Here is an awesome essay by Michael Chabon (one of my favorite writers) on the “lost genre of short fiction.” This essay was the intro to McSweeney’s Issue # 10, edited by Chabon. Damn, it’s good. I’m all hyped up right now.
Here’s a snippet:
As late as about 1950, if I referred to “short fiction,” I might have been talking about any one of the following kinds of stories: the ghost story; the horror story; the detective story; the story of suspense, terror, fantasy or the macabre; the sea, adventure, spy, war or historical story; the romance story. Stories, in other words, with plots. A glance at any dusty paperback anthology of classic tales proves the truth of this assertion, but more startling will be the names of the authors of these ripping yarns: Poe, Balzac, Wharton, James, Conrad, Graves, Maugham, Faulkner, Twain, Cheever, Coppard. Heavyweights all, some considered among the giants of Modernism, source of the moment-of-truth story that, like homo sapiens, appeared relatively late on the scene but has worked very quickly to wipe out all its rivals. Short fiction, in all its rich variety, was published not only by the pulps, which gave us Hammett, Chandler, and Lovecraft among a very few other writers now enshrined more or less safely in the canon, but also in the great slick magazines of the time: The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Liberty, and even The New Yorker, that proud bastion of the moment-of-truth story that has only recently, and not without controversy, made room in its august confines for the likes of the Last Master of the Plotted Short Story, Stephen King.
“Short fiction” is, indeed, a lost art – and I love his thoughts on it. I love his anecdotes about writers who sent in “genre” stories for this issue of McSweeneys – and told Chabon how they had forgotten how much fun it was to write a short story.
Anyone who is disenchanted with the current state of short story-writing (in this country, anyway), should read Chabon’s essay.
I feel weirdly inspired right now! I really do!
(via Virginia Postrel)
I’m a big fan of the short piece. I enjoy reading them. I like writing them. A lot of the time, they’re about all my attention span can handle.
Tommy –
Absolutely. A well-written short story can be just as powerful (sometimes even more) than a full-length novel. Think about, like, The Lottery. That’s just the first one that comes to mind.
But then – Poe!! I mean, come on!
James Joyce ain’t no slouch, either.
Coppard…?
I love your quote here; I’ll need to check out the article.
A few weeks ago the New Yorker ran an interesting profile of David Milch, the man behind Deadwood (which I’ve never seen, not because I’m snooty but because I don’t have a TV that receives TV), NYPD Blue, and more. The article coincided (with a clang) with a few other things I had been thinking about, all of which culminated the other night with a bit of an epiphany in the middle of episode one of the first season of – wait for it – Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The epiphy part of the epiphany was that television pretty much ensnared a generation of genre writers. In a small way that’s obvious and not very interesting; TV has always been built for the short, punchy, serial format. But where TV was once the bastard child of story and sound, lately it has become the warmest home of what readers will recognize, more or less, as a modern incarnation of the short story.
Today, Lovecraft would be an HBO property, unabashedly and with a devoted audience. Hemingway too, and many others. Similarly, I think Milch a generation or two further back would be a writer (Yale and Robert Penn Warren in his cards: yep). I went to college right on the rough edge of a time when TV was considered a lucrative but shabby proposition. Wish I’d paid more attention at the time. Instead I was reading all those, whaddyacallem, books.
Some very fun stuff being discussed here. I got all inspired as I read “Kavalier and Clay.” Chabon is one of those folks who just knows things. Like Shanley. I’ve never watched “Buffy,” but it doesn’t surprise me at all that you’d have a possible epiphany about writing while the work of Joss Whedon is on the box. He is a really good writer. He’s been writing “Astonishing X-Men” for Marvel for the last several months and it is excellent. So, Whedon and Chabon are both comics guys and that makes them cool. :) And yeah, a good short fiction anthology is still the hugest thrill. Stephen King has done a few of all his own stuff. A book called “The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century” is a kick ass read. And years ago, Barnes and Noble put out an anthology called “High Adventure.” Babble, babble, babble… Stopskull
The Lottery is a personal favorite. Somehow, I’d missed that one until my third year of college. Poe’s The Black Cat and the Cask of Amontillado are a couple of others that are high up on my list.
And the Tell Tale Heart? Jeebus.
King has a piece as a foreword to one of his own collections (I want to say Skeleton Crew, but I wouldn’t swear to it) talking about how much he loves writing short fiction, but how unprofitable is as a vocation in and of itself.
“Wharton” … ahem.
My daughter finds Wodehouse short stories a great antidote to all the grim Literature she must read for school.
I, too, was disenchanted with latter-day short story writing until I discovered Alice Munro – can’t get enough
One of the reasons I very much like Chabon is his unabashed appreciation of ‘genre’ stories and ‘genre’ mediums, like comics and the pulps.
How I hate “the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story” in either short or long fiction.
Laura – Yeah. Sadly, no chicks on his list. I could think of a few. Shirley jackson, for one!
Linus –
I think Buffy was one of the best-written things on television – you’d have to see it to really get why. I can’t explain it, but there was a reason people were fanatical about that show.
Interesting – I agree with what you said about HBO writers, in general. The short fiction of the greats would be perfect for such a venue.
graboy:
YES to Alice Munro. Lorrie Moore is a contemporary favorite of mine as well.
It’s not so much that I “hate” moment-of-truth stories. After all, The Dead is a classic (the classic) example of it. Lorrie Moore’s stuff is masterful in this regard.
But there’s no reason that other genres shouldn’t be accepted as well.
Chabon is one of my favorite writers, and all my own writing has been short fiction. The irony is that I don’t like Chabon’s short fiction. I recall one particular story about a minor league baseball player attending a funeral. I turned a page and was startled to see that the story had ended and the next page began a new story.
Chabon’s obviously a brilliant writer so I don’t know whether I should be annoyed at myself for not being literary enough to appreciate his work, or at him for writing shorts that fall flat (at least for me).
scott:
Hm, I’ve only read his novels – so I can’t speak for his short fiction.
His novels are so damn good, I think. I remember reading his debut – he was 22 or something – Mysteries of Pittsburgh and I was blown away. Even now, when I read that book? It makes me want to pick up a pen and start writing. He’s inspiring, somehow. He’s awesome, but somehow not intimidating.
On second thought – Kavalier and Clay is a bit intimidating.