in youth is pleasure

I've come to spend a few days in Devon with my family, as I do every year (see last year's post here). Unfortunately the weather is being rather temperamental - yesterday the sun was shining and the skies were bright, but today has been just awful. Rain has poured and poured and poured. In a way it's been quite wonderful - I've spent the day indoors reading, windows flung open, listening to the endless showers and rumbling waves as they crash around the little Victorian harbour. In Youth is Pleasure by Denton Welch was recommended to me not so long ago by someone I've never met in person. I was intrigued by the title and spent months trying to locate a copy, always forgetting to order online, and then last week, there it was in Foyles. I cannot express just how much I'm enjoying this book so far. It's a coming-of-age story, told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Orvil Pym. The detail is incredible - Orvil's observations of his feelings and surroundings are touching and at times hilarious. See the passage above, for example. I was chuckling to myself for hours afterwards at the thought of this childhood game Orvil describes.