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/lit/ - Literature

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6843853 No.6843853 [Reply] [Original]

What are the best short stories of all time? I mean individual stories not collections or compilations.

>> No.6843863

>>6843853

War Prayer by Mark Twain

>http://warprayer.org

Enjoy

>> No.6843870

>>6843853

The Call of Cthulhu
The Tell-Tale Heart
A Rose for Emily
The Metamorphosis
Micromegas
Flowers for Algernon

>> No.6843879

We have this thread at least once a week. I'm tired of answering it, just search the archive.

>> No.6843957

The boat by Alistair Macleod http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/twatson/TheBoat.pdf

>> No.6843976

>>6843870
The Call of Cthulhu? Really? I've always found it pretty mediocre as far as Lovecraft goes. I'd replace it with The Colour out of Space.

>> No.6843979

>>6843853
Everything That Rises Must Converge

>> No.6844132

The Last Question, Asimov
The Dead, Joyce
The Suicides, Maupassant

Come to mind now.

>> No.6844141

The Spider // Hans Heinz Ewers

...not that any of you would have probably read it.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605651.txt

>> No.6844346

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Tolstoy
The Metamorphosis - Kafka
The Horla - Maupassant

>> No.6845121

To Build A Fire
Big Two Hearted River (both parts together as one)
Big Blonde
The Garden of the Forking Paths
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Lightning Man [David Means]
Only The Dead Know Brooklyn
Sleepy

>> No.6845539

>>6844141
Just read it, great story! Any recommendations of similarly spoopy stories?

>> No.6845779

>>6843976
I would replace that with At The Mountains of Madness

A Christmas Memory - Capote

>> No.6845797

Cathedral.

>> No.6845900

>>6844132
The Last Question and its complement short story The Last Answer. The Last Answer is about God, but relax he's not that kind of God and the protagonist rebels against this God. Read it you'll see. If you don't like it I will become an hero.

http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/
http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-question/

>> No.6846016

>>6843853
I heard Incarnations of Burned Children by DFW was bretty good.

>> No.6846038

>>6845779

At the Mountains of Madness is more of a novella

>> No.6846067

+1 for The Last Question

I'll add:
The Garden of Forking Paths - Borges
The Bath - Raymond Carver

>> No.6846107

>>6846067
Good additions. I love Borges. I recommend these two from Borges:

1) The Two Kings And Their Two Labyrinths
2) The Lottery In Babylon

1)
http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~msheyd/files/borges_full_text.pdf

2)
http://legacyofthestoryteller.wikispaces.com/file/view/Jorge+Luis+Borges+-+The+lottery+of+Babylon.pdf

I especially like The Two Kings And Their Two Labyrinths. It's short but satisfying.

>> No.6846121

Kafka, basically everything
Joyce's the dead
Woolf has a couple.

I also have a soft spot for HP lovecraft, but I would admit he is a guilty pleasure and his skill was in being somewhat unique rather than raw writing ability.

>> No.6846184

"The Arena" by Fredric Brown. You'll never be the same.

>> No.6846196

Found this list on the internet before. If you like sci fi short stories its very good.

1- Nightfall by Asimov
2- The Last Question by Asimov
3- The Last Answer by Asimov
4- The Egg by Weir
5- A Senseless Conversation by Barnett
6- The Nine Billion Names of God by Clarke
7- The Feeling of Power by Asimov
8- Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut
9- Other People by Gaiman
10- Flowers for Algernon by Keyes

>> No.6846198

>>6846184
>"The Arena" by Fredric Brown
Do you have a link?

>> No.6846200

>>6846196
my personal favorite from the list is Nightfall. It's a little longer than most short stories but its very very good

>> No.6846224

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood.

>> No.6846253

>>6846198
Literally the second search result in Google, but here ye are: http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jjl5766/share/Arena.pdf

>> No.6846275

>>6846198
>>6846184

The TOS version is better

>> No.6846430

>>6843853
Lazarillo de Tormes
Death of Ivan Iliich
he Psychiatrist/The Alienist

>> No.6846499

The Most Dangerous Game

>> No.6846603

First of all, it is extremely pretentious to remove the short story from the greater body if work giving it context. FUCK YOU

>> No.6846607

>>6846603
fuck off to /mu/ you cunt

>> No.6846623

>>6846603
no it's really not

>> No.6846625

>>6846603
What context? Short stories are often published individually across extended periods of time in magazines then later collected into a book.

>> No.6846639
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6846639

A Hunger Artist, Kafka
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Borges
The Dead, Joyce
Signs and Symbols, Nabokov

Kafka's short work in particular is really good

>> No.6846646

>>6846603
>it is extremely pretentious to remove the short story from the greater body if work giving it context
>pretentious
you don't know what that word means

>> No.6846718

>>6846639
>>6844132

I just read The Dead by Joyce...pretty shitty tbh. I get the point but its incredibly boring

>> No.6846733

I have no mouth and I must scream

>> No.6846769

>>6846733

Wrong, sir. That's one of the few stories I actively hate. It's so bad.

>> No.6846806

The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway

>> No.6846813

>>6846806
jk i forgot its like 100 pages i'm retarded

>> No.6846815

>>6846718
Fair enough, as long as you acknowledge that the short story is based despite your dislike of it. It's consistently regarded as one of the best short stories ever written

>> No.6846826

>>6846815
yeah i get the concept and I can see why it's critically aclaimed, it's written well, it was just never interesting at any point

>> No.6846830

they say Nabokov was very fond of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

>> No.6846859

>>6846733
I just read this and the beginning was cool but the rest of it sucked. And the climax makes absolutely no sense

>> No.6846884

>>6846826
what's the concept/point?

>> No.6846972

>>6846884
wasn't the point that the dead guy lived more than the main character?

>> No.6846995

The Grey Champion, Nathaniel Hawthorn

>> No.6847090

>>6844132
The Last Question is definitely my favorite.

>> No.6849310

Bump for a thread better than everything on the first pages

>> No.6849565

>>6846718
You probably have to see it with the whole structure of Dubliners.

>> No.6849573

>>6845121
AP Lit was kind to you

>> No.6849575

GOLEM by Stanislaw Lem (In Imaginary Magnitudes)

Less of a short story and more of a mini-lecture about plausible Schopenhauerism with the concept of Evolution as its basis by an A.I. Best depiction of an epistemologically orthogonal being, so much so that Lovecraft can eat his own boot. Scariest short story ever.

>> No.6849583

>>6846813
props for recognizing your wayward path

>> No.6849594
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6849594

Sad to see literally no Barthelme or Saunders. I quite like both of them.
"Game" by Barthelme is pretty great imo.
"My Chivalric Fiasco" by George Saunders is hilariously well-written.

>> No.6849607

An Occurrance at Owl Creek Bridge.

Masterpiece

>> No.6849610

>>6843853
The Aleph by Borges

>> No.6849611

No Saki here?
Maybe no single story of his would have its place in any "best of all time" but as a whole he deserves a mention.
Can't remember most individual titles except Esmé, Sredni Vashtar.

>> No.6849618

>>6843853
I'm laughing because the artist didn't think through the concept of this picture. The Washington monument has stayed at a constant height since it was finished in 1888. If the picture is making a reference to Pinocchio, then it implies that the people of "Washington DC," presumably meaning the politicians who work there, haven't told any lies since the 19th century.

>> No.6849634

>>6849594
Seriously though, does no one care for Barthelme or George Saunders? Am I really just a NewYorkerFag?

>> No.6849652

>>6846718
triggered

read all of Dubliners first

The Dead is sublime

>> No.6849673

>>6843957

Good call on Macleod, but I prefer The Lost Salt Gift of Blood. So fucking great.

>> No.6849675

>>6844141

I have read it, and I read it to children around a campfire when I worked at a camp.

>> No.6849688

>>6849634

"Porcupines at the University" is a based short story. Love Barthelme.

>> No.6849696

>>6849634
I'm a fan of both writers. I like Barthelme's Shower of Gold and Saunders's Tenth of December. In the vein of Barthelme, I also love Hawkes's short stories.

I wouldn't, however, consider either to be the best short story. I wouldn't consider either of them to be the best short story writers, either. IMO, Chekov has the best.

>> No.6849706

Strange News From Another Star - Hesse

>> No.6849709

Some I like:
The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy
Mr. and Mrs. Dove by Katherine Mansfield
A Painful Case by James Joyce
Jackals and Arabs by Franz Kafka

>> No.6849715

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - Roald Dahl

>> No.6849795

Leviathan by Arno Schmidt
The Babysitter by Robert Coover

>> No.6849872

>>6849618
That is quite the blunder

>> No.6850639

>>6849634

The School & A Shower of Gold are my favorite Barthelme.

>> No.6850652

>>6850639
Shower of Gold... The ending lines...

"he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not"

Based

>> No.6850688

>>6843863
Jesus, that's so fucking edgy and heavy handed.
I would say The Death of Ivan Illych if that counts as a short story

>> No.6850727

Cortázar - Axolotl
Salinger - A perfect day for bananafish
de Maupassant - Le Horla
Poe - The fall of the house of Usher
Zamyatin - Navodnenie

>> No.6850845

>>6850727
I can't understand how anyone could consider Salinger's short stories as great. When not completely boring, they just felt empty and pointless. Though I admit bananafish may be his best.
Besides We, Zamyatin work seems to be almost unknown here. I've loved The flood. Have you read his Islanders?

>> No.6850974

>>6849652
The Dead really felt to me like the conclusion of a much longer story, doesn't that kind of cheat the purpose of a short story? They should be able to stand alone

>> No.6851013
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6851013

>>6849618

>> No.6851039
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6851039

>>6849618

>> No.6851041
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6851041

>>6849618

>> No.6851065

>>6849618
fuck off spook

>> No.6851177

Taras Bulba by Gogol
The Whistle by Eudora Welty
Jackals and Arabs by Kafka
The Machine Stops by EM Forster
Farewell by Balzac
They that Sow in Sorrow Shall Reap by James Agee
The Dead by James Joyce
The Pupil by Henry James

>> No.6851871
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6851871

>>6850688
What did you not like about it anon? How exactly, and by exactly I mean just that, was War Prayer edgy and heavy handed?

It is a critic and indeed it is blunt, but how is bad? There are plenty of people, especially in Twain's day, that intertwined nationalist fervor with religion. Twain simply pointed out the hypocrisy of this interaction, a hypocrisy he was all too familiar observing himself from Anglican Americans in the late 1800s. He didn't write it to be edgy, he wrote it to try and make the Christians of his day think more on their faith/religion, he implored this for the better, not for the worst. Do you disagree?

>> No.6852044

post links ya faggets

>> No.6852269

>>6852044
yeah because googling the name of the story with "pdf" at the end is so fucking difficult

>> No.6852273
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6852273

>>6852044

>> No.6853290

>>6843879
And yet... he answered.

>> No.6853362

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

>> No.6853603

The Hitchhiking Game by Milan Kunera

>> No.6853823

>>6843853
the most dangerous game

>> No.6853862

>>6844346
Death of Ivan is over 100 pages, not exactly a short story but still a quick read

>> No.6853869

Neil Gaiman is my weakness. His "A Study in Emerald" and "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" are some of my favorite pieces of fiction, hands down.

>> No.6853889

Patriotism by Yukio Mishima
story about a lieutenant and wife during their final evening before committing seppuku


http://www.mutantfrog.com/patriotism-by-yukio-mishima/

>> No.6853946

>>6850845
No, I haven't, his works are very rare in physical format. Found "The flood" by chance in my favourite bookstore and had heard of Zamyatin before so I decided to buy it. I enjoyed the parallel between the rise of the Neva and the buildup of tension

>> No.6853975

>>6846499
Ahaha, yes, that's a fucking killer piece of fiction.

>> No.6853985

>>6853362
whered you come from cotton eye joe

>> No.6853990

>>6843853
I have no mouth but I must scream

>> No.6854693

>>6851039

kek

>> No.6854709

Eveline
Uderrated as fuck because >muh the dead

>> No.6854822

>>6843976
this
Call of Cthulhu is famous so that's all most people read

>> No.6854866

>>6843879
Then don't answer you fucking idiot

>> No.6854879

My fav short story is polaris by HP Lovecraft
objectively, its not very good though

>> No.6855159

>>6845900
Beautiful

>> No.6855976

>>6849634
Chablis and Overnight to Many Distant Cities are the best Barthelme, Civilwarland in bad Decline is best Saunders.

>> No.6856157

>>6853889

My nigga.

Hills like white elephants - Hemingway
Highway of the South - Cortazar
Fat - Carver
Eyes of a blue dog - Marquez?

>> No.6856861

>>6856157
Hemingway short stories are fucking based. Another good one is "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

>> No.6856892

Night-Sea Journey by John Barth is pretty fun. The existential crisis of a sperm

>> No.6856909

>>6856157
>hills like white elephants

Mah nigga

>> No.6857075

>>6843853
Cathedral is the obvious answer. But this is kind of a stupid question.

>> No.6857077

>>6850974
The dead just has no plot curve. That's sort of the point.

>> No.6857082

>>6856157
Fat is damn good. It's been so long since I've read it.

>> No.6857115

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway.

>> No.6857119

'among animals and plants' and 'the cow' by platonov

>> No.6857160

>>6843863
>O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!


fuck that's good

>> No.6857164

>>6857160

I know right? Twain could write.

>> No.6857168

The Nose by Gogol

>> No.6857257

Christ in Concrete

>> No.6857265

The Hero as Werewolf - Gene Wolfe
The Burning Plain - Rulfo
The Day Before the Revolution - Le Guin
On the Show - Wells Tower
Books and Dogs - Kis
Last Evenings on Earth - Bolano

>> No.6857297

Here are some short stories you plebs can read instead of repeating what you read in school:

Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place; Ten Little Indians

Somerset Maugham: Red

Nabokov: Transparent Things

Sartre: The Wall

Arnold Zweig: Kong at the Seaside

>> No.6857397

>>6846121
>lovecraft
>guilty pleasure
Dont let teenage cross-boarders from /mu/ dictate what your are and are not allowed to like. Theyre only concerned with appearances, they dont actually understand what they read

>> No.6857409

>>6846603
>accuses others of pretentiousness while being extremely pretentious
The fuck is your malfunction mate? 99% of short story collections are well, COLLECTIONS. I dont think you understand how being an author works. Most of this stuff was published stand alone in a magazine or something first.
Now get the fuck out.

>> No.6857411

>>6846625
Not that anon, but . . .
And they are also frequently written and/or published as a set of short works that revolve around similar themes, etc. in a way that they belong as that set, i.e. there is a purpose or at least something to be gained in understanding them as a coherent whole. Something like chapters in a novel, but obviously with far less connecting them (plot, characters, etc.).

>> No.6857422

>>6857297
Read 10 Little Indians for school in 9th grade English class.

Read Sartre's The Wall for a moral philosophy class in a shit department at a STEM-oriented public university in the American south.

>> No.6857433
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6857433

I posed this question a few days ago, I'll repost with hopes of an answer this time.

I'm trying to find a short story recommended on a thread like this one a while back (something like a year ago, I think). Basic premise is a man is being held as a (religious/political?) prisoner in some sort of tower. The story follows his attempt to escape as he goes down a windimg staircase. I seem to remember the escape beginning with him finding his cell door unlocked, and also that he is frequently stricken with paranoia that he is being watched and it's all a trap. I also remember there's at least one point where he hides (in a sort of absess in the wall, I think?) as someone walks by, and he thinks he sees the person look right at him. Ringing any bells? I'll give another funny pic in advance for any help. I'd really like to reread it.

>> No.6857449

No edogawa rampo?

>> No.6857502

Chickamauga by Ambrose Bierce is god-tier. Utterly chilling and with a very compelling narrative.

>> No.6858558

>>6856861
>Hemingway short stories are fucking based
My nigga. The Battler is my favorite of his

>> No.6858593

>>6843879
I personally wouldn't have seen the thread and got good recommendations if OP hadn't have posted it.

>> No.6858598

A lot of people name Chekhov but what are his best stories in particular?

>> No.6858607

>>6849618
you over thinkin things mang,

>> No.6858627

>>6858598
I recommend the Student, Grasshopper, and definitely "The Lady with the Pet Dog". Most of his fiction is great though

>> No.6858651
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6858651

>>6843853
These three.

>> No.6858824

>>6858627
alright ill start with them. Wasn't sure if there was any particular place to start because he has a ton of stories.

>> No.6858834

>>6858651
nescio is got tier

>> No.6858841

>>6858651
yeah "the mooch" or whatever the first one is and "little titans" have got to be the saddest, most affecting short stories about loss of youthful idealism I have ever read

>> No.6858859

the squabble by gogol holy fucking kek that story is hilarious.

>> No.6858992

>>6849634
I like Barthelme. Saunders seems like a Barthelme knockoff to me but I haven't read that much of his stuff.

>> No.6859196

>>6846813
Well it is a novella but you can get through it really quickly

>> No.6860175

>>6859196
yeah it's a quick read so my brain always just mentally puts it in the same category as short stories

>> No.6860201

>>6858558
I personally just think Hemingway's writing style fits short stories so perfectly