Customer Reviews

A Voice Through A Cloud

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The words are sharp,pointed, and heavy with utter despair; they leap off the page and slice your heart to bloody ribons . If you like " Catcher in the Rye " and my boy J.D Salinger give this a try. Also, oddly enough, Denton Welsh was William Burroughs (author of "Naked Lunch , freind of Jack Keruac and Allen Ginsburg ) greatest influence according to Burroughs himself though their books in style,content, and everything else are COMPLETELY different. What they do have in common is a feeling of universal damage and loss.. The sad music of humanity..And feelings of loneliness so absolute it may convince you the only authentic reality is pain.

Denton Welch was crippled in a bicycle accident when he was 19. This book recounts his experience of the accident and his long, slow struggle to recover. Although presented as fiction,all of Welch's work is closely autobiographical (although the names are changed). The opening of the book, which depicts the horror of serious injury, is unforgettable. The catheters, the sequence of operations, the excruciating pain and the loneliness of his convalesence, everything is described with almost uncanny accuracy. The later sections of the book, which are concerned with his slow- and partial- recovery are perhaps less succesful, and the reader's mind wanders. Here, he describes his relationships with his fellow patients, doctors and the nursing staff, and well as his occassional visitors (his mother was dead, and his father in China). A Voice Through A Cloud is undoubtedly Welch's darkest book- he wrote it as his condition once again was deterioating- and in the eyes of some, it is his masterpiece. Personally, I enjoyed his Journals more, and perhaps also Maiden Voyage, his first book. However, he is an under-rated writer, and I hope it will not be long before all his books are once again in print- this is the least he deserves.

Denton Welch writes directly from his physical being. Moments of epiphany and exaltation are consumed by momentous revulsion. It's a rare encounter, breathing an adjectival power and acute memory, as compelling as it is painful. His life-altering bike accident is related in such a way that the act of writing, the detailed reach of his vocabularly, enacts part of his recovery, the stable point of a dramatically oscillating, and untrustworthy world. An abiding image is that of his despair with his doctor, upon who he seems almost paranoically dependant. When the doctor shifts to another village, semingly out of reach, you can feel the pounding in the pages of Denton's heart.

This text is an entirely different experience than most. Although a the novel is categorized as fiction, the author tells it in autobiographical form. Further, he is so revealing and true to self that he paints an unforgettable picture of himself.

The novel does not follow the average conflict->rising action->climax->falling action format, but is rather a communal approach, with Welch playing only one character. The sense of movement of the novel is more of a sense of sharing information and in this sense does not pique interest as some other novels would.

Welch is a brilliant writer, however. His imagery, his metaphors, his use of direct language all put him in a category all his own.