Customer Reviews

Maiden Voyage

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This is the book I want them to toss in my coffin before they nail the lid down. I chanced upon Maiden Voyage many years ago and as soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it all over again. The friend, who realized I had borrowed it, rather unpleasantly made me return it. Written autobiographically by a young English boy, it is an astonishing, often scandalous, and occasionally deviant account of a coming of age. Denton's brilliant style, deceptively simple but frank and intimate is timeless. Aspects of British upper class life have altered only a little since this book was written, which was pre WW2. There are still tormented boys on trains heading back to school and contemplating escape. The glimpses of Shanghai still haunt me.

I am rarely as moved by the written word. Denton Welch was a genius, a truly great writer. Maiden Voyage is his most revealing work. Order it immediately! I'm never going to lend my copy to anyone.....

When you read Maiden Voyage you will wonder how such deceptively simple language and storyline have gently lifted you from the ground and taken you into such a intimate encounter. The writing appears effortless, the language creates no barriers to understanding. There are many simple pleasures here that we have all experienced or thought at one time but had not thought print-worthy. Yet here they are rolled out like a deliciously intricate lushious carpet. My favorite part was the description of one unfortunate school boy who was de-bagged on a train during an outing for school and has bubble gum rubbed in his pubic hair; Welch writes that he thinks that, despite the forced nature of the attack, the boy enjoyed the publicity.

Denton Welch, artist and author, writes in part memoir, part novel, of the year at the age of fifteen he ran away from school, and subsequently left for China to join his father. He begins as he is due to set off for his return to Repton, his Derbyshire public school where his brothers also attend or attended. But instead of catching the train going north from London he buys a ticket for Salisbury. As his money runs out he is forced to make arrangements to return, with the outcome that he can eventually join his father in China.

Welch describes his escape, his brief return to Repton, and then his time in China. The account is filled with little adventures and encounters in which Welch reveals as much about himself as the people he meets and the places he visits. He writes with an artist's eye, his powers of observation creating strong images and bringing to life both people and places. Welch is an unusual youth, sensitive, something of a loner, with a great interest in the antique and especially small objects, and a sense of adventure. The honesty of his writing cannot but endear one to this young man who is clearly set apart from most, and who occasionally and subtly reveals through his writings his gay tendencies.

While reading the book , I often find myself embarrassed for the young narrator, about what he guilelessly seems to be revealing about himself. He comes off unconsciously gay. But then i am of different class in a a different era than characters in "novel".