Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.
Emma DonoghueRead
The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.
Interpretation
Short stories focus on concise narratives without the need for extensive background.
This quote highlights the unique quality of short stories, which allows them to deliver impactful narratives without requiring an exhaustive exploration of a character's entire life. Instead, they can convey profound insights or emotions through brief, focused glimpses, illustrating the power of brevity in storytelling.
In practice
In a literature class when discussing the impact of short narratives.
Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.
Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.
Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.
Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
Sartre said that wars were acts and that, with literature, you could produce changes in history. Now, I don't think literature doesn't produce changes, but I think the social and political effect of literature is much less controllable than I thought.
The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.
The only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
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.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
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