One of the things that I can’t help wondering when reading Denton’s work is “what if that happened today?”. What if Denton had been knocked off his bicycle today – would his injuries be curable? What if Denton were writing today? With the LGBT community now widely celebrated and accepted, would he be more open about his experiences in his writing? What would have happened if Denton had been sent to school at the age of 5, as is now the law in the UK? If he hadn’t experienced the constant travelling that broadened his mind and fired his imagination so much, would he have grown into the artist and writer that he did?
I know there’s no point getting too navel gaze-y about it, but it’s the sort of thing I’d love to mull over with other Denton fans. I hope that this blog will be a vehicle to do that and much more. I’d be delighted if I could foster a community of Denton fans who return regularly and share their views.
A community won’t happen for some time, because I’ve purposely refrained from promoting the blog, or optimising it for search engines. There isn’t yet sufficient material to make it worthwhile visiting – if I visited a website with four blogs and five holding pages, I wouldn’t be terribly impressed! However, I don’t want it to start feeling like a chore. I like the hour each day that I spend writing the blog and experimenting with the look and feel for the website. This is my first website, and I’m looking forward to being able to manage the technical side of blog as easily as I write it.
If you do find this blog page, thank you for reading it! There’s a link to it from Denton’s Wikipedia page – when I followed the link I was surprised to find that there wasn’t a dedicated Denton website, and even more surprised to find that the domain was available. The author of the Wikipedia page got in touch the day after it launched to say hello and offer assistance, which I really appreciate; thank you Steven, and I hope I didn’t grab a domain that you were planning to use!
The structure of the site may change as my knowledge of Denton evolves, but at this stage I’m planning to host the kind of information that I’d like to browse myself. Obviously, a complete list of publications and how to get hold of them (if they’re still in print). A catalogue of his art, with pictures where possible. Pictures of the many places that Denton lived, then and now. A searchable resource detailing all the significant people in Denton’s life, and their alter ego if they appeared in one of his stories. And links to other Denton commentators; reviews, articles, whatever I can find. I’m aiming to create a resource that Denton fans will find informative, thought-provoking, and a pleasure to browse.
Hi again! Caught up with your recent reflections – thanks for the mention by the way! The domain (no I didn’t have my eye on it, it’s OK!) used to exist – it was part of a site on Jocelyn Brooke, which as far as I’m aware still exists. Perhaps the time and cost of maintaining a Denton Welch annexe was too much (they never met, and as such as subjects really only have a slight relationship, I suppose).
I’m no expert whatsoever on sites and blogs, but I think I’d agree on your surmising that it will indeed take time to build this sort of thing, and more importantly, get interest in it. I’m sure the interest is there, albeit not in massive numbers. Then again, the term ‘mass interest’ certainly doesn’t sound appealing to me.
Your ambitions are impressive though, and you’ve got my wholehearted support. A number of years ago I wrote a paper detailing all of Denton’s writing, but from an autobiographical perspective – in other words dating them all not from when they were written but when they were set. It does involve setting just a couple of his short stories aside as they are wholly fictional, but what it did reveal to me is that, prep school and Repton aside, he left a virtually continuous autobiographical record. For sure, it’s an autobiographical record with a Walter Mitty-Billy Liar slant, as his flights of fancy testify (the grotto at Oatlands for example, in “In Youth is Pleasure”, a fairly modest, and somewhat rundown structure in 1930, becomes a cavernous labyrinth in which he finds his brother in a clinch with the alluring Aphra).
I’m especially intrigued to hear what you’re saying as you come to these works for the first time – I’ve lived with them for so long it becomes difficult to be detached. I’m reminded of something Leonard Bernstein once said about his conducting: he had studied some pieces over so many years he felt as if he had written them himself. The risk here is I start sounding smart-alecky and saying, “well, as a matter of fact, *this* is the case…” I don’t ever want to do it!
But if you’ll indulge me one word of caution: treat the De-la-Noy journals with the biggest pinch of salt. I’ve added notes (perhaps too copious – does anyone care?) to my Wikipedia entry on Denton’s journals around how the 1984 edition came into being. A new edition of what is one of his most enduring works is urgently needed. I’m not going to labour the point, but such is the unreliability of this publication, that the front cover picture is not only *not* a self-portrait, it probably isn’t even of Denton. When it first came out, I wrote to De-la-Noy to enquire about the picture’s provenance, and he confessed to me that he was unsure. At the time I also scoured the works of Denton’s contemporaries at Goldsmiths (Ada Swanwick, Helen Roeder, Gerald Mackenzie, etc) and I could not find any style which matched. I was heartened to read that Methuen-Campbell shared my doubts.
Anyway, caveat lector is my advice when reading De-la-Noy. He was a fascinating chap (almost worthy of a bio as well) but detail wasn’t his forte!
I away your next epistle Rosalind!
P.S. Of course I mean ‘await’. How ironic after just accused having accused Michael of not doing detail!
Thank you so much, Steven – I really appreciate you taking the time to offer so much additional insight. Sounds like a trip to Texas is in order!