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apple_pathways) wrote2010-09-24 09:09 pm
apple_pathways) wrote2010-09-24 09:09 pm
Book Meme Day 17
Day 17 - Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)
This question is so ridiculously easy to answer. I don't even have to think about it: Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.
First of all, I love the short story as an art form. It's heartbreaking that they're considered to be lesser than novels, because I think a well-crafted short story is just as, if not more, difficult to write than a novel. In a novel you have pages and pages to describe characters, establish themes, and build toward a climax. A short story is narrative distilled down into its purest form: there's no room for extraneous details or gratuitous description.
Neil Gaiman is a master of the art form. I have to avoid his prose when I'm trying to write, because the desire to imitate his style is just too strong, and my inability to approach his genius too depressing.
Every detail he adds in meaningful, every word. He doesn't bury you in figurative language or obscure his narrative with clunky dialogue. He points you in the direction he wants you to take and then buggers off, leaving you to figure out what the final destination is. I find myself thinking about a lot of his stories long after I finish them.
And the mood he sets! Whether funny, or creepy, or heart-warming, you find yourself engulfed in a sea of stirring emotions with every sentence.
OK, enough gushing; here are some of my favorite stories from the collection:
Chivalry, about an old woman who buys the Holy Grail in a charity shop, and the knight who makes it his quest to negotiate it away from her. (She drives a hard bargain, it must be said.)
The Price, about a stray cat that fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from the devil.
The White Road, a poem retelling the classic fairy tale Mister Fox, with a twist ending.
This question is so ridiculously easy to answer. I don't even have to think about it: Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.
First of all, I love the short story as an art form. It's heartbreaking that they're considered to be lesser than novels, because I think a well-crafted short story is just as, if not more, difficult to write than a novel. In a novel you have pages and pages to describe characters, establish themes, and build toward a climax. A short story is narrative distilled down into its purest form: there's no room for extraneous details or gratuitous description.
Neil Gaiman is a master of the art form. I have to avoid his prose when I'm trying to write, because the desire to imitate his style is just too strong, and my inability to approach his genius too depressing.
Every detail he adds in meaningful, every word. He doesn't bury you in figurative language or obscure his narrative with clunky dialogue. He points you in the direction he wants you to take and then buggers off, leaving you to figure out what the final destination is. I find myself thinking about a lot of his stories long after I finish them.
And the mood he sets! Whether funny, or creepy, or heart-warming, you find yourself engulfed in a sea of stirring emotions with every sentence.
OK, enough gushing; here are some of my favorite stories from the collection:
Chivalry, about an old woman who buys the Holy Grail in a charity shop, and the knight who makes it his quest to negotiate it away from her. (She drives a hard bargain, it must be said.)
The Price, about a stray cat that fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from the devil.
The White Road, a poem retelling the classic fairy tale Mister Fox, with a twist ending.
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