‘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.’ — Lonesome Reader
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Further
A VOICE THROUGH A CLOUD: Discovering Denton Welch
The art of Denton Welch, 1915–1948
Denton Welch @ goodreads
Austerity in colour
In Youth Is Suffering: Denton Welch and the Literature of Convalescence
Denton Welch: An Inventory of His Papers
‘No mouse or man after a hundred years’: a note on Denton Welch
Denton Welch: Wonder, and Wounds, in the Weald
Podcast: The Pleasures and Pains of Denton Welch
Bright glimpses of a lost existence
Beyond Gay: Denton Welch’s In Youth is Pleasure
That Rare Being, a Born Writer: DENTON WELCH
The journals of Denton Welch @ Internet Archive
Delighting in the gruesome
Writing Beyond the Grave: William Burroughs and Denton Welch
Through a Cloud
Buy ‘In Youth is Pleasure’
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Extras
The writings of Denton Welch Part I
A chat with Edmund White about Denton Welch’s “In Youth is Pleasure”
R.B. Russell recommends Denton Welch’s ‘In Youth is Pleasure’
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In his own hand
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from his Journals
8 January 1944
‘I have been ill now and in bed for over two weeks. That is why I have written nothing. And the new doctor gave me M. & B. tablets which, I suppose, made me feel even worse – black, dead, inhuman as a boulder – telescoped into myself till nothing could come forward.’
11 February 1944
‘This evening I bicycled to Penshurst. I climbed up the hill easily because I was with a man who worked at the railway and he talked all the time about the last war.
At the top, he said good-bye and I went on, on, down the hill past a soldier and the old neurotic home, ‘Swaylands’, which is now a military hospital. Two idle loosely hanging soldiers stood at the lodge waiting for something to be brought to them. They looked at me lazily and curiously as I sped past . . .
Nothing can make up for the fact that my very early youth was so clouded with illness and unhappiness. I feel cheated as if I never had that fiercely thrilling time when the fears of childhood have left one and no other thing has swamped one. The cheek is plump and smooth, the eye and the teeth are bright and one feels that one would lie down and die if these first essentials were ever taken away . . .
When I passed the ‘Fleur de Lys’ at Leigh, again I thought of Eric, for he told me that he used often to get tight there.
Curious to think that all this time while Eric worked on the farm, hated it, was utterly lonely, got tight as often as possible just for something to do, I was only a few minutes away in Tonbridge, walking the streets in my restlessness, trying to make myself iller and iller by any foolishness, wanting to die.
And we never met and all the years in between, seven, eight, we knew nothing of each other, they all melted away and wasted.’
21 April 1944
‘This morning I had a book, Planet and Glow-worm, from Edith Sitwell and a letter with her love. Then I went out in the sun and, feeling so much better, I lay on the top of a haystack and sunned myself and ate and actually fell asleep, and I forgot unhappiness and trouble and only felt in a daze with hot sun and cool wind on my face.
Edith mentioned my Horizon story which appeared on Wednesday. Cyril Connolly sent me fourteen guineas and said Hamish Hamilton wanted to know if I had a book of them in mind, because if so he’d like to publish it.
Lately I have a poem in the Spectator and two in Life and Letters and a story in New Writing and one in English Story.
Also I have sold two little pictures to a Mrs. Serocold
It is happiness to have things liked, but when I’m ill as I was on Wednesday and other days lately everything pales to nothing and I want to die more than anything on earth.
I think all I can do is to keep my work going as long as I can. And if I can no longer, then I will die . .
8 May 1944
‘When you long with all your heart for someone to love you, a madness grows there that shakes all sense from the trees and the water and the earth. And nothing lives for you, except the long deep bitter want. And this is what everyone feels from birth to death.’
9 April 1945
‘I have said nothing about In Youth is Pleasure, and it has been out since February 22nd (I think). So far everything is so much better than I thought it might be – good reviews, except for Kate O’Brien in the Spectator, and quite long ones and lots. It was all sold out before publication, so now they are bringing it out again.’
30 May 1945
‘When I read about William Blake, I know what I am for. I must never be afraid of my foolishness, or of any pretension. And whatever I have I must use, painting, poetry, prose – not proudly thinking it is not good enough and so lock it inside for fear or laughing, sneering.’
26 August 1945
‘I have been ill now and in bed for over two weeks. That is why I have written nothing. And the new doctor gave me M. & B. tablets which, I suppose, made me feel even worse – black, dead, inhuman as a boulder – telescoped into myself till nothing could come forward. Now I am better, and so the other state seems unbelievable, but it is waiting for me again.’
29 January 1947
‘There were frost flowers thick all over the panes this morning and the milk was frozen. The pipes were frozen too, and the snow thicker than ever. I have not got out of bed, and will not till I hear the pipes thawing. I have been writing here, then eating chocolate as a reward. The panes are all dripping and splashing in the sunshine now. Eric has gone for a walk in the snow, and I wish I could go too. It is the most snow I think I have known in England.’
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Book
Denton Welch In Youth is Pleasure
Penguin Books
‘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.’’ — Penguin Books
Excerpt
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p.s. Hey. ** jay, My pleasure. If only that film were as good as its premise, but the lacks are fun, true. I wonder if the Best Deaths’ cheesiness is deliberate or not. The models having fun is certainly the priority. There’s something kind of heterosexual about their stuff that made me curious. It has this closeted vibe that’s definitely part of its appeal, to me, I mean. ‘Studio amateur’ is where it’s at these days, yeah. Thanks a lot for the link, I’ll check that out. And I’ll set my mind to skim mode. Real Only Mind is quite a good moniker. Enjoy Wednesday by whatever means. ** Misanthrope, Oh, shit, I feared so. We seem to be about to be in the grip of a bunch of sadistic idealists. Here’s hoping the whole thing collapses before it begins. Are you off for Thanksgiving now? Isn’t it tomorrow? Isn’t it always on a Thursday? I don’t even remember. ** James, Apparently. I think there are still people like Wishman but they don’t get much further than some tinily known spot on YouTube. Uh, I don’t know, post-wise I just keep my eyes open and follow my instincts. The material is out there, it just takes a lot of searching and saving and copying and pasting and stuff. Laborious but not such a challenge otherwise. Clay Anker … oh, I thought you meant long like hippie-long. Cadinot’s early porns are semiotics based and/or referencing. Few others that I know of. I’m very into writing for films right now. It’s a big challenge. I like that it’s just an initial ingredient and that when you’re writing a script you’re always imagining what it will be when it’s fleshed out and trying to write it accordingly and somewhat subserviently to the upcoming visuals. Zac’s shy, but he reads the blog. I wrote very shitty fiction for years before it very gradually started getting less shitty and then hopefully non-shitty. Patience + obsessiveness. I just read those books that were in the post the other day, and I haven’t started anything new yet. It doesn’t sound like some kind of fetishization necessarily. ** Lucas, Hi. It’s almost like the balance finds you rather than vice versa, if that makes any sense. As a dude who does or tries to do (and needs to do) heavy pre-structuring before I write fiction, I hear you. D+, eek, but oh well, right? Dust in the wind? I’ve never read a novel in German, of course, so I don’t know what that’s like or if I would like the German writers I like as much if I read their originals. But probably. Anyway, I just think of the obvious, like Bernhard, Sebald, … Eating good is key, I think, so I hope you’re treating yourself. I’m fine, going to spend the day seeing art and eating at Paris’s great vegan restaurant Potager du Marais. Score. You, yours? ** seb 🦠, seb! How great to see you and your green blotch! Welcome out from under the boulder. I’ve been mostly pretty good with the usual glitches. Sorry about your break-up, but happy that its ass is whomped. The name Ivo de Jager looks familiar. I’ll check. Huh. Dos games, nice. Tempting. I’m just whacking away at my Switch these days. There are a handful of sites making staged death videos, but they’re all hetero and mega-misogynist. Haha, your friend’s description of France is hilarious. I don’t know what she looks like, obviously, but I will do my best to bump into her. Thanks, bud. ** HaRpEr, Hey! Very interesting. ‘Straight men have started being weird around me’: my friend who I mentioned the other day said the exact same thing. Me too, it’s gotten so coffee is just one of my bodily fluids. Very excited by that ‘your interior monologue is one incredibly long sentence …’ description. Wow, and as a fellow former acidhead, I think I know exactly what you mean. Beautiful. Yes, the art of the Xmas bouche is taken very seriously by the patisseries here. A good batch again this year, as you’ll see. I’m saving up my euros. ** iwishiwasanon, Hey. Maybe I’ll try to carry myself like a cool guy when I’m out and about now. I’m not sure I know how, but I’ll figure it out. Shit accent: I think another reason I haven’t tried to learnt French is that hearing American tourists here speak French or try to while the French people they’re talking to cringe is massively embarrassing to me. I don’t keep a journal, no. I don’t read on the metro either, no. On the metro I just surreptitiously study everyone around me, and I find that quite exciting. I’ll of course let you know when the film shows in Paris. We’re working on something. Yes, you can write to me at [email protected]. I hope your day (and mine) stops being rained on before too long. ** Steeqhen, Oh, cool. It’s fun. I’m stuck on a very tough Boss right now — a giant evil origami turtle — but I’ll kill him somehow. Um, the conference thing was in 2010, I think? It was sponsored by University College Cork and it happened at some place called Granary Theater? I just put my email address in my comment just above, so you can use it. Thank you, I look forward to it. ** Uday, Not to be confused, for sure. In the States, people like to name their cows Doris, I don’t know why. Yes, I would be happy and grateful if you want to make a post for the blog. That would be great. Thank you, U! ** Okay. There are few if any novels written in English that are as beautiful as ‘In Youth is Pleasure’, and if you haven’t read it, strong encouragement to do that. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Thanks for sharing this, it seems really interesting – I always remember the stuff I wrote at 15 or 16 quite fondly. I actually (somehow) won a relatively big prize for kid lit in the UK, I wrote this piece about a man who can have anything he wants, but has to live in isolation. I think it ended up becoming really conventional in it’s messaging, by the end, but I’m still kind of impressed with my original vision.
Hmmm, I always think films living up to their premises is overrated, I think. Or at least, I tend to think far more about art that “failed” in its goals way way more than art that “works”. I think that there are tons of perfect films I’ve seen (particularly Haneke, I think), but I tend to almost think about his work less, because it’s so confident and entirely sure of what it wants to do/say.
Yeah, I agree, Read Only Mind is a fun moniker – this community tends to use that language quite a lot. There are two other games, called “Ctrl Alt Ego” and “Mind Control Delete”, which are both pretty popular in these communities, so I think these kind of techno-puns are a sort of inside-joke. I’d love to know your thoughts, there are some particular chapters near the end of the bit of writing I shared where I actually did wonder whether the writing was genuinely quite good or not.
**James. Well, haha, some of my friends are more normal, I know a few guys who just play Fortnite, don’t read, and only listen to Coldplay, so it’s not like my friends are all kinksters. I do know what you mean about the autism / asshole thing – my two cents is that if you aren’t trying to upset someone you aren’t really being an asshole.
Yeah, I only know 3=rhubarb and 19=stoneinfocus, although since getting the vinyl I’ll probably be a bit more conscious of it. That was a great album, thank you – lots of stuff I really like present, and not at all a bummer to listen to. I’m sure a lot of this awkwardness is going to pass, it definitely did for me – although I remember tons of people said that to me at your age, and I totally ignored it, haha.
This is among John Waters’s fave novels, and I have a copy on my own shelf as a result but have yet to read. Will need to rectify that forthwith.
Yesterday I was away to the dentist for the 1st time in literally years. Not for a toothache, but more like a twinge that told me to get it checked. Turns out I have a hole in my wisdom tooth that requires surgery at some future date. I was then kept waiting around for a taxi for most of the afternoon, hence I missed comenting on the delightful Doris Wishman Day. Will be ransacking YouTube for a few takeaways from that one.
Have also been amusing myself by buying yet another CDG hat, this one a white beanie with Mickey Mouse ears on top. Can see my head being the best decorated on this humdrum estate, no contest.
Dennis, Yeah, they certainly have their ideas about how things should work and are intent on implementing them. I mean, I think most people want our governments to be efficient and not waste money or at least know where each penny is being spent. But just slashing X amount for the sake of slashing X amount seems very shortsighted to me. And the in-office stuff is ridiculous. Talk about inefficient!
But like you said, it might get aborted before it started. There are many government unions who will be fighting against these things, so we’ll see how all that turns out.
Yes, I’m off for Thanksgiving tomorrow and I took the day off after that, so a 4-day weekend. I’m a chill. Though Kayla’s mom is up from Mississippi and we’re all going out tonight to the Greene Turtle. That should be…fun. 😛
Btw, I have a copy of this novel and will be getting to it soon. Just finished Flunker and loved it. 🙂
Have had this Welch (a nice surname imo) on a list for some time now, and I’ve an .epub of it on my phone. Even his journal is nice to read – you wonder if people treat these supposedly ‘private’ diaries like something people might read. My various/poor attempts at diarying sucked. Not sure who Eric was but whatever he was to Eric, sounds like a sad affair. As does 8. May.’s sentiment – we all want to be loved until we die. That entry for 29. Jan. is my fav. And 30. May’s message is a good one – ‘whatever I have I must use, painting, poetry, prose – not proudly thinking it is not good enough and so lock it inside for fear or laughing, sneering.’ – amen. That said, my writing is unlikely to see the light of day/print. At least fiction-wise. I don’t think publishing an academic work is quite so implausible.
3pm, hey Dennis. Other commenters here have cool nicknames for you, and 1) I haven’t been here as long as they have so like maybe we aren’t on silly nickname terms, and 2) all I can currently think of is like the objectively terrible ‘D-Dawg.’ My living room is looking a bit chiaroscuro right now, with that pretty but somehow depressing winter afternoon light.
I *have* found some characters on YouTube. The most recent discovery was probably this channel I first discovered through a video of someone whisper-reading a part of Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and after curiously checking out the rest of their channel, I found feet videos which were definitely meant to be erotic, because this is the internet and of course that was the case. Are exploitation films still a *thing*?
Love your blogplanning, like this just massive collage of random(?) but always interesting stuff. I have a .txt doc on my laptop just called ‘Things’ with a whooooole bunch of stuff in it. Web pages that interest me, music to listen to, stranger’s accounts, etc., which is kind of similar in its cobbled together nature.
How long is ‘hippie-long’ hair? I guess I just thought Anker’s was long by gay porn standards, what with the previously discussed buzzcut dominance. My hair grows weirdly quickly. Past my shoulders by quite a bit.
WOOHOO French gay porn time! I just checked out your Cadinot post from 21. Sep. 2021 – most agreeable, totes hawt! Something about the camera quality is inexplicably erotic. THANKS! 😀
Vaguely tangentially relevant – I remember finding some Pokémon smut written in a screenplay form, which was some unexpected formfuckery. I don’t *think* I’m the most visual of writers(?) so I’d probs be hopeless w/ film. Has film been something you’ve wanted to write for a while, or relatively new for you? Best of luck w/ it!
Rightyoh. Does he read comments? On the off-chance he sees this, hi Zac :]
Random bit of hatred I feel like spewing – people who review music on the internet have such an affected way of writing sometimes and come off as so snobby, and I dislike it :[
I’m not quite so obsessive with writing. Maybe I wish I were? College is basically my life at the moment. An author was the first thing I ever really wanted to be, but now I’m a Jaded Adolescent I have trouble seeing fiction as something that will ever be more than just a personal on the side thing. Again, only time will tell, I suppose. I care enough about writing to make my writing less shitty.
Any ideas as to what you’ll read next? I always have the next book in mind whilst I’m reading one.
Phew, fetishization accusations dodged! Cheers for that relief, Dennis. Hope it’s nice where you are – till tomorrow!
P.S. jay, GRRR you were not only lacking in inhibition enough to share your writing but you WON a competition with it? Seething with envy. Those games sound cool. Oh, and Mind Control Delete is Superhot! I vaguely remember watching a video about it. Like, this text flashes occasionally in the game, and it goes from random shooter game stuff to like ‘GOOD DOG.’ or something. So I see the sexual dynamics.
It’s hard for me to envision a life without reading. What do you even think about if you don’t read?
Just spilt my tea T_T
Coldplay’s first two albums are solid, Shiver’s a fav. And Sky Full of Stars and Viva la Vida are UK staples, duh. Alack, none of my friends are overt kinksters. I suppose I ought to keep my eyes peeled for a guy who’s willing to speak strings of numbers with me ;(
I don’t think I try to upset people. Such a statement sounds unconvincing, now I read it. But a lot of the kind of people – i.e., other queer teens – I try to make acquaintances with are awfully touchy, by my standards. I’ve been called ‘abrasive.’ And they’ve all got more psychological issues than me, something they’re all very vocal about. I have trouble fitting in, even with, like, ‘my own people.’ Forgive the bitching about adolescent alienation x/
On the topic of SAW2, I love playing Windowsills to annoy people. *Perfect* Scrabble soundtrack.
Oh, goodie. Today I listened to Hospice by The Antlers for the umpteenth time – concept album about falling in love with a terminally ill patient, which is by extension a metaphor for any kind of fucked up one-sided relationship. All the vids for it on YouTube have such great comments – they’re so sad, and all about people falling in love with psychologically unstable people (which I’ve only let happen ONCE). It’s a very whiny and mopey album.
jay, I hope to God this awkwardness passes, because if it doesn’t, my adult social life is irrevocably fucked.
re: Conversational fuckup, they texted back that they ‘forgot’ to text me, for the second time! People just love doing that with me. And now I just have to wait for them to respond to my response, presuming I haven’t been excommunicated.
And that wraps up my as-always overly long reply. How was Wednesday?
Cloudflare, please work. God, PLEASE
Haha, well, I find it easy to share writing when it’s not particularly personal or human. Superhot is great, yeah, it’s very much unintentionally in this subgenre – I don’t think the writer really intended anything beyond “master/pet” as a scary or unpleasant dynamic to exist in for most people, but it’s unintentionally led to this huge following. It’s the same for GLaDOS or SHODAN, some people just go crazy for a condescending disembodied consciousness.
No, I get what you mean about being “abrasive”, I was super similar till I started my second year of uni, at which point I realised I’d sort of somehow developed social skills without noticing. This kinda thing creeps up on you, eventually you just notice you’re socialising without really thinking. No worries, I’m happy to listen!
Oh yeah, I really love windowsill by aphex (although I didn’t know it was called that till today), it’s on most of my work playlists. Is trontmuller someone you like? They scratch the aphex itch for me, but they’re a bit rockier, which sounds a bit up your alley. Here’s a link to my favourite of theirs! My Wednesday was great, I just did some DIY I’ve been putting off for ages, how about you?
Huh. I struggle to produce writing that isn’t personal. It’s probably self-absorbed of me but I don’t know anyone in real life willing to bare their actually interesting parts to me, so whenever I write I feel like I’m just mining stuff in my head and throwing bits of me onto a page until it’s interesting. I am a massive fan of the sci-fi/sex(ual dynamics, which are more interesting than sex itself) overlap. GLaDOS I know, I wish I cared enough about videogames to finish Portal and play 2 – I love the songs, Jonathan Coulton is so good – SHODAN I do not. Never played System Shock. The malign AI is quite the trope – I prefer friendlier, more human ones. Like HERA from Wolf 359, or the one in Naomi Kritzer’s cat pic stories.
You think God could classify as a condescending disembodied consciousness? Is it possible that religion gets people off, in that way? Now this is thought-provoking conversation. Thank you, jay.
2nd year of uni is a while away, but then again, no it’s not really, because time flies by. I can do social skills with people in a detached way – I hope that doesn’t sound like, cringy, like I’m trying to come off as cool and unfeeling or whatever – like, I can do official, important business, school talk just fine, quite comfortably (depending). Talking to my peers is harder, I’ve felt and feel this kind of inexplicable disconnect, maybe. Again, adolescence. I have a tendency – regrettably, like most of my milieu – to dump my baggage on unsuspecting kind people on the internet. Weirdly enough, that’s easier than talking to people I know irl. It’s tiresome being told I need therapy, which I don’t.
You actually like. Listen to Windowsill? Of your own volition? I’d go mad. You learn something new everyday! You Windowsill, me what SHODAN was, a good trade, methinks. NEVER heard of trontmuller, and I’m always thankful for music recs. In return, I will tell you that another of those bands I like that make angsty teen music for angsty teens is Hop Along – their song Tibetan Pop Stars is pretty beautiful, musically, lyrically, and vocally. I really don’t need to self-consciously harp on about being 17. Will listen either in the very near future before bed, or tomorrow morning when studying. How on earth do you embed/hyperlink links like that in these comments? Magic…
Wednesday means geography – learning about overfishing, hurray -_-. Boring kind of but I think some of the concepts could be interesting in writing, maybe. Generally speaking geography is so boring to students that they seem to not be aware of just how doomy it is. Every lesson I have I leave knowing about one more way we’re screwing over our own planet. I finished Amsterdam by McEwan – God he’s so tasteful, love him, surely the best contemporary English novelist – and so will start Pale Fire tomorrow if I’m not too tired – Thursdays are *SO* fucking draining, and I’m low on sleep as is. Debating if I’ll read the Cantos first, then the notes, or the notes alongside the Cantos. Suggestions?
Did some writing – more farting about with gender and sex and identity and fetishes.
And as for my social hiccup, I – HOPE THIS ISN’T JINXING IT – think things have been restored to normality. We’ve talked about smut, and Kevin Hart, amongst other things.
Had a decent chat with yet another engaging stranger on a chatroom – SUCH writing fuel, SO fun, SURPRISINGLY affectionate people – and listened to more of The Antlers whilst being incredibly tired with itchy eyes. It’s cool that my typing on the internet possibly doesn’t reflect at all just how exhausted I am, bleh. Just what was that DIY stuff?
I’m ending tonight on a much better mood than I was in this evening.
I listened to that track – very nice.
I’m going to be so tired tomorrow. At least I’m happier right now. See you! :]
Hey James! Yeah, I know what you mean about producing stuff that isn’t personal – I think I can get really in my head sometimes, so I try and write from a super alien perspective sometimes, but it often ends up circling back to my personal thoughts, so I try and embrace that and blend those two modes when I can. Yeah, Portal 1 / 2 are amazing, I’m really into the environments in the second game – particularly the walls opening up to reveal new spaces, I always found that pretty amazing. System Shock 2 is really, really fun, if you’re okay with a game being a little unkind to you, but it’s super satisfying once you let it rough you around a bit.
No, I get what you mean about doing socialisation in a detached way, you don’t come off as pretentious. I’m definitely the same, I’m able to switch my social skills to different modes very easily – my boyfriend’s parents (bizarrely) love me, because I managed to turn on this weird, like, super-traditional way of talking and interacting. Hmm, hyperlinks are weirdly easy, just look up “href hyperlink embed” and it should come up!
For Pale Fire, I think you really need to read the notes and Cantos alongside one another – the Cantos themselves are sometimes a little impenetrable (by design), and only reading them is going to give you a very dull experience. My DIY was, uh, fixing a door one of my flatmates drunkenly knocked open. And I’m glad everything is sorted, best of luck! See you!
Have you ever interacted with the guys who work at Best Deaths?
I’m happy that my parents’ neighbor is hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, to which they’re invited.
I saw Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE END last night. It’s a very strange film, not particularly enjoyable. It’s a complete failure as a musical. But as an attack on the 1%, it’s much less easily consumable than TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, SUCCESSION, THE WHITE LOTUS, etc. (Ironically, I walked past a SQUID GAME escape room on my way to the theater!)
Hey, Dennis! This looks absolutely perfect as my next read. Thanks! Hope you’re doing well. Not much new with me—trying to mentally prepare myself for all that Thanksgiving entails; a family gathering that more often than not descends into drama by the end of the evening. Maybe, just maybe, this year will be the exception. Here’s a song I’m currently obsessed with by Texan shoegazers trauma ray. The title of the song is an acronym for a line taken from the poem ‘The Romantic Dogs’ by Chilean poet Roberto Bolaño: “un sueño dentro de otro sueño,” which translates to “a dream within another dream.”
Hey Dennis,
Oh nice, I’m actually studying at UCC!
Ended up taking home about 10 books from college today; basically one of the professors passed away in the summer and the English department we’re fundraising for charity by hosting a book sale, though they raised their goal and were giving away the books by the time I got there. It was the last of my creative writing classes today, and I ended up submitting something to a prestigious literary journal in Ireland. I’m not expecting it to be accepted but I feel good about at least trying. I’ll send you another different piece as well, probably in the next few days.
Hope you’ve been keeping well, is the weather in Paris okay this time of year? It’s freezing in Ireland, but normally an uncomfortable coldness, not a romantic coldness.
Hey hey. Yeah, eek, my German exam today didn’t go well either because I randomly felt like I was about to faint towards the end and couldn’t really think. But I’m okay now. I can just act like I’m one of those oldtimey consumptive writers and it makes it a lot funnier. As long as my grades this year aren’t so bad that I have to repeat it, they’re virtually unimportant for my graduation which is nice and lets me procrastinate learning how to properly study, haha. What art did you see/where did you go? Any highlights? My Wednesday was alright. Some stress regarding personal stuff as always but I mostly just read a lot and spontaneously hung out with my best friend for a little while. I read this tiny novella ‘The Necrophile’ by Gabrielle Wittkop in two days and really loved it. Have you read it/heard of it? I’d be surprised if you hadn’t, but I def recommend it. Spent a lot of time with Franz Wright’s ‘Kindertotenwald’ which is a prose poetry book that I weirdly have a sort of hate/love relationship with. I mean, I think it’s fantastic but in a way it also seems a little corny at the same time, which may just be because it speaks to me too much, but, idk. I need to dig into how I feel about it. But again, I recommend checking it out. xoxo
Oh by the way, gorgeous post today. I’ve heard of this novel before but you just convinced me to add it to my list of things I need to read. Thank you as always
Hey!!! I think I’ve told you before that this is my favourite book. Denton is my God. I have a print of one of his self portraits hanging by my bed. I’ve read basically everything he wrote except a collection of his letters. From reading his diaries, writing seemed to come very naturally to him, and yet ‘IYIP’ contains a kind of self assurance that’s very rare. It’s very precise and yet very freely flowing and like most books I like, feels like it contains secrets. The first time I read it, it broke me and then I went back to it when I was a bit more emotionally stable and I became really obsessed.
A cool fact about Denton is that he was in the same school year as Roald Dahl of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ fame and Dahl apparently bullied him. Once in an English class when Dahl was picking on Denton, since they were studying ‘Romeo and Julie’, the teacher punished them by making Denton read Juliet and Dahl read Romeo.
Denton Welch!!! A Voice is good and all but even thinking of this book moves me so much (like reading Simone Weil). So so so good. I want my critical prose to be good enough to talk about this book some day. Lamp posts. Alluvial lakes. Happy homes. Felice Bauer of the almost broken nose dominates my thought. And on we go!! Thanks for the a-ok on the post-making. I will give it serious thought and consideration before emailing you with the idea. Been toying with doing little sketches bringing together bits of your work. Maybe? Have a caprine day; much frolicking.
Hey Dennis
This is one of my favourite books! I sent you my latest in an email recently, hope it arrived. Are you any closer to being out of the woods re the producer/film obstacles?
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