Are Short Stories Closer to Poems or Novels?
Personally, I think that the short story is closer to a… short story. Why do people constantly need to define the short story “as” something else? Is an orange closer to an apple or a tomato? Hmmm? Let’s debate that everyone.
According to the Russell Smith article about Caroline Adderson’s latest short story collection:
“People want novels. Actually, they don’t even want novels, they want biography and self-help. Actually, they don’t want books at all, they want reality TV shows about losing weight - but okay, of those who do want to read books, and of that small number those who want to read fiction, most want novels.”
“At a panel discussion in a public library, she (Adderson) said she thought that the pleasure of the short story did not lie so much in its story as in its language. This caused some raised voices in the question-and-answer period. In a second discussion, she expanded on this: The short story, she said, was closer to the poem; the novel was closer to drama (plays and films).”
The rest of the article can be found here.
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