with candour and a merciful lack of italics The dated histrionies of Zarathustra are lightly passed over for those areas of Niet- zsche’s pondering which strike one as ever fresher and more amazing in their perspi- cacity or what seems sometimes to be elait- woyanee. Yet | wonder if this effort-frce read is as helpful as it might be, Quoting Nietzsche is a high-risk activity, since when he ison moderate form or better he is hound to upstage his commentators. Safranski doesn't produce a dazzling bou- quet of aphorisms, which is the temptation. He has a story to tell, and many of the quo lations help it along without striking the reader with their force. There is, though, Something external about it, the recitation Selina Hastings DENTON WELCH by James Methuen-Campbell Tarra, £30, pp. 274, ISBN 1872621600 This is a judgment also arrived at by Alar Bennett, who in a foreword points to Den ton’s precocity: a child who at the age of (M_ THE SPECTATOR June 2002 of an adventure of the spirit which was of the utmost fascination and intensity, and which cost the achenturer everything. It should, to be genuinely understood, cost the reader, the spectator, quite # lot £00, cotherwise itis a bit like watching an opera with the sound tumed off. Safranski is a journalist of the highest quality, but he doesn't require us to engage with what he writes about. So that We are left less ‘moved, and less instructed, than any useful account of Nietzsche's philosophical biog- raphy should leave us Michael Tanner's Niewsehe: A Very Short Introduction is published by Oxford’ Paper: racks, £5.99, A fragile, precocious talent seven slowly and earnestly remarks that ‘a Nlea would despise the amount of lemonade Te got, Mother’ was never going to be ordinary. Certainly Denton Welch from an early age exhibited the determination and ruth less self-protectivencss of the creative artis. Born in Shanghai, educated at public school in England, he insisted at 17 on being allowed to go to art school in Lon: ddon. He had a passion for collecting od lit Ue pieces of bricabrac, many of which found their way into his pictures, his charm- ing neo-Romantic style somewhat unfai described by Jocelyn Brooke as ‘prettified surrealism’. Although he did not begin keeping his marvellous journals until 1942, hhe started to write in childhood, later obsessively reworking his own experience for his autobiographical novels, Maiden Voyage (inspited by J. R. Ackesley's Hindoo Holiday) and tn Youth is Pleasure Thin and pale, with a high bony for head and full mouth, Denton was attrac- tive in a fragile, etoliated way, and particularly after his accident he became adept at exploiting those people who he knew would best’ look after him. He ippealed to the maternal in women, and allowed himself to be cosseted by a series oof devoted landladies and others, all of them needed to take the place of his own mother who had died just before his 12th birthday. ‘The most possessive of his female friends was the painter Noel Adeney, who was to cause many a jealous scene when Denton finally found a serious attachment. Homosexual by nature, Denton probably had little time for sexual expression before his accident effectively put an end to his love life, leaving him permanently catheterised, in pain and prone to frighten. ing fevers and infections. Predictably, on leaving hospital he conceived a passion for his kindly doctor, Jack Easton, who eventu- ally had to bring the association to an end when Denton, after lurking lovelornly for some time outside his house, took an over dose in a dramatic, if carefully ineffective, suicide attempt. Shortly afterwards he agreed to see a psychiatrist, who grected him with the words, “Hello, old man — or should | say old gir!? Do you take it up the back passage?” — upon which the horrified Denton fled. Too self-centred und fastidious to find wy — ‘I can never be true one,” he one wrote. “T even feel that people pollute my house who come into it” — by far the most serious relationship in Denton’s adult life was with Eric Oliver, a handsome, black-haired hunk (a photograph shows him posing sexi Wy on a fur rug), first encountered during the war while working as a kindboy in Kent when Denton was living near Tonbridge. Strong, gentle and good-natured, Eric, Uexpite periods of drunkenness, became the ideal protector, and Denton fell deeply n love with him, coming to depend on him ‘completely, particularly during the last ago- hising months of his short existence. Eric ‘was sitting by his bedside when he died, James Methuen-Campbell is clearly fas inated by Denton Welch, and his some- whut artless biography is evidence of the Uhrill he felt in following in his hero's foot. stops. Sensibly, he makes copious use of Weleh’s writing, even if the contrast t0 his ‘own somewhat pedestrian style is unfortu- nate. Although diligently researched, the book is curiously patchy, lacking both disc ppline and finish, and anyone interested in Denton Welch would do better 10 read Michael De-la-Noy's superb life, first Published in 1984, Where Mr Methuen- Campbell's production is superior is in the illustrations, which are excellent. ina Hastings’ Rosamond Lehmann is published this month by Chatto, 25.