There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.
Interpretation
Short stories offer distinct experiences that should be appreciated individually rather than in succession.
Mavis Gallant emphasizes the unique nature of short stories, suggesting that each story provides a standalone experience that deserves focused attention. Rather than treating them as parts of a continuous narrative, readers are encouraged to savor each story independently, allowing for reflection and a deeper connection to the distinct themes and characters within.
In practice
During a book club meeting to discuss the value of short stories in literature.
No one is as real to me as people in the novel. It grows like a living thing. When I realize they do not exist except in my mind I have a feeling of sadness, looking around for them, as if the half-empty cafe were a place I had once come to with friends who had all moved away.
All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.
There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.
A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
If I pick up a book with spaceships on the cover, I want spaceships. If I see one with dragons, I want there to be dragons inside the book. Proper labeling. Ethical labeling. I don't want to open up my cornflakes and find that they're full of pebbles... You need to respect the reader enough not to call it something it isn't.
Readers of fiction read, I think, for a deeper embrace of the world, of reality. And that's brave. I never get over being thankful for that - for the courage of my readers.
The only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past.
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