Kyriakos
07-17-2010, 05:40 PM
Which short story or stories are you most fond of? And why is that?
Here is a list of my five favourite short stories:
5. The outsider, HP Lovecraft
The outsider is the story of a person who is trying to discover what he is. However already in the first paragraph we are being told that he has made a gruesome discovery and he now wants to move as far away from it as possible. Complete with a memorable climax, and also another climactic moment half way through the story, it is regarded by me as one of the best works by this author
4. In the penal colony, Franz Kafka
Around 40 pages long, this is the account of a visit to an penal colony, which appears to have very unussual customs, or at least its old customs were peculiar, and someone still wants to enforce them. Arguably the most graphically violent of all of Kafka's work, it is, perhaps (consciously or not to its author) a striking allegory of the bipolism a son can have in regards to his emotions for his father: the officer on the one hand is set to maintain the old order, that of the father-figure in the story, and the traveller seeks to, hesitantly, dismiss it.
3. The dream of a ridiculous man, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Although Dostoevsky is mostly known for his novels, he has written a few great shorter stories. The dream of the ridiculous man is the narrative of a dream, and also the notes of a resolution to change oneself. Born out of despair, the dream provides a solution to the inner conflict of the narrator between dismissal of the world, and love for it, presenting an utopia of kindness.
2. The sleeping machine, Guy De Maupassant
This is also the account of a dream, but of an entirely different kind. The statistics of suicides, read in the morning paper, make the narrator imagine a world where society would have solved the problem of suicidal depression, by means of an organisation that offered quick and painless death. The entire story is formed masterfully, and its ending is very memorable as a juxtaposition to the dream
1. The recluse of Bayswater, Arthur Machen
I placed this at the first spot, after some thought. Surely there exist a number of other stories i could have picked, but this one means something special to me, perhaps not entirely without any connection to the fact that i once lead a reclusive life in Bayswater, which is a part of central London. The story follows the life of a student of Law, who becomes increasingly isolated, and finally gets sick. He is prescribed medication, but someone has made a mistake, and he is now taking something he should have never come to contact with. The result is arguably one of the most persisting in memory episodes, where only the struggle to break down the door of the main characters room keeps us from learning what his plight was all this time
Ok, that was my list. In your own you can include a different number of stories, even just one. It would be great if you had something interesting to share about them as well, so as to inform others who might be interested in reading them :)
Here is a list of my five favourite short stories:
5. The outsider, HP Lovecraft
The outsider is the story of a person who is trying to discover what he is. However already in the first paragraph we are being told that he has made a gruesome discovery and he now wants to move as far away from it as possible. Complete with a memorable climax, and also another climactic moment half way through the story, it is regarded by me as one of the best works by this author
4. In the penal colony, Franz Kafka
Around 40 pages long, this is the account of a visit to an penal colony, which appears to have very unussual customs, or at least its old customs were peculiar, and someone still wants to enforce them. Arguably the most graphically violent of all of Kafka's work, it is, perhaps (consciously or not to its author) a striking allegory of the bipolism a son can have in regards to his emotions for his father: the officer on the one hand is set to maintain the old order, that of the father-figure in the story, and the traveller seeks to, hesitantly, dismiss it.
3. The dream of a ridiculous man, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Although Dostoevsky is mostly known for his novels, he has written a few great shorter stories. The dream of the ridiculous man is the narrative of a dream, and also the notes of a resolution to change oneself. Born out of despair, the dream provides a solution to the inner conflict of the narrator between dismissal of the world, and love for it, presenting an utopia of kindness.
2. The sleeping machine, Guy De Maupassant
This is also the account of a dream, but of an entirely different kind. The statistics of suicides, read in the morning paper, make the narrator imagine a world where society would have solved the problem of suicidal depression, by means of an organisation that offered quick and painless death. The entire story is formed masterfully, and its ending is very memorable as a juxtaposition to the dream
1. The recluse of Bayswater, Arthur Machen
I placed this at the first spot, after some thought. Surely there exist a number of other stories i could have picked, but this one means something special to me, perhaps not entirely without any connection to the fact that i once lead a reclusive life in Bayswater, which is a part of central London. The story follows the life of a student of Law, who becomes increasingly isolated, and finally gets sick. He is prescribed medication, but someone has made a mistake, and he is now taking something he should have never come to contact with. The result is arguably one of the most persisting in memory episodes, where only the struggle to break down the door of the main characters room keeps us from learning what his plight was all this time
Ok, that was my list. In your own you can include a different number of stories, even just one. It would be great if you had something interesting to share about them as well, so as to inform others who might be interested in reading them :)