Is this true? I’ll have to think about this one.
“The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage.”
Jack London
Tag: Jack London
29OCT2019 – Quote of the Day
Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.
Jack London
28OCT2019 – Quote of the Day
You look back and see how hard you worked and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were.
Jack London
27OCT2019 – Quote of the Day
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Jack London
26OCT2019 – Quote of the Day
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
Jack London
In Praise of Brevity
Warning: What follows is profound. Extinguish all smiles and assume an air of philosophical introspection. It will probably help to slightly furrow your brow.
Polonius said that “brevity is the soul of wit.” And since Polonius was a windbag I feel that I am in good company praising it. Maybe it’s because of Amazon and the payouts on Kindle reads. But for whatever the reason we live in the age of the mega-novel. More than that, we live in the age of the endless book series. Sometimes that’s a not a terrible thing. I’ve been enjoying the Galaxy’s Edge series. They’re a lot of fun. But hand in hand with this emphasis on long novels, short stories have sort of disappeared. I freely admit that statement is an exaggeration. I’m currently reading a collection of short stories taking place in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter universe. There are short stories to be found. But I can only imagine the meager income an author would earn if he limited his efforts to short stories. I mean, what does Amazon pay an author if someone reads a ten-page short story? Five cents? You could see how that would limit grocery purchases. So, I do not fault the authors who need to eat for gearing their output to the five hundred-page novel. And the same goes for the series. Characters that have proven popular are the obvious candidate for more success for an author.
But I want to throw my weight behind short stories. A good short story is like a good poem. It is concentrated creativity. Without a doubt, Dickens or Tolstoy can create an epic creation of many hundreds of pages with a huge cast of characters that are lovingly depicted in amazing detail. Reading this work is a feast of literary pleasures. Without a doubt. But if a master craftsman writes a short story barely two dozen pages long it can be a revelation. Like some kind of minimalist sketch, he can use a few brush strokes to bring life to a story or a character. And the effect can actually be more vivid than the grand epic. Carefully done, the few words can resonate with the soul where the hundreds of thousands merely numb.
I love short stories. Let me clarify. I love really well written short stories. Edgar Allen Poe, James Joyce, Jack London, Kipling. And in science fiction, Sturgeon, Ellison, Dick, Aldiss. These authors have produced short stories that stand out as original and memorable. They leave an impression on the mind that can be indelible. And of course, not every short story they did is in that category. But that’s okay. It’s the exception that proves the rule. After all it was Sturgeon’s Law that says that “90% of everything is crud.”
I’ll list a few of my favorite short stories. If you feel like playing leave a few of yours in the comments.
To Build a Fire by Jack London
Counterparts by James Joyce
The Dead by James Joyce
And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon
09APR2018 – Quote of the Day
When I was grade school kid every English teacher made you read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” But unlike most of the stuff given to us that story spoke to me. And after a lifetime of doing stupid things it’s all the more resonant.
Following at the man’s heels was a big native dog. It was a wolf dog, gray-coated and not noticeably different from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was worried by the great cold. It knew that this was no time for traveling. Its own feeling was closer to the truth than the man’s judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than 50 below zero; it was colder than 60 below, than 70 below. It was 75 below zero. Because the freezing point is 32 above zero, it meant that there were 107 degrees of frost.The dog did not know anything about temperatures. Possibly in its brain there was no understanding of a condition of very cold, such as was in the man’s brain. But the animal sensed the danger. Its fear made it question eagerly every movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned about fire, and it wanted fire. Otherwise, it would dig itself into the snow and find shelter from the cold air.
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