Next to music, the short story has to be the most perfect art form ever to exist. So I'm naturally drawn to any top ten list, if for no other reason than to find an unearthed jewel -- or rediscover an old one.
Last week, One Story came out with a Top 10 Short Stories of All Time for Flavorwire, which I just had time to look at. The One Story blog has a "long list" of other stories considered, along with comments from readers. (Turns out I wasn't the only one to find the absence of anything by Hemingway a little strange. Even on the long list? Really?)
Most of my favorites weren't mentioned; "Sonny's Blues" and "The Things They Carried" stand out here. But it was nice to see Denis Johnson's "Emergency" on the Top 10. I just heard Tobias Wolff read it on a past New Yorker fiction podcast recently. Still odd, funny, and totally mesmerizing.
One of the things I'm very interested in is what makes a short story's value last through generations of future readers and writers. While it's helplessly subjective on one or more levels, One Story's list does nothing but boost my intrigue -- well, that and give me more stories to check out.
2 comments:
You nailed it when you referred to the short as a perfect or perfectible form. The problem with the novel is the difficulty of holding a shape that large in one's mind.
That seems true for both the writer and reader of the novel. There are so many great things about short stories, though, and the best seem to give back way more than readers bring to it -- over and over.
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