In Youth is Pleasure

Denton Welch's In Youth Is Pleasure (1944), set in 1930s England during the calm before the storm that was WW2, is the richly impressionistic story of Orvil Pym, a teenage boy vacationing at an out-of-the-way hotel with his widowed father and two older brothers. Welch captures Orvil's varied, fanciful imaginative life. I've never encountered a writer who could provide such a lush sensory experience. Everything has a smell, a taste, a feel; nothing is drab or colorless in Orvil's world. It's a kind of still beauty, as nothing particularly "action-packed" happens in this book. Yet, everything that does happen seems vital to Orvil's coming-of-age. Highly recommended.

This is my favorite book. Vivid imagery, gorgeous prose, amazing character, incredibly subtle arc. Denton Welch is literature's least-known gem.

I have only read the first novella, but found it interesting.

In youth is pleasure was wonderful, but truthfully I liked ILMGH even more.It has the most beautiful descriptions of walking through the english countryside.The books were much funnier than I expected also!Great stories, just ordered his other books as well.

In Youth Is Pleasure is as wonderful a title as it is a read. It's been a while since I've been so immediately drawn into a book. Denton Welch wickedly catapulted me into the lives his richly vivid characters... a joy.

A bizarre and marvellous book full of freakish images and the erratic reactions of a teenager to his daily life. In youth is pleasure indeed...

I certainly did see what some of the other reviewers saw when they commented on the amazing powers of perception in this novel but the development and believability of the characters was simply not there. I realize it may be uncool to say that the novel lacked enough plot and the sheer ability to see and feel what the protagonist sees and feels ought to be enough. It just wasn't. Nothing happened, no one grew, no one changed, no one truly impacted upon anyone else. The novel felt empty to me and I just could not have cared less about it.

I have finished In Youth and started on I Left. Find his writing a pleasure to read and the stories and insights into life intriguing.

Several years before the war a 15 year old boy named Orvil and his two older brothers, Ben and Charles along with his widowed father stay at a luxurious hotel in the countryside of Surrey for the school holidays.Troubled Orvil tolerates Ben but mostly hates Charles and does his best to steer clear of him. With little else to do, he explores the hotels vast grounds and spies upon people.Permanently wrapped in his teenage angst and dreading going back to school from the moment the holidays start, Orvil is in a perpetual state of unease.All he really wants is to be left alone.He meets various characters during his stay at the hotel but there's very few he feels at ease around.There's seems little Orvil can look forward to.This short novel is like nothing I've read before. Firstly there's no real plot. It's basically a simple slice of a few weeks of summer about a boys awkward perception of the world, his own inner turmoil and fears.Despite the lack of any real story line I felt compelled to follow Orvil's summer 'adventure'. As you read on he turns out to be quite a character, exhibiting some rather 'odd' subversive behaviour.It's clear he's uncertain of his sexuality and, although incredibly subtle, you can detect the homosexual undertones in various scenes.What really makes this such an enchanting read is the beautifully vivid imagery created by the writer relating to the outdoor scenes. Welch paints a picture of such clarity of Orvil amusing himself in the luscious hotel gardens that you believe your there watching him. The book has a very real feel of escapism about it that is intoxicating and something you wish you were a part of.This book may not be for everyone but if you're looking for an intriguing piece of literature that reads like a piece of art then IN YOUTH IS PLEASURE could be for you.

Published in 1945, "In Youth Is Pleasure" is the second novel by Denton Welch, a work where this author is already at the peak of his powers. It is a short, compact book, but you only have to read a few paragraphs to be hooked by its fascinating style. A plotless work (not a flaw), it simply recounts the events in the life of fifteen-year-old Orvil Pym during a summer holiday spent in Surrey,in the period preceding World War One.What really makes the difference here is the astounding poetic quality of this prose, a trait which can be directly linked to metaphysical poets such as John Donne. All the reader's senses are switched on by vivid, finely sculpted descriptions of people and places that, in perfect metaphysical style, juxtapose contrasting, unexpected images to produce unforgettable results. This vision pervades every line of the book and produces an omnisexual tension sometimes blurring the line between pleasure and pain. Young Orvil is a shy but very intelligent boy who has to face some serious problems such as the death of his mother, his "strange" appearance (he looks a lot like a girl), the bullying from his schoolmates and, last but not least, his nascent erotic pulsions that, albeit still unfocused, tend towards voyeurism and sado-masochism.All these themes,never presented as abstract but springing from the inmost nature of the various, at times humorous episodes, blend seamlessly throughout the book; the reader will find himself at the core of a fervid adolescent mind, thrilled and shocked at the same time by a delightful narrative rhythm sometimes disrupted by violent scenes, two of which occur at the end of the work and put many of the preceding events in a darker perspective.Orvil's fears and reactions to the world cannot help connecting with any reader's former adolescent self; the author's investigation is courageous, never clichéd, always aiming at the truth of experience. On closing the book, we will know that there is a shard of Orvil in each of us, even if we were not aware of that before.Definitely a masterpiece, "In Youth Is Pleasure" is a perfect starting point to explore the compelling world of Denton Welch.

This is just one of the best books about male adolescence, it completely captures the mix of passion, strong feeling, dawning sexuality, and foolishness. He should be as well known as Joyce or Woolf in terms of his syntax, sentences that just seem perfect to me.

Fantastic. Really good read. denton was such a wonderful a wonderful writer. Do yourself a favour and buy this book you will not be disappointed,

Unsettling.