April 11th, 2009 / 11:50 am
Web Hype
Novella Compendium
Clusterfuck!
A few weeks ago I got an email from John Madera asking me to come up with a list of novellas that I like and some explanations about why I like them. John said he had asked “a bunch of writers” what their favorite novellas are and had gotten a “good” response back. I was thinking it would be something like ten people, fifteen max. Actually, this novella compendium includes entries and lists from every writer with a modicum of web presence.
A few: Nick Antosca, Ken Baumann, Blake Butler, Brian Evenson, Shane Jones, Sean Kilpatrick, Carole Maso, Christine Schutt, Matthew Simmons, Justin Taylor, William Walsh, John Dermot Woods, Steve Almond, Christopher Higgs, Lily Hoang, Michael Joyce, Michael Kimball, Gary Lutz, AND! David Shields AND! many, many others.
Tags: novellas
Best picture caption yet!
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I think it’s amazing how many people chose Barry Hannah’s _Ray_ as a favorite novella. I’m not going to bother running the stats, but I’m going to go ahead and call this one the overall favorite, at least among those contributors who belong to the subset “people whose opinion I highly value.” Funnily enough, Hannah is absent from my own list, even though Ray is one of my favorite books. I know it’s really short, but it just never occurred to me to think of it as less than a full-on novel. Hannah went through a phase of producing amazing books that are each about 120pp- Ray, Hey Jack!, The Tennis Handsome, Boomerang, Never Die. The man’s a raging saint.
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Blake Butler, Brian Evenson, Christopher Higgs, Gary Lutz, Kimberly King Parsons all put Ray on their list….
I feel slightly ashamed that I didn’t have the courage to actually make a list. I should have put Raise High the Roof Beams, Bartleby, and The Pharmacist’s mate on it…
Also, I would argue that The Last American Man by Gilbert is a nonfiction novella. It’s brilliantly sharp and compact.
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April 11th, 2009 / 5:46 pmMatthew Simmons—
I love that more than one person chose The Pharmacists Mate.
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April 12th, 2009 / 2:34 pmMichael—
The Pharmacist’s Mate is a great book. I put it on my list even though it isn’t actually a novella (it’s a memoir). It’s that good.
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Oh yeah, Heart of Darkness and Bartleby (both on my list, fyi) also made really good showings. I love it when really different writers list the same favorites/influences. It just goes to show how much is possible in terms of interpretation, inspiration, progression, deviation, (mis)reading, &c. Another one getting a lot of love is our own Blake Butler’s EVER.
A couple of folks’ lists who I think are especially worth looking at (I mean they’re all worth looking at, but you know what I mean)-
Kimberly King Parsons- she’s read Ray. Better believe it. And Willie Masters’s Lonesome Wife.
Michael Joyce- do people know this guy? The Grandfather of hypertext, the inventor of Storyspace! He likes Beckett and Stanley Elkin.
Also, don’t forget to check out curator/organizer John Madera’s OWN list, which includes Darcey Steinke’s MILK (another one also on my list, fyiagain) and Stanley Crawford’s AMAZING Log of the SS The Mrs Unguentine, also honored by Evenson, and another one I would have picked if not for that it’s never before occurred to me to talk about that book with the diminutive -ella attached to it.
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April 11th, 2009 / 6:24 pmKKP—
You’ve got quite a list on you, JDT. I’ve gotta read that DC. Gay cannibals in Arkansas, you say?
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April 12th, 2009 / 11:34 pmbr—
michael joyce, for sure, WAS on fc2 is hotness.
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I also should have included Some Instructions For My Wife by Crawford, too. I think that counts as a novella length work…. ?
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April 11th, 2009 / 4:47 pmJohn Madera—
Thanks for posting this. I’m sorry I’ve missed out on the fun here. Great photo!
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I haven’t read Instructions… yet. There was a copy at the strand the other day. im gonna go and check for it maybe tomorrow or as soon as i can. Dalkey should re-issue that one too.
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April 11th, 2009 / 8:39 pmMartin Riker—
Hi,
Actually, we (Dalkey) brought SOME INSTRUCTIONS back into print many years ago, and it remains in print today.
Here’s the page on our website:
http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog/show/240
Best,
Martin Riker
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April 12th, 2009 / 10:33 amJustin Taylor—
Oh wow, awesome!
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i forgot to send my list in
:(
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April 11th, 2009 / 4:47 pmJohn Madera—
Hey Ryan,
I’m accepting lists and comments for a future addendum. Deb Olin Unferth and Ander Monson, among others, have offered to contribute to it.
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I’m yet to read any Hannah, but have ordered Ray and a few others…
I’ve also appended my list with Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine, Waste by Eugene Marten, and In Watermelon Sugar. How did I forget those?
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April 11th, 2009 / 10:37 pmd'anthony smith—
Ken, you haven’t lived until you read Airships, Captain Maximus, Bats Out of Hell, and High Lonesome. There is no short story writer the like of Barry Hannah.
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i forgot to send my list in too.
fun to read everyone’s though.
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April 11th, 2009 / 4:48 pmJohn Madera—
Hi Brandi,
Check out my note to Ryan above.
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I love novellas. All novels should be novellas or over 400 pages. Stop with this wishy-washy middle ground.
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very cool, thanks for posting this!
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yeah, deciding what to consider a novella and what not was kind of hard. i made weird hard line decisions while i was making my list, often not so much related to length but as to feel.
for instance, i did not include nicholson baker’s ‘The Mezzanine’ though it is under 150 pp and one of my favorites of all time. and Beckett’s ‘Molloy, etc. etc.’ trilogy: i couldn’t imagine calling any of these anything but a novel. i was also surprised to see ‘the pederson kid,’ which has always been one of my favorite short stories, but now that i’m thinking of it as a novella i like its aura even more. weird.
on the other hand, joyelle mcsweeney’s ‘Flet’ includes right there with the title on the cover the words ‘A Novel’. but i did include it. it felt more like a novella to me than the Mezzanine, and I’m not sure why.
i think it might have something to do with the presentation of the book, beyond just the size and the length, but the way the arc or overall presence of the book is stored in one’s memory. defining that would be hard.
there’s also something romantic about the idea of a novella to me, not dimunitive at all. in some ways an escalation. which is why ‘ray’ and ‘unguentine’ seemed to fit in that shape.
either way, what an awesome project. my reading pile continues to go bonkers.
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April 11th, 2009 / 5:45 pmMatthew Simmons—
I did the same with Forrest Gander’s As a Friend. Cover calls it a novel, but it’s 90 pages with lots of white space.
There’s a book called 12 German Novellas with an introductory essay that says “novella” was not initially thought of as primarily a length, but a form. The novella was a short, tightly plotted prose story with a twist in the center of the narrative that made it spin out in an unexpected direction.
And, of course, the good people in the sci-fi/fantasy world have very specific word counts for their short story/novelette/novella/novel awards. Those folks love to quantify.
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maybe i should read more novellas. i bet i wouldn’t get bored and put them down as much as i do with “novels”.
i wouldn’t consider EVER a book. so far it has been an experience (to me at least). i have reread the first 10 pages about 5 times now.
what no one put steven king’s “the mist” on their list? shame on you people.
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April 11th, 2009 / 3:24 pmLincoln—
Justin had the Mist actually.
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April 11th, 2009 / 3:28 pmjereme—
oh damn i didn’t read his. hahaha
i read like 6 of them and then went and got corn dogs from omega burger at the circle.
my bad.
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April 11th, 2009 / 3:31 pmjereme—
wait i did read his. somehow i missed the first entry. it’s so close title graphic thing i didn’t see it.
for someone who already feels like he doesn’t read enough, this list is overwhelming.
thanks everyone, i’m excited to reed what you red. i purposely (mis)spelled that phonetically because ‘read what you read’ looks unbelievable to me.
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April 11th, 2009 / 3:13 pmKen Baumann—
Like… English, man.
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April 11th, 2009 / 4:51 pmJohn Madera—
Hey, I hear you about how about how overwhelming the list is. I’ve got several lists going and a lot of these weren’t on it! Unbelievable.
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I would have said I liked “The Longest Suicide Note by Stanley K.” by M. Frias-May if I’d been asked. I’m a non-writer without a modicum of web presence.
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Great! I wanted to see Madera’s blog, but I guess you have to be invited.
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April 11th, 2009 / 5:21 pmBrandon Hobson—
Oh wait, no, I got there now. Sorry, dismiss this.
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this makes me want to go make a novella list now
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April 11th, 2009 / 10:17 pmryan—
i was thinking the same thing…. there were moments where i was like “how come no one mentioned ________ or _________” and then i was like “am i obsessing over internet things again?” so i resumed watching baseball. now i’m thinking about novellas again.
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i wonder if you could submit this list to mcsweeneys or something…
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notes from the underground – f.d.
…and the earth did not devour him – tomas rivera
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i forgot to get asked to give my list of novellas
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My list of books to find and buy just doubled thanks to this list.
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Putting together a list was a lot easier than I thought it’d be, but I’d hate for my list to be thought of as definitive. I just got together books from my shelves and put them in piles and weeded through them all willy-nilly. It didn’t occur to me to think of a novella in terms of anything but length, but now I want to consider the arc of memory, as Blake noted above, and maybe include Michener’s “The Novel,” since I read it quickly during a few baths and it really only seems to do one thing in the 400 pages.
This is so great.
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Can’t HTML Giant organize a book trade service for people who want to read the stuff on this list? Like there’s no way I can afford to buy all the books I now need to read.
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April 12th, 2009 / 12:55 pmBlake Butler—
i am in the process of figuring out a book trade system. coming soon
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April 12th, 2009 / 2:31 pmjereme—
i will buy 3 copies of EVER and give them out to those who do not have it and cannot afford it.
i get paid next friday.
the caveat is you guys need to organize who gets the get.
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April 12th, 2009 / 6:08 pmBlake Butler—
that would be too awesome. how would who get the get
April 13th, 2009 / 2:04 pmjereme—
up to you.
email me the 3 names/addresses on Friday and i will put the order in fri/sat depending on my obscene moodiness and/or apathy.
April 12th, 2009 / 2:39 pmMichael—
Adam, Do you have An Earthquake in Chile? I’ll give you anything off my list. We can meet at 25th and Maryland for the exchange.
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Like Adam, I wouldn’t say my list is definitive. I did the same thing: I scanned my bookshelves and pulled down the novellas that jumped out to me. Obviously some that I put up there aren’t novellas (like Gilgamesh, but that epic kicks ass, so why not). I can’t believe that I didn’t put Ray up there, and was also not-so-surprised surprised to see how many folks chose that one. Hannah is da shiz. I also would’ve included William Gay’s I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down.
Defining the novella, as some have pointed out, is tricky. Blake’s point about how the novella works on the memory is telling about the form. And he’s right, that’s a tough thing to explain, especially if you’re defining a form. I think it also has to do with the magnitude of the action (as in the Aristotelian idea of an “imitation of an action”). You can’t have too many characters, and the “action,” or the single thing going on, or that happens, has to be “relatively” small, I think. Like, you could never have a novella-sized Moby-Dick, for example. But then again, Moby-Dick is a prose poem, not a novel.
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April 12th, 2009 / 3:13 pmJohn Madera—
Hey Jamie,
Feel free to add more to your entry and then I’ll include them on the composite list.
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[...] And here’s a discussion of the lists over on HTML Giant. [...]
[...] March 2009 Novella List April 13, 2009, 9:41 am Filed under: Uncategorized Recently, the wonderful and talented John Madera emailed me to request a list of my favorite novellas for a collaborative blog post. I wasn’t expecting such an amazing turnout from so many of my favorite writers. My list is here. Check out all of them here. They are all great lists but my favorites are linked below. See what HTML Giant said about the project here. [...]
Thanks for posting about it on your blog Kimberly. Looks like there’s more to come soon.
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[...] literary journal focused on the critical examination of the venerable chapbook.” Just as the list of novellas Madera put together is massive (not to mention, holy geez, his gorgeous and flabbergasting review of [...]