November 17th, 2011 / 3:56 am
 Snippets
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What are your favorite short (120 pages or less) novels?

82 Comments

  1. November 17th, 2011 / 4:04 am J A Sawyer—

      The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker (just over 120) and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Garcia Marquez (exactly 120)

  2. November 17th, 2011 / 5:12 am postitbreakup—

      I think most of Dennis Cooper’s books are under this mark, so… those.

      Looking forward to seeing people’s recommendations in this thread, since I prefer short books to long.

  3. November 17th, 2011 / 6:29 am Sal—

      RAY

  4. November 17th, 2011 / 6:32 am Lucy Maddox—

      Chronicle of a Death Foretold is one of my favorite novels, period.

  5. November 17th, 2011 / 7:28 am Derek—

      shoplifting from american apparel

  6. November 17th, 2011 / 7:31 am MacEvoy DeMarest—

      The Old Man and The Sea, Candide, Heart of Darkness, Of Mice and Men, and The Outsider (or The Stranger- or whichever title translation is correct for L’Etranger)

  7. November 17th, 2011 / 8:20 am John—

      H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness.

  8. November 17th, 2011 / 8:22 am Nick Francis—

      Log of the S.S. the Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford (my favourite of any length)
      The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
      Pedro Paramo by Juan RulfoThe Bathroom by Jean Philippe-Toussaint
      The Revisionist by Miranda Mellis

  9. November 17th, 2011 / 9:14 am jmark—

      The Shawl, Ozick. The Moors, Ben Marcus. The Street of Crocodiles, Schulz.

  10. November 17th, 2011 / 9:19 am AAT—

      03 by Jean-Christophe Valtat. 

  11. November 17th, 2011 / 9:34 am J. A. Tyler—

      The Rat Veda by James Chapman and Peter Markus’s two first volumes from Calamari Press

  12. November 17th, 2011 / 9:36 am Leapsloth14—

      I’m reading Farmer by Jim Harrison right now. We’ll see.

  13. November 17th, 2011 / 9:42 am Tom Buchanan—

      Bonsai, Alejandro Zambra

  14. November 17th, 2011 / 9:49 am ravi—

      Log of the S.S. the Mrs. Unguentine and Ourednik’s Europeana

  15. November 17th, 2011 / 10:16 am Ryan—

      The Train Was on Time, Heinrich Boll
      Street of Crocodiles, Bruno Schulz
      May Day, Fitzgerald
      Light Boxes, Shane Jones
      Anthem, Ayn Rand (despite an intense dislike for the author)

  16. November 17th, 2011 / 10:54 am Glenn—

      The Pilgrim Hawk, Glenway Wescott
      The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
      Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

  17. November 17th, 2011 / 11:01 am elizabeth ellen—

       I Look Divine,  Christopher Coe

  18. November 17th, 2011 / 11:03 am elizabeth ellen—

      oh, also, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

  19. November 17th, 2011 / 11:21 am alanrossi—

      Waste
      Europeana
      Tracer
      The Narrow Road to the Deep North (not exactly a novel)
      The Crying of Lot 49 (maybe a bit longer?)
      Aliss at the Fire (amazingly done, time-shifty book)
      Bartleby, the Scrivener

  20. November 17th, 2011 / 11:23 am shame—

      lol

  21. November 17th, 2011 / 11:29 am Maxwell McCabe-Lokos—

      The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin. Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler. And come on, The Great Gatsby is still perfect.

  22. November 17th, 2011 / 11:31 am William Hung—

      So Long, See You Tomorrow

  23. November 17th, 2011 / 11:34 am Joseph Riippi—

      By Night in Chile

  24. November 17th, 2011 / 11:54 am Justin Sirois—

      indeed

  25. November 17th, 2011 / 12:12 pm Doug—

      Bartleby, the Scrivener; Europeana; Liquidation; some of the Choose Your Own Adventure books (e.g. You Are a Shark)

  26. November 17th, 2011 / 12:30 pm Gary McDowell—

      The Death of Ivan Ilych (Tolstoy)
      Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky)
      The Deep North (Fanny Howe)

  27. November 17th, 2011 / 12:34 pm 6BatofMoon9—

      Bolano wrote several very good short novels (in some ways I prefer them to the doorstops): Distant Star, By Night in Chile, Amulet, and Antwerp. The latter is particularly a mind blower.

  28. November 17th, 2011 / 12:43 pm deadgod—

      The first thing I think of when the question is ‘great short novel?’ is Notes from Underground, but it comes in at 160 pages.  It’s a short Dostoevsky novel . . .  (- as is The Gambler, at 192.)

      “120 pages” is a tricky constraint.  The Old Man and the Sea is 128, as is Mrs. Caliban.  God Jr. – 163.  The Great Gatsby – 216 doorstopping pages.  I think of The Optimists’s Daughter as a quick, sharp read – 192 pages.

      Novel / Novella / Short Story / Flash :  If not, why not?

  29. November 17th, 2011 / 12:49 pm Matt Rowan—

      The Stranger, Camus
      Institute Benjamenta, Robert Walser
      Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino (more of a series of loosely connected stories, though)

  30. November 17th, 2011 / 12:51 pm Matt Rowan—

      And: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, George Saunders

  31. November 17th, 2011 / 12:55 pm michael—

      fathers and sons

  32. November 17th, 2011 / 12:57 pm michael—

      jk it’s like 200 pages

  33. November 17th, 2011 / 1:02 pm alex crowley—

      yeah, of the 3 that immediately come to mind for me, Ondaatje’s Collected Works of Billy the Kid is 128, his Coming Through Slaughter is 165, as is Calvino’s Invisible Cities

  34. November 17th, 2011 / 1:03 pm alex crowley—

      it is pretty great, though

  35. November 17th, 2011 / 1:20 pm Alexander J. Allison—

      Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? – Lorrie Moore [Has to be around that mark, right?]

      Person – Sam Pink

      Naive. Super – Erlend Loe

      Oooh, lots more.

  36. November 17th, 2011 / 1:43 pm lorian long—

      babyfucker

  37. November 17th, 2011 / 1:48 pm J. A. Tyler—

      Yes. Loved that book.

  38. November 17th, 2011 / 2:17 pm Mr. Ian M. Belcurry—

      suicide eugene leve, heart of darkness, swann in love (excerpt from swann’s way)

  39. November 17th, 2011 / 2:33 pm stephen—

      i second “Person” Sam Pink. i like a lot of short novels that aren’t under 120 i think. sidenote: it bothers me for no particularly rational reason when reviewers call something marketed as a novel a novella because of its short length. in france they have lots of short novels and i like short novels (i also like long novels and medium-length novels)

  40. November 17th, 2011 / 2:41 pm Neil Griffin—

      Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi, Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Animalinside by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

  41. November 17th, 2011 / 2:52 pm Brandon—

      Trout Fishing in America

  42. November 17th, 2011 / 3:07 pm homersimpson—

      colma alex garland

  43. November 17th, 2011 / 3:21 pm judson—

      Marcovaldo (ok its eight pages over but still)

  44. November 17th, 2011 / 3:34 pm Dole—

      the Park
      Play it as it Lays (not sure it’s that short but it’s a wide typeface)In the LabyrinthDeath SentenceThe Invention of MorelThe Hour of the StarThe Literary Conference
      and some Bolano

  45. November 17th, 2011 / 3:54 pm ep—

      edouard leve?

  46. November 17th, 2011 / 3:55 pm Anonymous—

      Closely Watched Trains by Hrabal.  Czech hilarity.

  47. November 17th, 2011 / 4:10 pm Mr. Ian M. Belcurry—

      lol, yeah him. Not the dad from the american pie movies

  48. November 17th, 2011 / 4:29 pm Emma—

      Ghosts by Cesar Aira, Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. Don’t know why all of those happened to be Latin American.

  49. November 17th, 2011 / 4:45 pm Thad—

      the subterraneans, Kerouac

  50. November 17th, 2011 / 4:52 pm Bradley Sands—

      That crazy history of Europe that I can’t think of the title of and I think Dalkey Archive might have published. A bunch of books from the bizarro genre that I can’t think of right now because I’m really tired (a lot of them are around 100 pages). Maybe one of them is Sea of Patchwork Cats by Carlton Mellick III.

  51. November 17th, 2011 / 6:47 pm postitbreakup—

      Bartleby!

  52. November 17th, 2011 / 7:19 pm aaron—

      I second (or third or fourth, or whatever at this point) Mrs. Unguentine. 
      And also the below mentioned Postman.Pretty much all Toussaint is that short, and it’s all pretty great. 
      I really loved Tom William’s The Mimic’s Own Voice.

  53. November 17th, 2011 / 8:28 pm sam—

      Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way

  54. November 17th, 2011 / 10:41 pm dupre—

      Steps, Kosinski

  55. November 17th, 2011 / 11:33 pm UncleIstvan—

      HA!  Thanks for this, both of these pages are now bookmarked.

      Heart Of Darkness is my favorite book of all time.  So.  I also wrote a 12 page paper on the last two pages of The Awakening…

  56. November 17th, 2011 / 11:43 pm mimi—

      also! The Yellow Wallpaper  

      and Yes! to Mrs. Unguentine,  & Coming through Slaughter

  57. November 17th, 2011 / 11:48 pm Luke Tennis—

      –Yes, I LOOK DEVINE.
      (–some of the books people have picked are longer, I think, than 120 pages. Just saying.)
      –Play It As It Lays by Joan Dideon.
      –Notes From Underground–that Feydor guy
      –Benito Cerino–Melville
      –Goodbye, Columbus–P. Roth

  58. November 18th, 2011 / 12:00 am Luke Tennis—

      (oops! I think I picked some longer ones.)
      –Train Dreams
      –A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (while supposedly not fiction, it is)

  59. November 18th, 2011 / 12:06 am ZZZZZIPPP—

      DUE TO A VENDETTA AGAINST “LOAD MORE COMMENTS” ZZZZIPPP WILL NOT “LOAD MORE” TO SEE IF ANYONE HAS MENTIONED THE BOOKS OF CÉSAR AIRA. THE ONES NEWLY TRANSLATED BY NEW DIRECTIONS ARE ALL AROUND 130 PAGES. 

      MIMI ZZZZIPP TOO LOVES “COMING TO SLAUGHTER”. HE READ IT IN ONE DAY WHEN ICE COVERED THE ENTIRE PLANET AND THE SUN WINKING OFF THE ICE MADE LIVING SEEM WORTHWHILE AFTER HE FINISHED COLLATING/READING IN THE EMPTY HOSPITAL BASEMENT. 

  60. November 18th, 2011 / 12:37 am MJ—

       Unless I’m mistaken man, you’re the only one to mention Camus’ The Stranger. Thats criminal. I’m still afraid to pick up the Plague. I starting reading it then shuddered and stopped.

  61. November 18th, 2011 / 2:23 am Sarah Malone—

      Sleepless Nights
      Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (a few pp over)

  62. November 18th, 2011 / 9:30 am stephen—

      i second The Hour of the Star. i want to read Rulfo and Aira.

  63. November 18th, 2011 / 11:21 am mimi—

      HI ZZZZIPPY   

      and did anyone mention Death in Venice?

  64. November 18th, 2011 / 11:46 am bo-bo-bo—

      hunger, knut hamsun
      lenz, georg buchner

  65. November 18th, 2011 / 1:11 pm Dan Wickett—

      Still Life with Insects by Brian Kiteley (114)

  66. November 18th, 2011 / 1:23 pm Chris Moran—

      Blue of Noon by Georges Bataille
      Vathek by William Beckford
      Distant Star by Roberto Bolano
      Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
      Urien’s Voyage by Andre Gide
      Aladdin’s Problem by Ernst Junger
      The Man Who Died by D.H. Lawrence
      The Stream of Life by Clarice Lispector
      The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
      Dark Spring by Unica Zurn

  67. November 18th, 2011 / 1:43 pm Guest—

      Bonsai is fantastic.  Europeana (mentioned below) is also very good.  

  68. November 18th, 2011 / 5:35 pm deadgod—

      sctv

      if you ever laughed at, say, john belushi–run, don’t walk

  69. November 18th, 2011 / 6:17 pm Cole—

      I’m currently reading An Obscure Man, by Marguerite Yourcenar. I intend for it to be my favorite short novel ever. 

      Also:I Am Elijah Thrush, by James Purdy. 
      Death Sentence & When the Time Comes, Maurice Blanchot. 
      Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, Barbara Comyns.
      The Turn of the Screw (but is that a novel?), Henry James.

  70. November 18th, 2011 / 6:37 pm kevocuinn—
  71. November 18th, 2011 / 8:56 pm andrew worthington—

      everything by noah cicero and sam pink, i think.

      the stranger by camus has been mentioned, but i dont think anyone has said The Fall by camus, which actually might be my favorite book by him.  im pretty sure thats novella length.

      Chronicle of a Death Foretold was already mentioned.

      I assume you (impossible mike) have already read Whatever by Houellebecq.

      The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Kundera is a pretty short page count, I dont know exactly if its less than 120, though–it might be more.

      Benito Cereno and Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville are both really good.  they are long for short stories but no one calls them novels.

      In watermelon sugar by richard brautigan.

  72. November 18th, 2011 / 9:07 pm Mark Doten—

      Hayy ibn Yaqdhan

  73. November 18th, 2011 / 9:31 pm NLY—

      Miss Lonelyhearts, by Nathanael West.

  74. November 18th, 2011 / 10:26 pm Bradley Sands—

      That’s the one.

  75. November 19th, 2011 / 8:49 am David Fishkind—

      point omega, eat when you feel sad

  76. November 19th, 2011 / 2:08 pm adrian—

      The Crypto-Amnesia Club by Michael Bracewell. And that book/journal/Dad-hatin’ thing by Macaulay Cockring. 

  77. November 19th, 2011 / 4:06 pm bartleby_taco—

      Both Rulfo and Aira are great. For Aira, I would recommend The Literary Conference, and if you like that, How I Became A Nun. All the ones translated in English are great, actually.

  78. November 20th, 2011 / 2:57 am Jacksonfivesque—

      bad nature, or with elvis in mexico – javier marias

  79. November 22nd, 2011 / 1:05 am krysbeau—

      Noon Wine by Katherine Anne Porter

  80. November 22nd, 2011 / 2:01 pm Anonymous—

      House of the Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata

  81. December 25th, 2011 / 8:21 am Morgan—

      Adam Chodzko: Romanov
      JG Ballard: Running Wild
      Cesar Aira: Ghosts
      Lance Blomgren: Walkups
      Bernard Noël: Le Château de Cène
      Stefan Zweig: Chess

  82. May 24th, 2012 / 11:00 am Dana Midura—

      The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, Notes From the Underground (too long?), The Stranger, The Death of Ivan Ilyich