. Kendi adıma okuduğum için memnun olduğum bir kitap oldu ama herkese tavsiye eder miyim, kolay kolay etmem herhalde.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

ne kadar şiirsel, ne kadar gençliği en doğru yerlerinden anlatmış bir roman. gençlik derken ergenlik demek lazım belki çünkü romanda ana karakter orvil pym 15 yaşında, sıkça adları geçen abilerinin de biri 17, diğeri 21 yaşında, yani aslında babaları hariç romandaki tüm karakterler genç.
şunu belirtmek lazım, hassas ruhlar için ergenlik bir cehennemdir, okul da… orvil gey bir genç ama kendisi de bunu daha kabullenmiş değil. kurduğu hayallerde kadınlara yer vermeye çalışsa da özellikle mazoşist fantezilerinde genellikle başrolü güçlü ve sert erkekler yer alıyor ama orvil bunların fantezi olduğunun da farkında değil zaten. aşırı hayalperest bir çocuk olduğu için böyle şeyler düşünmesi ona garip gelmiyor.
eşyalarla kurduğu bağ, onlara dair hayaller, erken yaşta kaybettiği ve romanın sonundaki katarsis’le ne olduğunu anlayabildiğimiz annesiyle ilişkisi, korumacı ve maalesef erkek gibi erkek abileri ve ilgisiz, uzak babasıyla şu dünyada yapayalnız bir nokta orvil. en azından ergenlikte böyle hissediyor.
ingiliz zenginlerinin bu uzak, yatılı okullarda geçen ve sıfır duyguyla yaşanan hayatları çok acayip. orvil otelde kaldığı süre boyunca yetim çocuklara, izcilere, onlarla ilgilenenlere özeniyor.
içten içe bildiğini düşündüğümüz eşcinselliği bazen patavatsız tavırlarla (kız sanılması) alenileşse de romanın sonunda orvil’in romanın başında tatile çıkacağı için duyduğu sevincin sebebini görüyoruz. eşcinselliği tüm okul tarafından bilinen ve zorbalanan bir çocuk orvil. onun o ince, yumuşak kalbinin nasıl kırıldığını, nasıl canının acıtıldığını, yine de abisinin onurunu düşündüğünü görmek benim de canımı acıttı.
roman, denton welch’in yaşamına oldukça benziyor. o okuldan sağ çıkıp kendisini bulduğunu, pek çok eser verdiğini görmek insanı sevindiriyor. ama çok erken gitmiş maalesef.
odipa yayınlarına hoş geldin, çevirmen emre ağanoğlu’na elinize sağlık diyelim.
* romanda arkadaşın babaanne ziyareti bahsinde, ben kadının anneanne, amca denen adamın da dayı olduğunu düşündüm, müzik bağlantısından ve annenin tavırlarından dolayı. bunu da bir merak olarak not düşeyim.

[Sam Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something magnetic about an unbothered and slightly perverted coming-of-age story like this one. Welch perfectly captures the way innocence abstracts so much when you’re young and yet Orvil is at that in between age where you’re keenly aware that what you’re doing maybe isn’t so innocent but you’re not sure why yet. Every line was also just stunning; this book literally oozes with eroticism and small touches of sensuous detail that capture the dizzying experience of growing up and being angry, horny, and joyous often at the same time. This was like if the Catcher and the Rye and Call Me By Your Name had a sexy love child together who liked to get into trouble and was dangerously good looking but didn’t know it yet. I’m also a sucker for coming-of-age stories and the capturing of teenage ennui so of course I loved this. In youth there certainly was some fucking pleasure 🫦

Thank you man at the Paper Hound for encouraging me to buy this!! Now I can read Burroughs guilt free!

[PaperBird]

Discussed this book here: https://youtu.be/oGZCoVeC50I

[Paula Mota]

DNF
Apesar de ser uma história bem escrita, com muita minúcia, não vejo aqui mais que uma sucessão de desvarios e peripécias de um adolescente solitário, entregue à sua própria sorte num hotel fino de Inglaterra. Mas eu, obviamente, nunca fui um rapaz de 15 anos.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set mainly in the environs of an upscale hotel in the British countryside at which Orvil is staying with his mildly effete wealthy father and two condescending older brothers, Denton Welch’s mid-20th-Century novel In Youth Is Pleasure chronicles the vibrant inner life of Orvil Pym, a sensitive and imaginative teenage boy who is just coming of age. The narrative offers a seemingly unrelated sequence of events, built around the various illicit pleasures Orvil experiences over the course of his summer vacation after a debilitating first year at boarding school. Left to the endlessly entertaining devices of his own amusement by his distant father and annoying elder siblings (whose reaction to Orvil’s presence ranges from teasing to embarrassment to total disregard to fraternal protection – the one closer in age is relatively kind if a bit gruff, while the eldest is the most overbearing, fear-inducing, and cold), Orvil explores the hotel, its grounds, and surrounding countryside without supervision.

Over the course of the novel’s 152 pages, Orvil engages in various activities that could be described as transgressions against the ‘normative’ expectations of male teenage behavior. For example, he steals a tube of lipstick from a department store, then hides it in the back of a drawer in his hotel room, only to coat his young lips with the cheap sticky waxy-tasting paint several chapters later while admiring his mirror, before applying it freely over his bare body as if it were tribal war paint, encircling his nipples with the bright red pigment, creating gash marks alongside his ribs and forehead, etc., then dancing about wildly in his hotel room before scurrying frantically to wipe it off, jolted into action by his elder brother’s door knocks. Other examples of Orvil’s ‘queer’ behavior include his breaking into a Catholic Church and becoming drunk on stolen altar wine while exploring the various nooks and crannies of the church including the inside pockets of the neatly-hung choir robes, and his fascination with a book in the hotel lobby dedicated to physical exercise that features photographs of semi-naked male athletes demonstrating the movements. Most beguiling for this reader was Orvil’s rainy day interlude with a ruggedly sunburnt parson in a cottage in the woods that begins with an invitation to warm himself by the wood stove, climaxes in his exploration of the feeling of the inside of the parson’s leather shoes that he’d been instructed to polish, and ends in Orvil’s binding the priest’s hands and feet with white rope before a rapid no-turning-back exit in spite of the cleric’s pleas for him to return on the following day. More innocuous passages narrate Orvil’s delight in finding the perfect broken China saucer to buy at an antique store, or in taking afternoon tea in the hotel lobby after an afternoon spent canoeing alone, in which a dive into the river precipitated the joy of weightlessness amidst the flowing water, followed by thrilling heat of the sun as he lay on the riverbank to dry.

What makes the novel most engaging is the way that Welch’s seductive, evocative prose captures the delights of youth objectively yet with palpable balminess: the writing – in third person omniscient voice – allows the reader to indulge in the unjaded feeling of interacting with an endlessly alluring world that is seemingly full of possibility, but is nevertheless clouded by the constricting feeling of social expectation that becomes ever more omnipresent with the encroachment of adulthood. Reading the book brought back rich memories of my own adolescent fantasies of living alone in a cave in the woods, where I’d hoped to survive far from the imprisoning demands of modern society, free, and in harmony with nature’s rhythms (obviously these fantasies tended to arise more often in summer than in the bone-chilling dead of winter!), as well as my own real-life adventures breaking into the local church at midnight to play the pipe organ with my childhood friend.

Although cycles of violence between men, initiation into manhood, and denied yet ubiquitous homoerotic impulses are predominant themes in the narrative, Orville’s imaginative inner life is punctuated by visits with slightly older adolescent women, whom Orville sees as appealingly nubile and yet comfortingly maternal. His desires for these women provoke him, yet his inability to attain them (beyond receiving a protective kiss or sympathetic gesture of affinity) seems to augment the pervasive feeling of loss he has felt in wake of his mother’s death three years earlier. His infatuated fixation on Aphra, a voluptuous maiden, culminates when, in a pitch black, dank, yet regally-appointed cave near the hotel that had been used by King George IV as an entertainment grotto, he catches glimpses of her bare body enwrapped around his elder brother Charles. To cope with his unrequited lust, Orvil fantasizes that his brother is a giant baby to whom Aphra feeds her milk. His interactions with his friend Constance and her mother Lady Winkle are perhaps less traumatic, though equally disappointing. The theme of initiation/abuse proves to be cross-generational and trans-gender rather than specific to his age or sex: when mailing a letter, Orvil takes momentary pleasure in bringing a baby in a pram to tears by making hideous faces at it. In the next chapter, he feels sympathy for a 90-year-old grandmother whose servant caregiver forbids her to play her piano despite the fact that it is the only activity at which she seems to take any pleasure in her decrepitude.

Orvil’s fantasies of escape and emancipation continue to intensify throughout the narrative. Without giving away the ending completely: in the last chapter, the moment of bullying that occurs on the return train to school is set off refreshingly with a moment of fraternal protection that gives the reader hope that Orvil will survive this awkward phase and find a way to transcend any taunting that might befall him in the coming year. Written in the early 1940s and published originally in 1945, Welch’s novel perceptibly both draws from and ignores Freudian psychoanalytic theory. It uses phallic, vaginal, and anal symbolism nonchalantly yet subtly, which tickles rather than assaults the imagination. Orvil’s character strengthens throughout the text and leaves open the possibility that despite the loss of naïve youthful pleasure and wonder that early adulthood will inevitably impose, Orvil will nevertheless emerge upon graduation much like Joyce’s young male artist: with a more refined ability to discover, indulge, and inspire himself.

In Youth Is Pleasure reminded me of a refined-if-distantly-British version of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, if Gene Forrester in the latter had actually been more truly ‘separate.’ Without the foil of a virile Phineas to admire and mourn, Welch’s Orvil comes across as both more independently-minded and aloof, and yet also more queerly vulnerable in his self-sufficiency. It is not surprising that the rich artfulness of Welch’s portrait has appealed to such renowned writers as William Burroughs and Edmund White, who are clearly indebted to the clarity of Welch’s perception and to his magnanimous use of sexual imagery. One can imagine how the more self-consciously accepting queer youth of today, who are unfortunately still too-often bullied in the 21st Century, might take inspiration from Orvil’s imagination and perseverance in the face of great odds, if not feel a bit jealous of the social standing into which he was born and from which he yearns to take flight.

[marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

rip orvil pym you wouldve loved trixie and katya

[Jonah reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Waters did a way better job at selling this brilliant, sensuous novel than I ever could. So here you go: „Maybe there is no better novel in the world than Denton Welch’s ‚In Youth Is Pleasure‘. Just holding it in my hands, so precious, so beyond gay, so deliciously subversive, is enough to make illiteracy a worse social crime than hunger. [...] Have the secret yearnings of childhood sexuality and the wild excitement of the first stirrings of perversity ever been so eloquently described as in this novel? […] Somehow Denton Welch has captured the undiscovered innocence of the Marquis de Sade and the ingrained perversity that only children can fathom“. And fortunately for all lovers of queer literary fiction, Penguin Classics republished this book in 2021. This surely isn’t your average coming-of-age story, but if Water’s description sparked your interest you will probably enjoy this as much as I did.

[josé almeida · Rating 4 out of 5]

belo relato de um rito de passagem - essa estranha e difícil barreira que constitui o transpor da adolescência. foi-me impossível não recordar o "catcher in the rye" de j. d. salinger e estabelecer algum paralelismo, mas a escrita de welch é talvez mais minuciosa, evidenciando uma vontade de narrar com detalhe os locais e as situações e tentando colocar-se no ponto de vista do pensamento (multifacetado, caótico, etc) de um adolescente perante os seus medos, inseguranças e certezas. se fôssemos todos obrigados a escrever a memória da nossa vida, tenho a certeza que a "teen-age" constituiria o período mais difícil de descrever. todos passámos por ele, mas ainda alguém se recorda do que pensava e como pensava? tentem, welch dá uma ajuda. é também o primeiro livro de uma editora recém-nascida. bem-vinda (resta esperar que cresça e ultrapasse a adolescência).

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1945, but with a reissue this summer, Welch's story follows fifteen year old Orvil Pym as he spends an unhappy school holiday at a hotel in Oxford with his widowed father and two elder brothers. His father is distant, a businessman in Shanghai who he rarely sees, and his brothers different to him, they like girls and fast cars, whereas Orvil, physically immature for his age, prefers browsing in antique shops, exploring churches, reading and avoiding people. He steals lipstick and paints first his lips, the other parts of his body with it.
Welch's writing is filled with sensuousness, but as much in what it doesn't say as what it does. Orvil's imagination may be seen as vivid and disturbing, but those who, like me, have spent much time working with adolescents, will know that that is far from unusual. Welch mesmerizes by switching between tenderness and violence in successive sentences. He deals with themes of sexuality, friendship and abuse in a book that is far ahead of its time, and yet the historical context fascinates also.

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was turned on to this book by John Waters via his "must-read" list in his book Role Models. I am proud to say that I had already read two of the five and I have been slowly making my way through the remaining three. Very slowly! I have to say that in reading this there is no question as to why JW would add it to his list. It is creepy and perverse while still remaining to be subtle and frilly. The writing is absolutely beautiful. The physical descriptions of emotions and the tactile experience are unlike anything else I have ever read. There are multiple scenarios in the book that are so lushly described that I felt like I was there and when I woke from my literary daze I was left wondering, what the fuck? Seriously, what the fuck? I would be hard pressed to tell you what this book was about. Short of someone young experiencing things for the first time, I am left with a half-hearted shrug. Each moment is told like the youth has just arrived on this planet and inhabited his body. It's kind of crazy. It was super interesting until it wasn't. I would say at about 100 pages in I was ready for it to be over. I finished it out of respect for JW but, were it not for him, I would have closed it on page 101.

[Alvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welch writes in a staccato rhythm that seduces with its uniqueness and his honesty is so guileless its actually a little shocking. Somehow he imbues tiny details and actions with great significance. The first person narrator, a thinly disguised Denton Welch, is clearly a person of such sensitivity and passion that even his obscurity and insignificance cannot blunt his starlike quality. Actually, he reminds me of Joan Crawford... someone who commands attention by virtue of taking life more seriously than is pleasant or even usually possible. Welch is not a writer of great social sweep, but he's so talented he could give navel-gazing a good name.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It reminded him of his childhood when he and his friend used to play a curious precocious game in which they both pretended to be noble ladies at a ball. One would always begin by asking the other, 'And what, if I may ask, is that exquisite perfume you are wearing tonight, Duchess?' The other would then flutter an imaginary fan and simper before replying, 'It is Guerlain's new Pot-de-Chambre, my dear Countess.'"

[Vestal McIntyre]

Weird, tortured, twistedly erotic. Welch was some sort of genius, poor thing.

[figaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

when i was fifteen, which is a year ago lol, i entered a new school and i quickly despised it. everybody seemed to be against me, nobody wanted to talk to me and i didnt want to talk to them. i wanted to die and i adopted a leering view towards everyone. i only found solace in the beauty around me and my loneliness meant i could silently enjoy the magic that nobody else enjoyed.
the troubles of adolescence may seem great but in the grand scheme of life we shall look back and think it is nothing.
i have never related to another character as much as i did orvil—save for a few differences between us. i found solace in his strangeness quite like mine.. perhaps taking the fact people found him queer to a literal sense, both ways. everything he did i wouldve done; everything he thougt i wouodve thought. he writing is so good. there is such a great detail given to every blunt description that lets the reader put their own beauty into it, every little description so vivid and so beautiful it makes one appreciate every little bit we miss in our day to day lives. at times the writing plunges into brilliant, grotesque, absurd similes, especially in the bodies of other people and himself, which itself portrays skillfully the self-absorption and the simultaneous self-hatred of adolescence, the colored lens through which teenage minds are filtered through, the imagination of it all, as well as the feeling that sometimes you suspect you're crazy—a time of turbulence! a masterful depiction of teenagehood, all its innocent, amateur, unintentional perversity... the teenage tendency to be cruel and disturbing.
a strictly "no plot just vibes" book. entrench yourself deep into the mind and adventures of a 1930s teenage boy. put yourself in his shoes—you'd feel awfully familiar yet alien. there is pleasure in every miniscule bit of suffering overdramatized by teenage minds. there is pleasure in every small bit of beauty, in every piece antique junk, in every vivid description. these are the days that will one day be looked back on fondly by an older self. when there were no other bigger problems in one's world.
a beautifully strange book with a breath of queerness in it, cruel, raw, disorderly, languid adolescence, my kind of unconventional coming of age book. there is beauty and pleasure in the mundane through the lens of a teenage mind—both unwilling to be a part of the crowd yet a bitter observer. so effortlessly great, natural. i believe the dreamy, beautiful , at times outlandish prose represents the turbulent years of teenagehood, still as a child full of imagination but the death train of adulthood so close by. all in all, very good, especially when one relates to the protagonist in that you are strange, bit queer, perpetually detached from everyone and long for both a solitary existence and an existence that thrives among social throngs.
i enjoyed every anecdote, every vignette, and ate up all the sumptuous details and descriptions. there is beauty to be found in an abandoned cottage, in a hidden grotto, in an abandoned bit of lipstick, an empty church, and the grave inside it.

[Elton Mesquita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biographies can be cruel or kind. James Joyce once remarked that he "didn't let the poor fellow off", referring to his alter ego Stephen Dedalus (in "A Portrait..."). That's not the case here, as there's a certain tenderness that comes off in Welch's writing, even if he limits himself to mere description of Pym's actions and inner states. Welch's "perverse and unpleasant" protagonist (in the words of his editor) seemed to me anything but, although some of his actions certainly deserve that description. Orvil Pym gives off the impression of skittish energy brimming over in constant exploration, less an identity than an exposed nerve. He certainly comes off better than his brother Charles, who, along with his coterie of vulgar male friends, personifies the undeniable boorishness of broad masculinity.

Welch's style is elegant, measured in short sentences that are easy to savour, and his/Pym's roving eye provides us with plenty of rich descriptions of aesthetic objects, bringing to life a time when artisanship was retreating from the wider world, cowed by the ugliness of mass production.

The book was written at a time when homosexuality was still a subset of the human experience, and not the all-encompassing identity branding that it is today; when sexual discovery could still be lived as a strange, shadowy adventure (shadowy because screened off from the outside light, an intimate thing), and not as a discipline in the curriculum, something which is Healthy and Normal and that one should learn and practice as soon as possible, with plenty diagrams and figures to help. It made me think of that story about Noël Coward, who, already in the 60's, when pressured to "out" himself in solidarity with others who had done it, refused to do it, saying that "there are still a few ladies in Worthing who don't know".

As with any story taking place before the creation of ARPANET, "In Youth Is Pleasure" is tinged with the melancholy of realizing that, as quaint as old decorum might seem to us today, it will never be as quaint as old wantonness. We have learned so much since then.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I woke up this morning missing the extra element that this book has brought into my life whilst I was reading it.

It is not a straightforward one. I am not exactly missing the main character or the excitement of the plot (there is not much of a plot). The book is about a boy, Orville, whom we follow throughout one summer in the countryside observing his, sometimes peculiar, behaviour. His unconventional micro-adventures, thoughts and feelings.

The descriptions of the outdoors, as well as the descriptions of Orville's quirky internal world, are both so vivid that you disappear into that world for a little while living in someone else's universe. I loved Orville's unorthodox, unexpected actions and his views. I think as children we all had our quirks and omens, we might not remember them now but if we try to remember some of those might be hard to explain to others or even to ourselves. I remember having a separate inner world to disappear into, there I had agreements with objects and places... Snapping out of that world required a conscious shift (that was not always pleasant) and you can really feel, and empathise, with Orville when he has to make those shifts.

This is not a book you will dive into with ease, but once you get into its 'head' it turns into a beautiful experience.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the reviews on the back of this novel compared it to the work of Proust, but Welch's sensuous, highly aesthetic writing reminds me more strongly of Against Nature by Huysmans. There's a similar delight in extra-ordinary, and a search for intense pleasure away from the humdrum world. But it's also a creation of one brief summer in the life of an adolescent between the wars: Orvil hates boarding school, and fears or detests his fathers and brothers. His mother has died three years ago, and he is still reeling with grief, something it's impossible for him to talk about. In the highly charged, censorious atmosphere of the British upper-middle classes, Orvil struggles with his intense emotions, his sexuality, and his profound fear and hatred of boarding school. This novel is a subtle interrogation of the class system, and of the boarding school system, which leads children's estrangement from their families and from each other. The petty cruelties and injustices follow Orvil everywhere, and he too is cruel and capricious. This is a strange book, heavy with atmosphere, and full of a sense of doom. It wasn't a good book to read while ill in bed: it gave me an intense feeling of disquiet and melancholy. However, I admired Welch's writing and would read more of his work.

[Susan Hampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was published in 1945 but takes place before the war. Orvil Pym is a very awkward fifteen-year-old boy. The school has broken up for the summer holidays, and his father has taken his two older brothers and him to stay in a hotel in Kent. His mother died when he was a boy of six, and he doesn’t have a close connection to anyone.

Orvil is fighting his internal battles about his sexuality and seems to have done all his life. A lipstick was knocked from the counter in a shop when he was younger, and as he bent down, he palmed it saying, it had gone under the counter. Later he would experiment with it. He hates everything at the moment, his father, his brothers and everything and everyone at school.

The saving grace of the hotel is its vast grounds and countryside that surrounds it. Although he hates being with people, he is a voyeur, often spying on unsuspecting guests. It was at these times that he came to life. Once seeing a man and two young boys in a shed, he went back when the man was on his own. The man toyed with him, having him do the most bizarre things while Orvil seemed to get more daring. It was Orvil’s summer of self-discovery, told in the most surreal way.

I loved the text, with some words that were unfamiliar to me, the English language then was more poetic than it is now. It is a daring, and fabulous book of its time. A true classic.

[sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

a shockingly autobiographical and deeply alienated coming of age story. do you know what it feels like to be so under threat? calls to mind and is contemporaneous with Carson McCullers who I also recently fell in love with (The Member of the Wedding) though the adolescent neuroses of each reach greatly different tones and degrees of resolution. I wanted to read this for so long, found it at paper nautilus for $7.50 and for the first time the cashier commented on my purchases but stopped speaking with me after I said "I've never been able to find it online for free!" my new favourite book. on the same trip I found Carson McCullers' Reflections in a Golden Eye which is also classic and stark gay literature (1941) so ,, I am just tickled

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Orvil is a thorny main character who often leads you in circles with his eccentric behaviour and conflicting thoughts. It takes a while to settle in his mind and perception, but then you’re guided through a pulsing summer of very British incidents that are simple but pregnant with burgeoning sexuality. Reading this book as a a gay man, youngest of three brothers, gave me a profound sense of recognition and disturbance. It is at once nostalgic and uncomfortable which is quite the feat to achieve.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

La mirada curiosa (Comentario, 2025)

Hay una escena, durante un desfile militar, en la que el protagonista se queda fijo mirando una cabra. Es una cabra blanca, pequeña, que brinca sin comprender bien qué está pasando a su alrededor. Es de noche. Hay algunas luces. Y música marcial.

Eso es todo. La maestría del divagar del personaje, sin embargo, no tiene desperdicio.

Hay delicadeza en la manera de narrar, y una dignidad en la belleza de contemplar la cotidianidad adolescente sin condescendencia. Que gran primera aproximación a Denton Welch.

[Marika_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

takich książek się już nie pisze, więc tym bardziej warto je teraz czytać

buzujące nastoletnie emocje, podglądactwo, obsesje i obsesyjki, zbieractwo, pełno anegdotek i nieprzyzwoitości. I świetnie jest to napisane :)

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I read this book many years ago and it is wonderful. I am sure I read it not long after reading his beautiful short story 'When I was Thirteen'. It is a dazzling novel but I am going to forego my own words of wisdom and instead I am going to quote Denis Cooper on 'In Youth is Pleasure':

‘There are some voices which reach out from the past because they feel so alive with mischievous humour and a startlingly singular point of view. Prose can strongly encapsulate such a sensibility when it’s written with as much feeling and precision as Denton Welch used to embody his 15 year-old character Orvil’s perspective. We follow him during his idle summer holiday spent at a hotel with his aloof father and older brothers. The slim novel “In Youth is Pleasure” was first published in 1945 and its author only lived for a few more years (dying when he was 33 years old), but this text is still breathing and giving us the side-eye.

‘Orvil does a lot of looking, a lot of observing and a lot of judging in this story. He could be classified as a voyeur as he watches from behind a bush some boys and their schoolmaster out on a peculiar boat trip where “Jane Eyre” is read aloud. In another scene he spies from the shadows his eldest brother making love to a woman. From a window he looks through another window at a man dancing to music and dressing after his ablutions. There’s a safety found in his solitary observations where he can silently appraise some people as “rather fat” or certain behaviour as “vulgar”. He seems to be equally harsh on himself as it is stated “He was afraid that now, at fifteen, he was beginning to lose his good looks.”

‘Through his gaze the world is transformed in a brutally bizarre and imaginative way. For instance, he describes a man’s flabby pecs as “so gay and ridiculous; like two little animated castle-puddings” and a woman’s breasts become “miniature volcanoes with holes at the top, out of which poured clouds of milky-white smoke, and sometimes long, thin, shivering tongues of fire”. Bodies morph into absurdities, but he also regards people with a kind of detached fascination so that we understand the sharp barrier between him and the world. When this barrier is removed it elicits terror and violence but also ecstatic jubilation. In doing so, Welch captures Orvil’s intensely solitary state where he longs to be with other people but is also repulsed by them.

‘Orvil’s father seldom figures in his days as there is a mutual disinterest and he’s wary of spending much time with his brothers. The figure he really longs for is his mother who died a few years ago, but he maintains vivid and sometimes disturbing memories of her. Two individuals he meets appear to be kinds of parental replacements. He forms a sweet attachment to his eldest brother Charles’ maternal friend Aphra. He also has a few encounters with the mysterious, nameless schoolmaster who seems to alternately fill the roles of father, teacher, persecutor and a fairy tale witch. Their interactions are so curious it makes me wonder if this is even a real person or a figure that Orvil has simply conjured as part of his imaginative games.

‘As Edmund White observes in his astute introduction to the new edition of this novel, Orvil is “strangely attracted to filth”. Though he has a desire for what is refined such as a trip to lunch at the Ritz he can’t help but envision the flowing filth of the city accumulating beneath the civilized surface. I think the allure of what’s repulsive isn’t so much about revelling in being gross, but an attraction for what’s transgressive as a way to question the values and morals of the society he feels detached from. He is also fascinated by and sees beauty in things which have been discarded or broken. The way he relates to and values very particular objects movingly demonstrates the distinctive way he sees the world.

‘Orvil has a unique aesthetic, but there’s also a poignancy in this depiction of a boy at a stage in his life where he has the sensibility of an adult and the imagination of a child. A lot of his wanderings include losing himself in fantasies where he can indulge in pretensions or revel in sado-masochistic desires. In one private game he wraps himself in chains and violently flogs his own back. In such mental spaces he can also playfully explore the boundaries of gender. He steals of a tube of lipstick to secretly paint his lips and other parts of his body. At other times he strips down naked outside as an act of transgression and liberation. The way that Denton writes about these experiences makes them feel more natural than they are perverse because they are freed from a general morality and merely reflect the proclivities of an utterly unique teenage boy. I absolutely adored this book and its tender spirit of youthful curiosity which casually dances through fantasies and nightmares.'

From Dennis Cooper's blog: https://denniscooperblog.com/

If that doesn't make you want to read this amazing novel and search out everything by this unique writer than nothing I could say would convince you.