I have been reading short stories and more short stories. Of these were two large Australian collections published by Scribe.
I was surprised by their homogeneity.
Only three stories stood out for me: one by the master, Cate Kennedy. Two by Sunil Badami.
I am not a careful or informed reader, but I don't think that I could recall what most of the other 60 or 70 stories were about: no doubt this is a reflection on me, not on the writers, whom I could see were very skilful.
In the Atlantic, Tim O'Brien wrote ".. writing workshops, in which I've noticed, almost always to my alarm, that classroom discussion seems to revolve almost exclusively around issues of verisimilitude." I gather that this why present tense is so ubiquitous: it was easy to project this comment onto the stories that I read. It was interesting to see in the author bio's how many had degrees in creative writing, or taught creative writing.
In contrast, I also read "Wonderful Town New York Stories from The New Yorker". They were wonderful stories indeed: rich, light, dark, heavy, funny, sad, wistful, dramatic, written in a range of styles and voices.
Of course they had an immense range of great and famous authors to select from, but what stood out was the intelligence and interest of the stories, even when the subject matter was slight. I want to read the collection again.
In the Australian stories, what stood out was the style.
This surely can't be A Good Thing?
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8 comments:
I wonder what you mean by 'style here Frances, and why is it not a good thing.
I once heard Cate Kennedy talk about the process of writing short stories. She made it sound effortless. It's not, of course.
Hi Elisabeth. By "style", I mean the manner of writing. If I read a blog entry by you, Jim or Jennifer (and others), I am confident that I could pick which was which, because you each have a very different style of writing. It is very pleasing to read a variety of styles.
So, I can see that I was unclear if you read it as suggesting that "style" was not a good thing. It is of course intrinsic. It was the sameness of style from story to story in these collections that I was commenting on. To my mind it made the writing seem formulaic.
Of course my comment is from an amateur reader. "Enjoyment" is what I am reading for, but it comes low on the scale of desirable qualities in academic criticism. I wonder if that means that it rates lowly in creative writing courses?
(I note Hanif Kureishi, who teaches creative writing, saying that these courses are the new insane asylums. But that's a different point, of course: it just made me chuckle).
Yes, in some post a while ago I mentioned a comment from Cate Kennedy which I had read somewhere or other, suggesting that she found short story writing easy. In retrospect I wonder if she was contrasting it with novel writing.
The short story is a form that fascinates and challenges me, both as reader and (constantly struggling) writer.
Do you know Jane Gardam's work? She has really mastered the short story.
I had never heard of her, relatively Retiring, so I googled and found a Guardian interview. The interviewer uses comments like "jewel like precision". "keen observation, understatement and stylistic clarity"and "..writing crackles with energy, variety and richness."
Googling my library catalogue, I see that they have several, so I will be keen to read them. Thank you so much for the introduction.
Hope you enjoy them as such as I do.
Her novels are wonderful, too.
Creative writing classes are silly if you expect to them to make you interesting.
As I quoted above, RH, Hanif Kureishi said that they are the new lunatic asylums.
Interesting...hmmm. I'm sure I could quickly bore you, or anyone else, talking about what is "interesting" to me.
Well I didn't mean you.
I wonder for a laugh why there's no "creative sculpture" classes where you learn the techniques and get a personal vision along with it.
Since all the big mental hospitals have become housing estates new asylums are sure needed. I think Kureishi is right.
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