The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ivan Vladislavić's new collection of stories, 101 Detectives, out from Umuzi in South Africa and from And Other Stories in the UK and US.
These are fine stories and this is good writing, but I have to admit to being somewhat at a loss here: my frustration with story-collections grows apace -- with each encounter, practically -- and nothing seems to help. I've never been a huge fan, but am finding even less satisfaction than usual in them; more than that, I am finding myself annoyed and irritated: I simply don't see the point. Maybe it's all the short pieces I read online (more non-fiction than stories, but still ...) ? Certainly, it's a lack of coherence that bothers me -- why bother collecting stories in a single volume if there isn't some (really) unifying principle to the collection ? Leave the stray pieces stray; there are enough publishing possibilities in this day and age that anyone who wants to find them -- or fit them together for themselves -- can.
More and more I find myself wondering: why can't everybody just write novels ? Well, writers should write whatever they feel like -- but publishers shouldn't feel compelled to package separate things together ..... And me, I think I'll be sticking to novels (and, sigh, the occasional work of non-fiction) for the foreseeable future.
These are fine stories and this is good writing, but I have to admit to being somewhat at a loss here: my frustration with story-collections grows apace -- with each encounter, practically -- and nothing seems to help. I've never been a huge fan, but am finding even less satisfaction than usual in them; more than that, I am finding myself annoyed and irritated: I simply don't see the point. Maybe it's all the short pieces I read online (more non-fiction than stories, but still ...) ? Certainly, it's a lack of coherence that bothers me -- why bother collecting stories in a single volume if there isn't some (really) unifying principle to the collection ? Leave the stray pieces stray; there are enough publishing possibilities in this day and age that anyone who wants to find them -- or fit them together for themselves -- can.
More and more I find myself wondering: why can't everybody just write novels ? Well, writers should write whatever they feel like -- but publishers shouldn't feel compelled to package separate things together ..... And me, I think I'll be sticking to novels (and, sigh, the occasional work of non-fiction) for the foreseeable future.