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A review by bufally47
The Art of the Short Story by R. Gwynn, Dana Gioia
3.0
I think I read 55ish of the 61 stories in here. The editors tried as hard as white men can to provide an array of diversity in authors but I still felt stifled, perhaps because the overwhelming majority of the stories seemed to come from the 1920s - 60s. I would have ordered things differently, and not included a picture of goddamn Ernest Hemingway at the introduction.
Several selections were exactly what I'd desired: pieces that say something new and profound by authors who excel at their craft but who have been mostly overlooked. Ha Jin, Katherine Mansfield, and Yukio Mishima especially stuck out. Unfortunately I first had to trudge through Stephen Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald (whom I no longer respect), John Cheever, Hawthorne, Hemingway, London, etc.
This is one of the few books I purchased rather than got from the library because of its size and scope, but also because of its -- ultimately empty -- promise of "advice from 52 of the world's most acclaimed writers" on plot, character, style, and suspense. Yeah, no. More like ramblings on life philosophies, responses to critics (#dontcare), and meaningless drivel in the vein of "when plot becomes the outward manifestation of the very germ of the story, then in its purest -- then the narrative thread is least objectionable, then it is not in the way" (Eudora Welty).
Still, they did include Borges, Joyce's The Dead, and opened me up to the magnificent D.H. Lawrence. Also, although her spiel was supposedly on suspense and offered no advice about that specifically, I loved this gem from Flannery O'Connor: "...in my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace."
So this compilation has its pros and cons and when all is said and done seems above average, but the Goodreads ratings overall are too generous.
Several selections were exactly what I'd desired: pieces that say something new and profound by authors who excel at their craft but who have been mostly overlooked. Ha Jin, Katherine Mansfield, and Yukio Mishima especially stuck out. Unfortunately I first had to trudge through Stephen Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald (whom I no longer respect), John Cheever, Hawthorne, Hemingway, London, etc.
This is one of the few books I purchased rather than got from the library because of its size and scope, but also because of its -- ultimately empty -- promise of "advice from 52 of the world's most acclaimed writers" on plot, character, style, and suspense. Yeah, no. More like ramblings on life philosophies, responses to critics (#dontcare), and meaningless drivel in the vein of "when plot becomes the outward manifestation of the very germ of the story, then in its purest -- then the narrative thread is least objectionable, then it is not in the way" (Eudora Welty).
Still, they did include Borges, Joyce's The Dead, and opened me up to the magnificent D.H. Lawrence. Also, although her spiel was supposedly on suspense and offered no advice about that specifically, I loved this gem from Flannery O'Connor: "...in my own stories I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace."
So this compilation has its pros and cons and when all is said and done seems above average, but the Goodreads ratings overall are too generous.