Novels and short stories :
The novels and the short tale are perhaps the two most common elements of a narrative produced over the past two and a half centuries. While there are several forms of a book, they all share one thing in common: they set out to portray a real-life scenario as encountered by individual men and women. The ideas about the life of the author (whether his theme is comedic or dramatic, or has a wider, social content) are conveyed by the characters he invents, the circumstances he puts them in, and how he portrays them.
 |
| '' Boule de suif " ( " Ball of fat" ), the victimized heroine of Guy de Maupassant's a first short story (1880). In this, as in many of his tales, Maupassant exposes the cruelty caused by social prejudice. |
It is this ability to portray a real-world from the earlier modes of narrative that separates the book, and even the contemporary short tale. In fact, the writer sees himself as the enemy of that kind of fiction that is simply "made up." The first such writer was Spaniard Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616). He satirized the romantic stories of the Middle Ages in Don Quixote's story (1605), contrasting them against the facts of life in his day. Since then a drive to achieve an ever greater degree of truthfulness and authenticity has caused several improvements in the nature of the book. The fundamental goal of the novelist's writing is to explore and convey the facts about how men and women think and feel, and how they act. The novel needs to be fairly realistic to achieve that; truth to life is important.
Some novelists' approach has been to follow the traditions of storytelling established by dramatists. England's Jane Austen (1775-1817) did so in, for example, her elegant manner comedies, and in their dramas, Thomas Hardy * and William Faulkner*. Many novelists also developed forms based on age-old oral storyteller techniques. One of the first was the picaresque story that depicts the hero's exploits as he journeys from one location to another. Don Quixote was built on a picaresque board. Earlier picaresque works include Tom Jones (1749), the British poet Henry Fielding (1707-54); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the American poet Mark Twain-the pen name for Samuel Clemens (1835-1910)-and Felix Krull (1954), the German writer Thomas Mann (1875-1955).
On the other hand, several novels offer a panoramic view of society as a whole, revealing the disparities of wealth and suffering and explaining the financial, political, and commercial practices. Among the most popular of these are the 16 novels comprising The Human Comedy (1829-49), by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850); War and Peace (1869), by the Russian author Leo Tolstoi (1828-1910); Middlemarch (1872), by the English writer George Eliot (whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80); and the three novels comprising the United States (1930-36), by the American writer John dos Passos (born 1896).
Another type of novel has the theme of increasing maturity and bringing a young man or woman into adulthood. These novels are mostly autobiographical in nature, but not necessarily; among them are David Copperfield (1850), by the English author Charles Dickens (1812-70); Sons and Lovers (1913), by D. H. Lawrence; and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), by James Joyce (1882-1941), the Irish writer. A variant of this kind of novel is the kind which describes the exploits of a humbly born young man, possibly from the countryside, who comes to the great city and tries to push his way to the top of society; examples are the French novels The Red and the Black (1830), by Marie Henri Beyle, popular as Stendhal (1783-1842); and A Sentimental! Training (1869), by Gustave Flaubert (1821-80); and The Great Gatsby (1925), by the American novelist F .Scott Fitzgerald (1896 to 1940).
Another collection of novels, such as Buddenbrooks (1901), by Thomas Mann; and The Forsyte Saga (1921), by the English writer John Galsworthy (1867-1933), deals with a family's rise and fall. One of the more serious and philosophical forms of the novel is that which concerns a man in his relationship with God or destiny — such as Wuthering Heights (1848), by the English writer Emily Brontë (1818-48), Moby Dick (1851), by the American Herman Melville (1819-91), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), by the Russian Fëdor Dostoevski (1821-81). Several of France's novels- The Immoralist (1902) by André Gide (1869-1951) for one-reflect the personal struggles of their author towards self-realization.
The current short story varies in the same way the novel does from older versions of the narrative. The biggest difference between short fiction and novels is not their length-they are as lengthy as short novels with other short stories. The disparity lies in the larger emotional strength of the short story. To borrow a cinematic phrase, the modern short story is the closing up of a single event, an account of a particular incident in a person's life or perception and its consequences. Of reality, in the old context it may not be a story at all, but just a reminiscence or evoking a specific mood. This follows not by direct explanation but by inference. The Russian Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is a great master of the contemporary short story. The Frenchman Guy de Maupassant (1850-93), the Englishman Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway, an American (1898-1961) are other excellent exponents of the type.
Some novelists' approach has been to follow the traditions of storytelling established by dramatists. England's Jane Austen (1775-1817) did so in, for example, her elegant manner comedies, and in their dramas, Thomas Hardy * and William Faulkner*. Many novelists also developed forms based on age-old oral storyteller techniques. One of the first was the picaresque story that depicts the hero's exploits as he journeys from one location to another. Don Quixote was built on a picaresque board. Earlier picaresque works include Tom Jones (1749), the British poet Henry Fielding (1707-54); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the American poet Mark Twain-the pen name for Samuel Clemens (1835-1910)-and Felix Krull (1954), the German writer Thomas Mann (1875-1955).
On the other hand, several novels offer a panoramic view of society as a whole, revealing the disparities of wealth and suffering and explaining the financial, political, and commercial practices. Among the most popular of these are the 16 novels comprising The Human Comedy (1829-49), by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850); War and Peace (1869), by the Russian author Leo Tolstoi (1828-1910); Middlemarch (1872), by the English writer George Eliot (whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80); and the three novels comprising the United States (1930-36), by the American writer John dos Passos (born 1896).
Another type of novel has the theme of increasing maturity and bringing a young man or woman into adulthood. These novels are mostly autobiographical in nature, but not necessarily; among them are David Copperfield (1850), by the English author Charles Dickens (1812-70); Sons and Lovers (1913), by D. H. Lawrence; and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), by James Joyce (1882-1941), the Irish writer. A variant of this kind of novel is the kind which describes the exploits of a humbly born young man, possibly from the countryside, who comes to the great city and tries to push his way to the top of society; examples are the French novels The Red and the Black (1830), by Marie Henri Beyle, popular as Stendhal (1783-1842); and A Sentimental! Training (1869), by Gustave Flaubert (1821-80); and The Great Gatsby (1925), by the American novelist F .Scott Fitzgerald (1896 to 1940).
Another collection of novels, such as Buddenbrooks (1901), by Thomas Mann; and The Forsyte Saga (1921), by the English writer John Galsworthy (1867-1933), deals with a family's rise and fall. One of the more serious and philosophical forms of the novel is that which concerns a man in his relationship with God or destiny — such as Wuthering Heights (1848), by the English writer Emily Brontë (1818-48), Moby Dick (1851), by the American Herman Melville (1819-91), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), by the Russian Fëdor Dostoevski (1821-81). Several of France's novels- The Immoralist (1902) by André Gide (1869-1951) for one-reflect the personal struggles of their author towards self-realization.
The current short story varies in the same way the novel does from older versions of the narrative. The biggest difference between short fiction and novels is not their length-they are as lengthy as short novels with other short stories. The disparity lies in the larger emotional strength of the short story. To borrow a cinematic phrase, the modern short story is the closing up of a single event, an account of a particular incident in a person's life or perception and its consequences. Of reality, in the old context it may not be a story at all, but just a reminiscence or evoking a specific mood. This follows not by direct explanation but by inference. The Russian Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is a great master of the contemporary short story. The Frenchman Guy de Maupassant (1850-93), the Englishman Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway, an American (1898-1961) are other excellent exponents of the type.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon