Recommended reading...from a load!

A Voice Through A Cloud, by Denton Welch

One of my co-workers saw me reading this and judging the title erroneously spat out, "sounds like a chick book". I was too engrossed (and maybe a little too annoyed) to bother defending it, but it is a very hard to define, highly entertaining book that so far is about a guy who gets creamed on his bicycle at around the age of twenty and winds up in hospitals and in chronic pain from then on. Sounds uplifting, right? Not only that, but it's autobiographical---poor old Denton died at the age of 33 after suffering for years from his fractured spine! The thing is, he rose from the ashes, and at such a tender age no less, to rival Proust in his ability to make a definite SOMETHING out of almost NOTHING. Here's a quote from William S. Burroughs (yes, that old yunky wheezebag!): "Such a marvelous writer, the way he can make anything into something. Writers who complain that they don't have anything to write about should read Denton Welch and see what he can do with practically nothing."

And here's a wee moment from the book:

I thought of the Mongol who had first worn my ring. I saw him dirty, in a broad hat with tassels, and enormous cloth boots. He was on horseback, waving a sword, breathing out garlic. I thought of ten thousand miles of ink-blue ocean, huge waves the three-cornered shape of wedges of cheese. I thought of friendship as an egg which never really hatches. Each moment of quarrelling or magic harmony is a pecking away of the shell; but the baby bird's head never emerges.

I love this book. It is a luxurious read.

A link to info on Denton Welch
A link to buy every single one of Denton's available books---do it now!