I was just thinking "Well, I finished Son of a Witch, but that conversation's already happened." and then this opening showed up.

OMG, incomplete ending that blows a lot. I've seen it work a few times in longer works, but there needs to be a sense of an ending, if not the ending, although I think that that holds for short stories, too. I can deal with and even like the ambiguity of an open ending, but there does need to be an "ending" with the "open"

ITA, DebetEsse.

I can deal with and even like the ambiguity of an open ending, but there does need to be an "ending" with the "open"

Ah, well put.

I was just thinking that two of the first short stories I really loved were "The Sound of Thunder" and "The Lottery" (fairy tales excluded here) which resolve, although the ending note is brief and not sustained.

I've since read about a billion short stories - I really like the form, and some of the best genre work is done in short story format, and it seems to me that the ending is the crucial part. Some stories stop just short of resolution, some deliberately stop at an ambiguous place, and very few seem to fully define ending events.

I guess it's a spectrum, and I'm wondering what the point along the spectrum is that meets with the widest reader appreciation. I seem to like resolutions, but only just.

Aimee, re-reading old comments. I really wanted to sit Liir down and have a talk about his mother (and what the Hell was the point of putting the alleged disclaimer all the time?) and himself. "Kid. You make the broom fly. You're a witch."

The thing that I really like about short stories is that you can go places with them that you can't with longer works: explore interesting ideas that just can't hold the weight of a bigger plotline, but are more than worth poking a little, or, even if they can hold the weight, there's no need for it. The flip side of that is that I hate having a story feel like it's a longer work trying to get out.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is my favorite from 2005.

It hit me similarly. I had no idea I even cared until, all the sudden, I was a freakin' mess. It was very impressive, because I knew Ishiguro was heading towards a conclusion like that, but when it arrived, it just devastated me.

However, my favorite recent novels out of the books I read in 2005 were David Maine's The Preservationist, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, and Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead

oh yes. This left me with tears streaming down my face more than once. In public.

That was an amazing piece of work. The writing was so gorgeous that a lesser novelist would have had a hard time creating a character rich enough to talk and think that way. Especially one who's never left the small town he lives in.

Have you read Housekeeping?

I was just thinking that two of the first short stories I really loved were "The Sound of Thunder"...

Ah, the story that made me wish I could go back in time and prevent Ray Bradbury from signing away the movie rights.

Have you read Housekeeping?

It's one of my favorite books evah.

The narrator of Gilead reminded me of my paternal grandfather. In a way that I can't really explain. My grandfather was from Mississippi and Texas not the midwest and was a teacher/football coach not a preacher but something about the Gilead narrator's voice so strongly evoked my grandfather's for me that it gave me chills of recognition.

something about the Gilead narrator's voice so strongly evoked my grandfather's for me that it gave me chills of recognition.

Lovely. My paternal grandfather's internal monologue was probably a lot closer to The Judge's rambling stream o' violence in Blood Meridian.