Forum / A.O. Scott - In Praise of the American Short Story

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    Jürgen Fauth
    Apr 08, 02:21pm

    Anybody see Tony Scott's piece in the Sunday Times? (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05scott.html) I liked his last paragraph:

    The new, post-print literary media are certainly amenable to brevity. The blog post and the tweet may be ephemeral rather than lapidary, but the culture in which they thrive is fed by a craving for more narrative and a demand for pith. And just as the iPod has killed the album, so the Kindle might, in time, spur a revival of the short story. If you can buy a single song for a dollar, why wouldn’t you spend that much on a handy, compact package of character, incident and linguistic invention? Why wouldn’t you collect dozens, or hundreds, into a personal anthology, a playlist of humor, pathos, mystery and surprise?

    The death of the novel is yesterday’s news. The death of print may be tomorrow’s headline. But the great American short story is still being written, and awaits its readers.

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    Cortney McLellan
    Apr 27, 09:21pm

    Some optimism. Love it.

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    Stephen Stark
    May 27, 09:11am

    Did you also see the thing on vook.tv? In the Times but also in the Washington Post. I have long thought that an e-book should be something other than just a pdf version of the printed book, and they seem to be headed in that direction. I think we are going to see a new category when the right platform comes out. If Apple indeed comes out with its rumored mega-iPhone, then maybe that will be it. Imagine the book as app. (I have an iPhone and some book apps, but it's just too small, and no one's really gone interactive.)

    But if this new category arises--it already may have--does it mean writing a true ebook becomes a collaborative activity? Does it mean that the novelist/short story writer must learn to program, edit audio and video, etc.? Is there enough time in life for that? Or do the kids who are growing up with computers become those writers?

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