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/lit/ - Literature


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12151520 No.12151520 [Reply] [Original]

What’s the best short story ever written? Is it one by this handsome fellow? Or one of Joyce’s? I hav heard high praise for Balzac too.

>> No.12151545

>>12151520
>Is it one by this handsome fellow
yes.

>> No.12151546

>>12151520
Joyce’s short stories were crap. Chekhov was great.

>> No.12151552
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12151552

>>12151520
Camus' The Renegade is fantastic. My vote for best short story.

>> No.12151568

>>12151520
I'll be reading short story collections this winter for ultimate comfyness. Rate my stack:
The collected stories of Roald Dahl
The collected storied of Gabriel García Márquez
The collected stories of Julio Cortázar
The collected stories of Roberto Bolaño

I've already read all of Borges already, and I don't want to buy any new books before I read all these, so no Hemingway or Joyce atm. Heard Fitzgerald is also good.

>> No.12151579

>>12151568
No Flannary O'Connor?

>> No.12152218

The Lady with the Pet Dog - Chekhov
Signs and Symbols- Nabokov
First Love- Beckett

>> No.12153645

>>12151552
I can remember that one. Not a fan of Camus but it was so weird I'd recommend it.

>>12151520
I'd say something by Buzzati. Discussing short stories can't be taken seriously until everybody read Buzzati.

>> No.12153683

>>12151552
That was very good
Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius or the Lottery in Babylon by Borges

>> No.12153892

>>12151520
Biesheuvel (Dutch) is my absolute favourite, such a shame it has never been translated, doubt it's even possible.

>> No.12153905

>>12151568
no Poe?

best short story imho is Pit and Pendulum by Poe

>> No.12154069

Kholstomer, by Tolstoy

>> No.12154082

Bartleby?

>> No.12154118

>>12151568
>The collected stories of Julio Cortázar
You are in for a treat my dude
Bolaño is pretty hit or miss but he has sone pearls. I remember Sensini and Putas Asesinas as highlights, but there sure was a lot of filler

>> No.12154146

>>12151546
Eveline and The Dead are great stories bud.

>> No.12154395 [DELETED] 

>>12151520
wtf is ballsack?

>> No.12154969

>>12153892
Based Biesheuvel poster

>> No.12155018

Which collections of Hemingway and Fitzgerald's stories would /lit/ recommend?

>> No.12155076
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12155076

>>12151520
I don't know about best, but my personal top five short story authors are Faulkner, Chekhov, Alice Munro, Raymond Carver and Samuel Beckett.

I don't think Samuel Beckett is a master of the craft, I just personally like his short prose.

Also, check em.

>> No.12156028

>>12151520
>Is it one by this handsome fellow?
It is.

>> No.12157278
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12157278

>Misery by Anton Chekhov
>tfw the sledge driver timidly disclosed the death of his son
Jesus Christ. Chekhov is a god.

>> No.12157281

>>12151568
Marquez? Oh man, you're in for a treat. The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship is in my top 5 favorite stories ever.

>> No.12157290

>>12151520
IIRC Joyce thought Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does A Man Need" was the best short story ever written.
>>12157278
Seconded. I drove up and down the east coast for a research trip last summer and listened to Chekhov stories on LibriVox the whole time. For some reason reading Chekhov always bored me shitless, but listening to him got me. So many of those stories devestated me. Ruined the trip lmao

>> No.12157306

>>12157290
When I read that part, I had to reread everything from the beginning. I was thinking I should have seen it coming. It was so obvious and yet I missed it. Amazing.

>> No.12157397

>>12155076
Can you tell me more about Alice Munro? I don’t usually read women but a couple of people I respect have mentioned her and one compared her to Tolstoy. What are your thoughts on her strengths/weaknesses, etc?

>> No.12157542

>>12157290
Tolstoy's short stories are a hit and miss. Alyosha the Pot is supposed to be one of his best and iI thought it was pretty banal.

>> No.12157565

>>12157397
Was that quote from Updike? He said you have to refer to Tolstoy and Chekhov for comparable largeness. This is true. Reading her stories you felt like you've lived a full life. I can only read about one or two per day. She avoids style where possible to achieve omniscience (much to great affect, but retarded /lit/fags measure everything by prose style, it's pathetic) and to avoid sentimentality. We may feel sorry for her characters but her narrators always achieve this by the absolute lack of sympathy in their language. Most of the time Munro's voice is bleak and distantly cynical, rarely hopeful. But she can be difficult, despite her surface simplicity. Her stories are all realist, but she manages to be uniquely subtle. If I were you, I'd immediately buy her Collected Stories volume and her collection Lives of Girls and Women. Even Harold Bloom lauds her.

Also, why you don't read women authors? I don't understand the stigma. You're missing out big time, there are tons, especially short story writers, beside Munro: Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Wharton, Kate Mansfield, Joy Williams, Mavis Gallant, Lorrie Moore... well that list is endless. The novelists: George Eliot, Willa Cather, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison... to name just a few, and they're all worth reading. What's puts so many of you guys off about it?

>> No.12157602

>>12157565
>why don’t you read women authors?

I’m exaggerating a little bit, I read Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers but that mainly comes down to my interest in the southern gothic tradition. I also enjoy Wharton and Emily Brontë. But Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and especially Morrison I am very critical of, Morrison is just awful, absolutely no aesthetic sense and a serious lack of psychological or emotional insight into people.

Cather I have not read and Woolf I change my mind on frequently.

But I will have to give Munro a try, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Flaubert are like my holy trinity, and it sounds like she writes in that kind of literary tradition.

I probably read 80/20% men/women.

>> No.12157621

>>12157565
>What's puts so many of you guys off about it?
I suppose it's the sentimentality aspect, I for one, like Shirley Jackson.

>> No.12157623

>>12153683
I'd second Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius. Personally I prefer "Pierre Menard" or "Library in Babylon" over "Lottery" though

>> No.12157649

Hi Munroposters, recommend me one or two Munro books/collections/compilations.

>> No.12157666

>>12157649
Collected Stories and Lives of Girls and Women. The former doesn't have any of the stories in the latter, probably because Munro sees it as a "novel."

>> No.12157675

>>12157649
>>12157666
Isn't Runaway her representative wok?

>> No.12157681

The first time I read "Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by Dostoyevsky I cried. Only short story to ever make me feel something.

>> No.12157720

>>12157675
Well, her Collected Stories volume collects from all her collections, with very few omissions, so most of Runaway will be in that compendium. But, yes, that probably is her most famous. But why not get a bigger package? In any case, her most famous story is "Meneseteung" which is in Friend of my Youth, also collected in Collected Stories.

>> No.12157888

alice munro is a dumb person's idea of what makes a good short story.

i find ann beattie and amy hempel to be much more enjoyable

>> No.12157895

>>12157720
>most of Runaway will be in that compendium
You mean her Collected Stories book doesn't have every short story she wrote?

>> No.12157900

For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny

>> No.12157932

>>12157895
Collected is different than complete anon

>> No.12157950

>>12157895
No, not literally every one of them, that would be silly. Otherwise it would be "the complete stories".

>> No.12157968

>>12157950
>>12157932
makes sense, will def check her out

>> No.12158221

>>12157888
How does it feel to be wrong? You're not worthy of those sweet trips, give them to me instead.

>> No.12158251

>>12153683
>>12157623
“The Immortal” is objectively the best Borges story. I know you think you know we all know about it and so feel like it’s spicier to mention lesser known works, but you don’t actually know if we all know or if those of us in the know simply think we all know and don’t mention it, this leaving those who don’t know never knowing.

>> No.12158254

>>12158251
Thus* you WRETCHED FUCKING PHONEPOSTER

>> No.12158256

An Official Position by Somerset Maugham is insanely good. Rothchild's Fiddle by Chekhov is maybe my favorite of all time.

>> No.12158261

The Circular Ruins
The Lady with the Dog
Barn Burning
A Rose For Emily
The Lame Shall Enter First
A Temple of the Holy Ghost
The Dead
The Nose

>> No.12158313

>>12155018
Hemingway get the complete stories, he’s a great short story writer. For Fitzgerald, Tales of the Jazz Age, Flappers and Philosophers, and All the Sad Young Men.