Novels in Stories
This is a good article with a disgusting title on the rise of novels told in stories. I’ve read two novels in stories (NIS) recently, Elizabeth McKenzie’s Stop That Girl, and Elizabeth Crane’s All This Heavenly Glory. Both were good, but the stories got less good as their protagonists got older, a problem I didn’t find in one of my favorite books from a few years ago, Melissa Bank’s NIS The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing. (FYI, Bank’s follow up, The Wonder Spot is due at the end of this month, and looks promising.)
In general, I prefer novels to other forms because of continuity of voice and characterization. NIS books have more of this than do books of unrelated short stories, but it’s an uncomfortable hybrid. Though the author of the article is dismissive that market issues are driving the rise of the NIS, I think it’s valid. Short stories don’t sell as well as do novels. It’s interesting to see the rise of a new form, one of which, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, waits on my bedside table. But I’m not yet convinced that these so-called novels aren’t literature with an attention-span problem.
May 21st, 2005 at 5:28 am
Where did you get hold of an English Newspaper’s Saturday thought piece? I also read it and I usually never read the Telegraph. I have to admit to having bought it because it had an interview with Jools Oliver in it. But at least i read the books pages as well, right? If I was you I’d skip Cloud Atlas but read Ghostwritten instead. I thought it was a fantastic book and you know I am a novel reader at heart. But David Mitchell gets this narrative through stories thing - in a light handed and beautifully written way. Let me know what you think
May 24th, 2005 at 5:29 am
Short and curlies? That was the best title they could write?