An article by A.O. Scott from the Times, a little more than a week old: a weird thing that occasions two points from me.
1. I guess Wells Tower is the new hot thing. I really didn’t think that would be the case when I read “Leopard” a few months ago, nor was I aware of it when I started furiously tumbling about him today.
2. The notion of defending the short story is totally bizarre to me: why does it need defense? But then I see the selected comment in the margins, by Anis Shivani of Houston, Texas:
“As great as the short story is, in the right hands, the novel poses a far greater moral challenge than the story is ever capable of.”
I mean, what’s going on here? A “moral challenge”? The short story is a perfectly legitimate literary medium, as is the novel, and I thought everybody believed that. There are inherent differences between short stories and novels, differences that are products of necessity and of convention. As a result some people prefer novels to short stories, and vice versa. But a moral challenge? What does that even mean?
