ENTERTAINMENT

Be Honest, You Prefer Short Stories to Novels

We live in a world where we can't be bothered to spell out "too long, didn't read"
(TLDR) for something too long. And now, with short-story master Alice Munro
winning the Nobel Prize, there's really no better time to come out and admit that
you really prefer short stories. 
ALEXANDER ABAD-SANTOS OCTOBER 28, 2013

is article is from the archive of our partner .

We live in a world where we can't be bothered to spell out "too long, didn't read"
(TLDR) for something too long. And now, with short-story master Alice Munro
winning the Nobel Prize, there's really no better time to come out and admit that
you really prefer short stories.

As far as I can remember, in school I was always taught that the longer the book,
the bigger the bragging rights. In my elementary school, we had this odd
reading/testing system where you were required to read a book to get points, and a
certain number of points would get you an "A." e books worth the most points
were always the longest. at's why the nerds would always choose Gone With the
Wind, and sit on points that would last them until the next grading period.

In adulthood, there's always that friend who is reading the next hot novel and can't
wait to tell you they are — it's the whole reason Goodreads, a social network site
where people brag share what page they're on in their current book, exists.

For book nerds and literary wonks, Munro's win was a  nally moment — a
moment that recognized that short stories are every bit as good as their longer
cousins. "I would really hope that this would make people see the short story as an
important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel,"
Munro said upon receiving her award. Earlier in her career, Munro had long
struggled to get recognized as a serious writer and to get short stories recognized as
a serious form of story-telling, the University of Texas explains.

Our ADHD-ish lives are helping this recognition along too. In addition to TLDR
disclaimers, we're also a people who have developed strategies to avoid watching
commercials during hour-long shows, and rely on brief text messages instead of
phone calls. Smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices have all equaled the
playing eld, as our sister site Quartz explains.

at's led to things like the success of Amazon's Kindle Singles, and enticed
authors like Chuck Palahniuk, Amy Tan, and Ann Patchett to write singles of their
own. And it's inspired authors to write shorter. "Last year collections like Nathan
Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and Junot Diaz’s
is Is How You Lose Her drew both critical praise and good sales," e New York
Times wrote earlier this year. And that circles back to Munro — if Englander, Diaz,
Palahnhuik, and Tan are writing short stories and collections of short stories, it all
validates Munro's work even more. 

But what's in it for readers? Well, we all have our own reading styles and quirks.
But a lot of us are promiscuous readers, hopping from one topic to another with no
real delity toward one story or another (see: Twitter), nor is there any windup.
Short stories t seamlessly into this reading pattern.

And they also t into this millennial problem known as FOMO (Fear of Missing
Out). at story about the colonic not funny enough? How about skip over to that
one story about the lady who fell in love with Tony Robbins, the famed
 motivational speaker? ere's always the possibility of a better, shorter, more
poignant short story— sometimes, it's within the same book.

Steve Millhauser explained the beauty of the short story for e New York Times in
2008: 

e short story apologizes for nothing. It exults in its shortness. It wants to be

shorter still. It wants to be a single word. If it could nd that word, if it could
utter that syllable, the entire universe would blaze up out of it with a roar. at
is the outrageous ambition of the short story, that is its deepest faith, that
is the greatness of its smallness.

Where to Start:
Publishers Weekly's 10 Best Short Story Collections

Colonic by: Emily Haworth-Booth

Reddit's No Sleep and Lets Not Meet creeptastic subforums

e Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by: Ted Chiang 

Anything Alice Munro.

And Updike, Cheever, Hemingway, and the list goes on and on and on and I know
I missed some so please don't be mad. Add them in the comments.

is article is from the archive of our partner e Wire.

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