Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Finished Martin Amis' collection of short stories Heavy Water. Nothing special, the highlight was the sci-fi entry The Janitor On Mars about a billion year old robot left behind by Martians for no other reason than to gloat about the end of planet Earth. Chosen as a follow up to reading Amis' Lionel Asbo, which was probably a biting satire of contemporary British social mores but I found it simultaneously too smug, too vulgar, and too banal, and written using a type of dialect for dialogue that he exaggerated to the point that it became jarring. Or at least I've never heard anyone talk like that.
Starting on a collection of Gogol's short stories. I like short stories. After reading two Clavells and two Dostoevskys in close succession it's nice to get through a whole story in less than fifty pages.
Huge fan of short stories. I find it interesting that unit economics was a key point of influence in making novels a dominant format for literature.
We were brought up on short stories in Ireland. (Frank O’Connor’s Guest of the Nation and Michael McLaverty’s The Poteen Maker two great examples of great stories told across a handful of pages.)
Claire Keegan is a fine current day practitioner. Foster was brilliant and her recent So Late in the Day was top class too. (Both published as standalone books but they’re just short stories really.) Kevin Barry is another. Beer Trip to Llandudno made me go wow. I thought Roddy Doyle’s story Bullfighting was excellent too.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link