Hello Gentle Reader
It is a question, which most writers would probably ask themselves. The Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-sixty eight, had commented that the true essence of his writing, was to be found in them. In the beginning of her career, it distressed Alice Munro. Some authors can use it to their advantage; others miserably fail. Arguably Edgar Allan Poe had turned it into an ‘art,’ form. Yes Gentle Reader, it is the short story. The bastard cousin or the middle child of the novel. Its constrained. It is like poetry, only it tells a story. It has little room for any complexities of plot. But it can do certain things that the novel cannot do. It is more comprehendible then that of the poetic form of literature. It is less longer, less complex, then that of the novel. It is highly underrated as well. Some of the greatest authors of fiction, of the twentieth century wrote in the short story form. Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, Angela Carter, Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, Joseph Conrad, Jorge Lois Borges and Naugib Mahfouz, all wrote in this form of literature. It is a complete separation from that of the novel or poetic form of literature.
Where novels have a plot, short stories will have a story. Poetry does not even have either one of those two. Poetry is more of a technical form of literature, with a specific use of form, and an experimentation of language to create a musical or otherwise different use of language. With a novel, the plot can on one more plots, running parallel with each other, before drifting and smearing together to form a consecutive or more coherent, plot. The short story can only have one story running – and sometimes it might all out together get rid of that idea of a short story and move towards the aimlessness, of what real life amounts to. Those moments, of thoughts. Those emotional responses. These reactions in the day to day life like the chemical reaction taken place in the beaker of a chemist’s lab. It might focus on the beautiful atmosphere that is experienced through the character, which gives through an emotional response to the reader, which then connects for the briefest of moments that the short story and the reader share that emotional bond. That slight almost bewildering connection. That is if the short story form is done more correctly. If it is not done correctly that it is failing miserably. That can be seen with Patricia Highsmith’s and Will Self’s collection of stories, where something was left undone. A screw loose. A board out of place. Arguably something was not right. Therefore it failed miserably. While other authors like Yasunari Kawabata, Alice Munro, Amy Hempel – are able to grasp the concept of the short story and using its particular form, its sense of fragmentation, and its ability not to focus on comprehending the entire concept of the universe or society, but rather to simply zero in on those moments. Those moments that touch, to use a single grain of sand, and see the entire concept of the universe there in its very small peculiar way.
Steven Millhauser of the New York Times comprehends the short story form in his following passage from his essay about the ambitions of the short story form:
“A world in a grain of sand": "In that single grain of sand lies the beach that contains the grain of sand. In that single grain of sand lies the ocean that dashes against the beach, the ship that sails the ocean, the sun that shines down on the ship, the interstellar winds, a teaspoon in Kansas, the structure of the universe. And there you have the ambition of the short story, the terrible ambition that lies behind its fraudulent modesty: to body forth the whole world.”
Steven Millhauser is right in what he describes. The short story, who views the world at the miniaturist form of that tiny grain of sand, does not wish to devour it like the novel, but more expertly, it see’s the world in just these little details. These moments, are grasped in the short story form. The molecules of the grain of sand are not just the molecules, atoms, and particles of the single grain of sand, it is the database the building block of what all life is, in just that speck of almost nihilistic nothingness. A grain of sand that in the void and incomprehensible universe of the world, laughs at it all, and understands that the world cannot be comprehended in just a singular way but more expectedly it is built up of just moments. Moments upon moments. Rather than being the novel that wishes to make the universe more comprehendible, or grasp all the moments and all the greatness of the world; the short story takes one single grain of sand and see’s the world, in all its miniature moments. As if creating an epiphany with subtle beauty and modesty. That is what the short story is.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
P.S. Gentle Reader, I came across the Steven Millhauser quote from this blog:
http://may-on-the-short-story.blogspot.com/2011/02/steven-millhauser-getting-closer.html
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