Tuesday, September 18, 2007

When is a Short Story Not a short Story?

Yesterday Julian Gough wrote in the Guardian about the current state of the short story, expanding on a view he touched on previously, via this blog: that while short stories may appear to have been squeezed from our present culture, in reality they survive, sometimes extended to novella length by writers such as Ian McEwan, at other times linked together, as in David Mitchell's books, to create what he says could be called the 'multistory novel'.

Gough presents these developments as meaning that the short story is after all alive and well (just a little bit hidden), and are a Good Thing: Our lives feel fragmented enough already, he says, and all short story writers need to do is come up with an 'organising principle'. But I don't think he even needs to make this case: Salt Publishing have just sent me a splendid leaflet detailing their new list of short story collections. And I can't help thinking that by doing so, and by implying that short stories are 'fragments', as a writer of (marvellous) stand-alone stories he's just shot himself, and the rest of us short-story writers, in the foot.

1 comment:

Tania Hershman said...

Yes, I do agree with your final point. I am sure Julian had us short story writers' best interests at heart, but - apart from his implication that stories are perhaps not complete entitities in themselves - where there was a time when I would have applauded every article defending the short story, now I think we have reached a point where it might work against the short story. A certain momentum seems to have been achieved - by Salt, the National Short Story Prize, by three or four brand new short story lit magazines in the UK etc.. - such that we don't want to portray stories as downtrodden, as victims of the harsh, cruel publishing industry biases anymore. Perhaps playing enignmatic is the way to go from now on?