el cuento vs la novela (según Millhauser)
hace unos meses leí este ensayo de Steven Millhauser
--creo q en the NY Times, no me acuerdo- acerca de los cuentos
y su diferencia con las novelas y la (¿secreta?) ambición que tienen...
tema a debatir: ¿cuál es la diferencia en ambición entre un corto y un largo?
y, ahora, ¿entre un largo y una serie? ¿se puede hacer analogía entre los largos y los documentales,
tal como entre la ficción y la no-ficción?
No sé: sólo sé que deseo seguir con cuentos, con cortos, con novelas,
con no ficción y con "investigaciones", con documentales, con largos....
aqui un par de trozos de lo plantado por Millhauser (en inglés)
The Ambition of the Short Story
By STEVEN MILLHAUSER
The short story — how modest in bearing! How unassuming in manner! It sits there quietly, eyes lowered, almost as if trying not to be noticed. And if it should somehow attract your attention, it says quickly, in a brave little self-deprecating voice alive to all the possibilities of disappointment: “I’m not a novel, you know. Not even a short one. If that’s what you’re looking for, you don’t want me.”... The novel is the Wal-Mart, the Incredible Hulk, the jumbo jet of literature. The novel is insatiable — it wants to devour the world.
What’s left for the poor short story to do?
It can cultivate its garden, practice meditation, water the geraniums in the window box. It can take a course in creative nonfiction. It can do whatever it likes, so long as it doesn’t forget its place — so long as it keeps quiet and stays out of the way... The short story is always ducking for cover. The novel buys up the land, cuts down the trees, puts up the condos. The short story scampers across a lawn, squeezes under a fence.
The novel is exhaustive by nature; but the world is inexhaustible; therefore the novel, that Faustian striver, can never attain its desire. The short story by contrast is inherently selective.
By excluding almost everything, it can give perfect shape to what remains. And the short story can even lay claim to a kind of completeness that eludes the novel — after the initial act of radical exclusion, it can include all of the little that’s left... What the novel cares about is vastness, is power...The novel wants things. It wants territory. It wants the whole world. Perfection is the consolation of those who have nothing else...
... the ambition of the short story, the terrible ambition that lies behind its fraudulent modesty: to body forth the whole world. The short story believes in transformation. It believes in hidden powers. The novel prefers things in plain view. It has no patience with individual grains of sand, which glitter but are difficult to see... The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe...
...It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself. It becomes bigger than the novel. It becomes as big as the universe...
...Therein lies the immodesty of the short story, its secret aggression. Its method is revelation. Its littleness is the agency of its power. The ponderous mass of the novel strikes it as the laughable image of weakness. The short story apologizes for nothing. It exults in its shortness. It wants to be shorter still. It wants to be a single word. If it could find that word, if it could utter that syllable, the entire universe would blaze up out of it with a roar. That is the outrageous ambition of the short story, that is its deepest faith, that is the greatness of its smallness.
--creo q en the NY Times, no me acuerdo- acerca de los cuentos
y su diferencia con las novelas y la (¿secreta?) ambición que tienen...
tema a debatir: ¿cuál es la diferencia en ambición entre un corto y un largo?
y, ahora, ¿entre un largo y una serie? ¿se puede hacer analogía entre los largos y los documentales,
tal como entre la ficción y la no-ficción?
No sé: sólo sé que deseo seguir con cuentos, con cortos, con novelas,
con no ficción y con "investigaciones", con documentales, con largos....
aqui un par de trozos de lo plantado por Millhauser (en inglés)
The Ambition of the Short Story
By STEVEN MILLHAUSER
The short story — how modest in bearing! How unassuming in manner! It sits there quietly, eyes lowered, almost as if trying not to be noticed. And if it should somehow attract your attention, it says quickly, in a brave little self-deprecating voice alive to all the possibilities of disappointment: “I’m not a novel, you know. Not even a short one. If that’s what you’re looking for, you don’t want me.”... The novel is the Wal-Mart, the Incredible Hulk, the jumbo jet of literature. The novel is insatiable — it wants to devour the world.
What’s left for the poor short story to do?
It can cultivate its garden, practice meditation, water the geraniums in the window box. It can take a course in creative nonfiction. It can do whatever it likes, so long as it doesn’t forget its place — so long as it keeps quiet and stays out of the way... The short story is always ducking for cover. The novel buys up the land, cuts down the trees, puts up the condos. The short story scampers across a lawn, squeezes under a fence.
The novel is exhaustive by nature; but the world is inexhaustible; therefore the novel, that Faustian striver, can never attain its desire. The short story by contrast is inherently selective.
By excluding almost everything, it can give perfect shape to what remains. And the short story can even lay claim to a kind of completeness that eludes the novel — after the initial act of radical exclusion, it can include all of the little that’s left... What the novel cares about is vastness, is power...The novel wants things. It wants territory. It wants the whole world. Perfection is the consolation of those who have nothing else...
... the ambition of the short story, the terrible ambition that lies behind its fraudulent modesty: to body forth the whole world. The short story believes in transformation. It believes in hidden powers. The novel prefers things in plain view. It has no patience with individual grains of sand, which glitter but are difficult to see... The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe...
...It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself. It becomes bigger than the novel. It becomes as big as the universe...
...Therein lies the immodesty of the short story, its secret aggression. Its method is revelation. Its littleness is the agency of its power. The ponderous mass of the novel strikes it as the laughable image of weakness. The short story apologizes for nothing. It exults in its shortness. It wants to be shorter still. It wants to be a single word. If it could find that word, if it could utter that syllable, the entire universe would blaze up out of it with a roar. That is the outrageous ambition of the short story, that is its deepest faith, that is the greatness of its smallness.
posted by Alberto Fuguet at 10:37 AM
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