Can a novel be a collection of short stories?

[john7]

I'm thinking of participating in NaNoWriMo, and somebody said that they were going to write a collection of short stories. I would like to do this, but I'm not sure if this would actually count as a novel.http://pages.eggge.com/images/56.gif

[Ragnar Freund]

Gone.

[OrphanPip]

The barrier between a short story cycle (a collection of related short stories) and an episodic novel is difficult to determine. A good way to make it more novelistic is to have the uniting element of the short stories be a single character, or to place the short stories within a larger frame narrative.

[Big Dante]

Dubliners by Joyce was a collection of short stories showing the different lives led in the city.
As long as there is a major theme relating them then yes. If they are all unrelated than it is more a collection than an actual novel.

[osho]

I have read a few stories titled under Dubliners by James Joyce recently and most stories have something in common, capable of being a novel with their inter-thread like connection. Epiphany is the major theme. The protagonist in most stories through lots of struggles, humiliations and sufferings come to realize the futility something his ideals or idols to understand the bitter reality everyone has to know in the end. The main protagonist in the Dead for instance loves his wife and believes she too loves him but with a sudden realization she has loved somebody more and the thought of him is still haunting her when he came to know by coercing her when she was lost in memory of her lover who had already died.

[Dark Muse]

Both Winseburg Ohio and Olive Kitteridge are novels which are made up of a collection of stories. The stories in which can stand alone but when put together they are all interrelating with reoccurring characters

[Stewed]

Damn, I'd got to thinking of Winesburg Ohio when I read the first post! AND, one of my last classes in English was a seminar on Epiphany literature, where we studied Dubliners. So: Dante: at least one eccentric, epiphany-obsessed now-retired professor agrees with you. As do I.

[Arrowni]

In short yes: every novel is made of shorter stories.

[prendrelemick]

I would say no. Unless there is a strong connection between them.

[David Lurie]

There was a discussion about this
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55749

[mal4mac]

Why are you so bothered about NaNoWriMo? If you want to write some short stories, write some short stories!

[osho]

In fact amongst the ones I have read only James Joyce sounds relating one novel or story to another and I often feel his enter books of novels, short stories even poems can be condensed into one big novel. Many of his characters resemble or have the same name in his novels and stories, their settings mostly are based in Dublin and about Dublin. Of course writers often unknowingly repeat the same things, the same characterizations in their different novels.

[Austin Butler]

You should read Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner and what he has to say about it.

[Arrowni]

An argentinian 20th Century writer named Saer also employs recurring themes and makes his work seem like a great novel.

[PeterL]

There are many novels that were built from stort stories, and sometimes the short stories are unchanged. The Sound and the Fury is four short stories, and I understand that Faulkner originally wanted there to just be Benjie's story, but it di't work. Asimov's Foundation novels were written as short stories and novellas that were published in magazines as separate pieces. Winesburg has been mentioned, and there many other examples.

[john7]

Thank you my friend.

[Wolffman]

I'm thinking of participating in NaNoWriMo, and somebody said that they were going to write a collection of short stories. I would like to do this, but I'm not sure if this would actually count as a novel.http://pages.eggge.com/images/56.gif

As long as there is some connection between the characters, perspective and values, then a series of short stories is a novel.

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh is a collection of short stories, but because it has a narrative arc and recurring characters, it is widely considered to be a novel.