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/lit/ - Literature

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844330 No.844330 [Reply] [Original]

What's your opinion on short stories, /lit/? Do you like them better than whole books, or trilogies and the like?

I like to read short stories before I go to sleep. They keep me from staying up reading all night.

>> No.844332

There aren't enough pictures of women in laundry baskets; I approve.

>> No.844339

Oh, right.

I also like short stories. Lots of concepts are interesting without having the depth needed for a full novel, and lots of writers are well suited to writing at tat length. Take Harlan Ellison for example: brilliant short-form fiction writer, but can't keep his shit together for a real novel worth talking about.

Or "The Library of Babel" by Borges. I can't imagine a novel accomplishing any more with the concept than he did in a few pages.

>> No.844359

I enjoy them on occasion, though often I long for more, but when books are unending they rarely can keep up with fascination. So yeah.

>> No.844386

Thanks for this thread, OP. There's not enough discussion about short stories. Right now, I'm reading The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Conner. Really good. A lot of times, writers need to be more precise with their descriptions and are less likely to include superfluous detail in short stories, because every word is that much more precious and needs to have that much more density to immerse the reader in the world of the story.

>> No.844387

At their best I probably prefer short stories. The best provide a succinct, focused emotional snapshot that can be as powerful as anything built up over the course of a novel.

And, personally appealing, as Frank O'Connor wrote:

>"There is in the short story something we do not often find in the novel - an intense awareness of human loneliness."

It's just a shame that really great short stories and their authors are very hard to come by. But Raymond Carver is one of my favourite authors for a reason.