Word: novelness
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...Only two were novels—Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” and Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”—which suggests that there should be a different focus in the traditionally novel-dominated study of 20th century American literature...
There is an inherent prejudice in literary culture against the story as a lesser art form than the novel. Literary critics are obsessed with arguing about the so-called Great American Novel, but one never hears a debate about what could be termed the Great American Story. Many claim that the short story is dead, arguing that most contemporary writers write stories while in school as a mere stepping stone to eventually writing novels. Ironically, the short story is the most organic American literary form, largely developed by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Aside from...
...short story offers inherent advantages over the novel, stemming simply from the length, which imposes a certain focus and brevity on the author’s prose. The writer can simply offer an evocative scene, without the pressure of maintaining plot momentum and design over the course of a full-length novel. Perhaps the greatest strength of the form is that the story relies so heavily on what is left unsaid. Every gesture, every phrase, every detail in a great story takes on additional significance since it both signals the literal action and evokes everything that is left...
...novel, Imperfect Birds (Riverhead; 278 pages), functions in reverse, suggesting all the terror of the big picture. It's about Elizabeth and James, liberal do-gooders from Marin County, California (and the subjects of her previous novels Rosie and Crooked Little Heart), and their daughter Rosie. At 17, Rosie is "black-haired, strapping and fabulous" and an academic high achiever, but she does every drug under the sun, including her peers' parentally dispensed Adderall. The book is a stark illustration of deception, denial and parents' desperate desire to stay loved. You emerge from its last bittersweet pages ready to drug...
Several professors at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have taken a novel approach to teaching physics—cooking in class...