Aesthetic Daisycutter Bomb
William Boyd on the short story:
Perhaps that’s what we are looking for, as readers, more and more these days – a sort of aesthetic daisycutter bomb of a reading experience that does its work with ruthless brevity and concentrated dispatch.
Have a read of that. It’s a measured analysis of what short stories are and provides some useful ideas about how to think about them. Theory notwithstanding, it also points out who some of the best short story writers are, including dear old Jim Ballard. If Boyd is right then these are the people who can provide you with the concentrated dose of prose you’re looking for.
Those of you who are still reading this after the Big Robot experiment might be wondering whether there’s likely to be a reprise of that kind of material from me or the others involved. To be honest I felt like the whole thing was a bit sloppy and naive, but recently I’ve received a few encouraging comments about it which has made me reflect on the whole process a little differently.
I had pretty much stopped writing fiction after Big Robot. I’ve turned out a few half-hearted ventures, but nothing particularly inspired or inspiring. That is set to change. I’ve begun to collate ideas at a terrific rate, and my inchoate ideas about fiction are starting to sort themselves a little more clearly. I won’t be running another Big Robot, but I will be contributing something a little more interesting later in the year. I’m genuinely looking forward to it.
More on this in the months to come…
May 21st, 2006 at 5:17 am
Maybe that should be two contributions later in the year. Just you wait, something special is really happening at the moment…
May 21st, 2006 at 6:13 pm
I’m really enjoying Letzter Atem.
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Cheers matey. The response so far has been quite lovely.
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:35 pm
In this factory in the north of England acid was essential. It was contained in large vats.Gangways were laid above them. Before these gangways were completely safe a young man fell into a vat feet first. His screams of agony were heard all over the department. Except for one old fellow the large body of men was so horrified that for a time not one of them could move. In an instant this old fellow was also the young man’s father had clambered up and along the gangway carrying a big pole. Sorry Hughie, he said. And then he ducked the young man bellow the surface. Obviously the old fellow had to do this because only the head and shoulders – in fact, that which had been seen above the acid was all that remained of the young man.
‘Acid’ by James Kelman – My favourite daisycutter of a reading experience. Also a story that can invoke more horror in one paragraph than some writers can in a hundred pages (thanks for the link Mr Rossignol, it felt nice to read that article and flex the accademic muscles again).
May 24th, 2006 at 11:23 am
How odd. This very morning I was talking about how Brian Eno is playing in Bath Abbey tonight. He was doing a similar thing with music a while back, basically creating 5-second pieces that tried to produce a specific emotion in the listener. He started doing it because Microsoft commissioned him to write the 5-second intro jingle on Win95, which was supposed to be “aspirational”.