Books: The Acid House

[tiredstars]

I'm not sure how I feel about short stories. I find them very easy to read, but rather unsatisfying. This might be because I'm slow to empathise with characters and situations, so don't make those quick connections that are important for short stories. Or it might be that because they're short and easy they don't make me feel like I've done some

Comments

[dissident_hope]

Yeah, I think I know what you mean about short stories, I've never read any that really stick with me. I find they largely don't seem to have any obvious insight or 'reward', or even go anywhere. I'm fine reading 'junk food'-type books (like a lot of W40K fiction) - the ride is usually entertaining, but you don't finish & have lots of interesting thoughts to reflect on; however, like you say, finishing a novel at least gives a mild sense of achievement.

Short stories that I've read (or heard on Radio 4) nearly always amount to something like: "The woman walked through the park. She saw someone she thought she knew. It started raining"... & I go "WTF?!" * Cue Nick mock-slow running into shot & giving an exaggerated shrug, frowning, & miming "What?" *

Having said all that, I do intend to take up your excellent suggestion of trying to pen a handful of short stories to capture the feel & characters of the novel I've been trying to write for over 5 years...

[tiredstars]

I've not read all that many short stories - a range of sci-fi in the past, and recently The Acid House, The Disaster Area (which is sci-fi of a sort), some Asimov and some from one of the big best-of sci-fi collections Hannah has. Generally they didn't suffer from the problem of not having an obvious 'point'. Sci-fi and short stories are a good fit, because you can get across some key ideas, or a twist, with a lighter load of plot and character. Oddly though, my favourite of the best-of stories had the least obvious narrative and 'point' - but it was a story of a regular woman trying to get by in a plausible near future. Nothing dramatic happened but you got the sense of a life (and a world) slowly getting harder and worse.

[maddock_ist_rad]

short stories are just country songs for liberals

[maddock_ist_rad]

I don't know if that's true actually. I have the collected Lorrie Moore but never finished reading it. It's pleasurable to read and in parts as powerful as stories can be, but never entirely satisfying - like stealing those minature packets of cadbury animals from a niece (that simile is also in tribute to Lorrie Moore.)