Behold Brevity
Viewed some sixty years later, my middle school educational experience seemed grey, tedious, and flat-out uninspiring. Just one single factoid survived all these intervening years i.e. the three styles of the ancient Greek pillars, you know, the Doric, Ionic and the other one. Yet, for some reason, what sticks to this day are the assigned short stories e.g. The Tell-Tale Heart, Leiningen Versus the Ants, The Most Dangerous Game, The Gift of the Magi.
What's perhaps a reflection of this then-student's lack of sophistication, the impact of the reading material back then was inversely related to its length. Just save me from the stream-of-consciousness density of a Ulysses and substitute for that a hundred equivalents of The Old Man And the Sea or, sticking with Hemingway, a thousand equivalents of his shortest work which reads, in its entirety, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Such bias continues. It seems at times writers compete to see who can cram the most words into the smallest idea. Well-done realistic fiction, where the joy resides in the stylistic description itself, is something else -- not one word should ever be removed from Grapes Of Wrath, for example. But so many books, especially those in the non-fiction world, come across as bloated essays. Tighten them up, move on, and save us valuable time. That way we can read War and Peace.
Let us challenge the foregoing (admitted) bias in this upcoming Member Monday discussion even as we acknowledge, share, and celebrate our own personal short-form favorites. They might go anywhere from a haiku, to flash-fiction, to an epigram, or (especially) to an engaging short story. Attached below (Pdf) are a couple of my favorites.
No requirement for a submission but if you so choose please limit it to a favorite short story and/or two particularly pithy micro-enlightenments. I'll bundle those (having links) received through Friday night for distribution to RSVPs by late Sunday.