Buddy Glass

But that's just the problem. Short stories aren't for everyone. A lot of people don't 'get' them. In a sense it's a more artistic art form than the novel because it takes incredible skill to pen a truly good story. Have your average person read Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", Raymond Carver's "Night School" or Franz Kafka' "A Hunger Artist". These are all great stories, but they are not for everyone. Or rather, they are not understood or read by everyone. Not everyone understands what T.S. Eliot called the objective correlative.

I think you need to be more specific. "...construct the short story in a way that can be enjoyed by everyone in this modern age" is a load of vague crap. Like saying you think it's only a matter of time before a politician comes along and constructs society in a way that can be enjoyed by everyone.

bloodredsnows

Agreed. The sad part is that people who put great effort and thought into original work get screwed because they refuse to pander to that low denominator. Brings new meaning to no good deed goes unpunished.

ClancyBoy

Who would you prefer? Oprah?

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Stewart

While he's not an "authority" per se I think that, having grown up in a time where the short story was prevalent (50s through 70s) and being inspired to write his own and seeing a majority of them published, that he may be allowed an opinion on the subject. Just because his actual prose rambles and is not all that great doesn't exclude him from being able to air his thoughts.

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Buddy Glass

No, contrary to what you may think little boy, there are other authorities on the state of the American short story. Let me mention a few.

Richard Ford - perhaps one of the best living short story writers. At least two of his three collections - Women with Men and Rock Springs are superb and now considered modern classics.

John Updike - despite lots of garbage and the fact that his literary output is too abundant for his own good, he's written a lot of very good short stories. My personal favorite is "The Slump" in which he centers around a Kierkegaardian theme.

James Salter - one of his collections - its title eludes me - won the PEN/Faulkner award, I think, and another, Last Night and other stories, is his most recent work. His style is very similar to post-Cathedral Raymond Carver.

Alice Munro and Susan Minot have also written some of the best modern short stories.

So no, I don't think Oprah would be my second choice after the overrated Stephen King.

Buddy Glass

Careful. Notice that I did not say anything about King not being able to share his thoughts or have an opinion on the matter - I only called his alleged authority into question.

Stewart

Did I miss someone referring to him as an "authority"?

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mwd

Buddy, I think you bring up a good point, in that implicit in King's argument is that there was a time, long ago, where short stories were popular. Personally, I'm too young to really know if this is true, though I do find it interesting to consider that maybe the short story is just an underappreciated facet of literature, has always been, will always be. Even in the "golden age" of short fiction, I imagine that not many pulp magazines lasted very long ... there were just a lot of them, and more were constantly popping up.

Also, I like all the writers you mention (particularly Richard Ford), but I'm not sure if writing good stories necessarily makes one able to comment on the state of short fiction in general. Like, are good writers always good readers? Hmm.

Buddy Glass

He wrote an article in which he discusses at length the history of the American short story and its present state in contemporary literature. Someone, including himself, must consider him an authority of sorts in order to let his thoughts and comments be published.

Duh.