The Short Story
I used to be a champion of big books, and I suppose I still am, but to a lesser degree. I enjoyed the journey as much as the commitment when it came to A Man in Full or David McCullough’s Truman (both clocking in north of one thousand pages). But lately, I’ve been falling for short stories, and I believe for the same reason I love poetry.
Allow me to explain. There’s a scene in A River Runs Through It where the older son turns in his literature assignment to his father, who is his educator, to have him mark it up in red and say, “Half as long.” Young Norman goes back to his desk and returns to his father’s office with a shorter version, only to see him mark it up and unsympathetically say, “Again, half as long.”
Writers and non-writers alike are prone to using two words when one will do. It’s human nature, which is odd because most of us will give the bare minimum in all other aspects of our lives. I guess there’s something terribly exciting about adjectives.
That said, Chernow and Caro are brilliant. I recently started The Power Broker, and I look forward to finishing it before I start collecting social security. In the meantime, I find short stories refreshingly light.
By definition, a short story is between 1,000 and 4,000 words, but some are upwards of 15,000 words. With the average person reading 250 words per minute, most short stories can be read in the amount of time it takes to drink a glass of wine.
For example:
The Killers by Ernest Hemingway is 2,970 words – twelve minutes to read.
A Perfect Day for a Bananafish by J.D. Salinger is 4,013 words – sixteen minutes to read.
The Swimmer by John Cheever is 4,989 words – twenty minutes (maybe two glasses of wine; we’re in a judgment free zone).
Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is 13,667 words – about an hour (bottle, or two bottles…again, to each his own).
It’s easier to write 1,000 words than it is to write 500. And it’s easier to write 500 words than 250, and so on. Extrapolated out, you’ll end up with a single letter, as Aram Saroyan famously did in 1965.
A cleverly penned short story and a beautifully written poem possess a mysterious alchemical element in that they can transmute so much into so little without sacrificing the essence.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s “Less is more” couldn’t possibly be more true when it comes to the short story and its resemblance to poetry.
They’re transient, all-consuming, delightful escapes. And they offer something normal-sized books don’t: instant gratification (as long as your definition of instant isn’t one second).
PS - My goal was to keep this piece under 500 words, and it came in at 455. Could I have done it in 250? Probably, but I too take the path of least resistance.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
