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Old 08-Oct-2008, 01:25
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Location: Netherlands
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Reading: Der Mann mit der Hundenase (stories), Regīna Ezera
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Default Re: Short Stories - a neglected genre?

Jayaprakash says:

Quote:
I love short stories and believe they're a harder format to pull off than the novel, which can be messy and bloated and still, in the balance, work as a novel. There's less room for error in a short story.
I quite agree. They must have a beginning, middle and end, and the author can't afford digressions. If there are too many lumpy bits, or sections, the whole may go sad, like a cake when you open the oven door.

But I still think that short-stories have often been given a bad press, and that they deserve a kind of revival, as an art form requiring precision. Despite what I should be reading (novels), I am in the mood for shorter things: i.e. poetry, short-stories, these last few days. Perhaps life feels more transient, given the instability of the money markets. Not that I have money, but such a crisis affects everyone, by the trickle down effect.

Hadn't heard of Karnezis.

I'm going to try a story called Nimble Kaarel and His Young Woman, first published in 1902, and written by Anton Hansen Tammsaare.
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