Hypercompendia

An article by Julian Gough in today’s Guardian tackles the short story versus novel dilemma.  To me, the failure or success of one or the other appears traditionally to follow reading trends, i.e., what lifestyle the majority of readers lead that dictates spurts of quality reading time, need for escape, stress-inhibited AADD, TV and PC on the fritz, etc.  No doubt about it though that there is truth in the short story being more and more difficult to get published either in the remaining literary journals that seem to require additionally that the author be credentialed, hold an MFA or be a foreigner, teach CW or be a proven winner by publishing credit, or in an anthology without having several novels under your belt.

But there are ways to circumvent this phenomenon, swim upriver so to speak, buck the system–and I’m all for bucking the system–to turn this into opportunity.  Gough suggests that a number of stories tied into one novel by a theme or thread, (and Munro–whom I adore– is extremely successful at this, though she qualifies  to be published under any circumstances and no one’s likely to send out a rejection slip on any of her submissions) may be the novel of the future:

"What contemporary readers don’t seem to like are short stories that don’t connect to each other. Why? Perhaps because our lives feel fragmented enough already. Television too has almost abandoned the single, self-contained drama. People like art to make sense out of chaos but without denying the chaos. That demand is a tremendous opportunity for the natural short story writer, who merely needs to come up with an organising principle. It’s just another technical challenge. Story itself is infinitely flexible, and doesn’t much care how you tell it or what you call it. These stacks of stories, reinvented for the urban 21st century, could be called the multistory novel."

This bit of knowledge, together with more carried on the winds of time and technology are shouting whispers in my ear: Storyspace…Storyspace…Storyspace.