Tuesday, April 19, 2005

"When I Was Thirteen" by Denton Welch

Brave and Cruel was the title of Denton Welch's sole short story collection published during his lifetime, and this story is both. In it, a schoolboy infatuation during a ski trip leads to a brother's extreme displeasure. Read by Morgan Mead. Time 29:53.

Denton Welch's list of written works is short, and so was his life. But during that short life, the Chinese-born Englishman became a protégé of Edith Sitwell's, developed great talents as a painter, and wrote intimate yet universal pieces that were later considered ahead of their time (they were supposedly a big influence on Jack Kerouac). He has been called "the least-known genius of the 20th century."

Morgan Mead has taught English and published fiction of his own. He has a well-known genius for design and decor.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This story seems to end in a cut off way.
Is the last line, "'It's very early,' my brother said." ?

The way it was read, & considering how abruptly it ends, it doesnt seem to be. This is the second story that has either been cut-off at the end, or it ends so abruptly that one cannot tell if it even _was_ the ending. This is very frustrating.

Scoot said...

We're sorry to report that something must have gone wrong with your download; the full story ends with the words, "except devil."

This post is indeed complete, and the time is 29:53. We realize this is a large file, but try downloading again and see if it works this time; in this case, we are positive the complete story is there.

If you are the same Anonymous who wrote recently, we forgot to mention that we would like to find a way to create a way to index authors and stories when we have the time. We don't know if this will be easy or not, but it is getting to be necessary with all our posts! Stay tuned for further improvements... eventually.

And thanks again for listening despite the frustrations.