You know who would eat that shit up 'cause Stephen King wrote it? You should send him the link...
One of the editors of a past issue of "Ploughshares" (actually, it may have been several years ago) postulated that the death of short stories could perhaps be attributed to the gloominess of short stories in general.
Maybe "The New Yorker" has something to do with it as well? As the "holy grail," it publishes some pretty abysmal fiction, in my opinion. Some real gems, too, of course, but it seems to me that they favor multiculturalism over passe things like plot and character development.
At any rate, I'm glad you found this and that someone cares (or pretends to care) enough to make a bit of a fuss.
This essay is the introduction to "Best American Short Stories 2007."
I found myself agreeing with King...mostly because of his argument about the general populace not really reading short stories. It's very clear when he talks about having to kneel to look at the bottom shelf of the magazines in the bookstore...that's where the shorts are in every bookstore I've seen. The latest on Paris Hilton seems to be what captures the masses.
However, there's also a section of short stories that were missed by King et al. Short story collections (by a single author, in a single book) actually seem to do okay. In 2000, Jhumpa Lahiri took the Pulitzer for her collection "Interpreter of Maladies" and that's next to impossible to do. Robert Olen Butler's "Severence" did pretty okay too this last year. There's also Alice Munro's collection and I think a couple others from new authors got some pretty decent reviews. I'd be interested to see, when actual book sales are thrown into the mix, how well the short story is actually doing. Certainly they're no Harry Potter, or any of King's work, but considering a genre that's pretty much 'by writers for writers' that's not too shabby.
Am I naive to think that the short story is doing a lot better than the poem in America? Brokeback Mountain started as a short story. Name one poem that has gained any kind of mass appeal in the last 50 years or more. Not to knock poetry, but all this death knell shit annoys me.
The passion for writing both poetry and short fiction hasn't stopped, apparently. The series editor for "Best American Short Stories 2007" read over 4,000 stories before handing her favorites to Stephen King to pick through.
Really, how many people read the first printing of "The Most Dangerous Game" or "Gift of the Magi"? How mass appeal were those stories? I'm betting that most people didn't get to them until they started showing up in collections. Writing started, for obvious reasons, as a pasttime for the elite. I'd argue that, perhaps, short fiction just hasn't taken off like the novel has (or television and film), not that it's really hit this terrible slump. Other media like the aforementioned poem, plus stage plays and others, seem even more put upon.
Like King says, the short story is alive. As to not being well... I'm not sure the short story, for whatever reason, has ever been the most popular choice of pop culture media. Comparing it to the novel or movies just seems both inappropriate and misleading to me.
Hm, interesting. I didn't realize this was actually the intro to "Best American." Yeah, I'd be intrigued to see some statistic on short story sales.
And, yeah, I wonder about the New Yorker, too. Personally, I've enjoyed lots of their stories, but there've also been a lot of flops. Or some that are just plain boring, "wacky," or precious. When Charity--(an OSU workshop buddy)--was at her summer journalism program in NY, a (or was it "the"--not sure) fiction editor for the New Yorker gave an in-class talk and basically declared that most American fiction is shite. Hence, I guess, the rash of international authors in the New Yorker.
Maybe this is oversimplification, but still, I wonder if the short story (and poem, by extension) hasn't enjoyed as much popular media/financial success as the novel in America because it's--well--short. Bigger's better over here, right? Just ask Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe. Or Henry Ford. Or Burger King.
4 comments:
You know who would eat that shit up 'cause Stephen King wrote it? You should send him the link...
One of the editors of a past issue of "Ploughshares" (actually, it may have been several years ago) postulated that the death of short stories could perhaps be attributed to the gloominess of short stories in general.
Maybe "The New Yorker" has something to do with it as well? As the "holy grail," it publishes some pretty abysmal fiction, in my opinion. Some real gems, too, of course, but it seems to me that they favor multiculturalism over passe things like plot and character development.
At any rate, I'm glad you found this and that someone cares (or pretends to care) enough to make a bit of a fuss.
This essay is the introduction to "Best American Short Stories 2007."
I found myself agreeing with King...mostly because of his argument about the general populace not really reading short stories. It's very clear when he talks about having to kneel to look at the bottom shelf of the magazines in the bookstore...that's where the shorts are in every bookstore I've seen. The latest on Paris Hilton seems to be what captures the masses.
However, there's also a section of short stories that were missed by King et al. Short story collections (by a single author, in a single book) actually seem to do okay. In 2000, Jhumpa Lahiri took the Pulitzer for her collection "Interpreter of Maladies" and that's next to impossible to do. Robert Olen Butler's "Severence" did pretty okay too this last year. There's also Alice Munro's collection and I think a couple others from new authors got some pretty decent reviews. I'd be interested to see, when actual book sales are thrown into the mix, how well the short story is actually doing. Certainly they're no Harry Potter, or any of King's work, but considering a genre that's pretty much 'by writers for writers' that's not too shabby.
Am I naive to think that the short story is doing a lot better than the poem in America? Brokeback Mountain started as a short story. Name one poem that has gained any kind of mass appeal in the last 50 years or more. Not to knock poetry, but all this death knell shit annoys me.
The passion for writing both poetry and short fiction hasn't stopped, apparently. The series editor for "Best American Short Stories 2007" read over 4,000 stories before handing her favorites to Stephen King to pick through.
Really, how many people read the first printing of "The Most Dangerous Game" or "Gift of the Magi"? How mass appeal were those stories? I'm betting that most people didn't get to them until they started showing up in collections. Writing started, for obvious reasons, as a pasttime for the elite. I'd argue that, perhaps, short fiction just hasn't taken off like the novel has (or television and film), not that it's really hit this terrible slump. Other media like the aforementioned poem, plus stage plays and others, seem even more put upon.
Like King says, the short story is alive. As to not being well... I'm not sure the short story, for whatever reason, has ever been the most popular choice of pop culture media. Comparing it to the novel or movies just seems both inappropriate and misleading to me.
Hm, interesting. I didn't realize this was actually the intro to "Best American." Yeah, I'd be intrigued to see some statistic on short story sales.
And, yeah, I wonder about the New Yorker, too. Personally, I've enjoyed lots of their stories, but there've also been a lot of flops. Or some that are just plain boring, "wacky," or precious. When Charity--(an OSU workshop buddy)--was at her summer journalism program in NY, a (or was it "the"--not sure) fiction editor for the New Yorker gave an in-class talk and basically declared that most American fiction is shite. Hence, I guess, the rash of international authors in the New Yorker.
Maybe this is oversimplification, but still, I wonder if the short story (and poem, by extension) hasn't enjoyed as much popular media/financial success as the novel in America because it's--well--short. Bigger's better over here, right? Just ask Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe. Or Henry Ford. Or Burger King.
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