I'm fond of the short stories of O'Connor & Borges, too. Hemingway is a surprisingly great short story writer, much better than he was a novelist. I don't necessarily agree that they have to end abruptly or ambiguously, but I think that, like many writing techniques, the short sharp shock can be very effective when performed well.

I just checked the Bible of current teaching about short stories: the current Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, which has made some pretty interesting changes from the one used in my Freshman English Lit class some 16 years ago. For one, having modern authors write about older short stories, such as Barry Hannah on "Heart of Darkness," sounds fascinating. Although they've tilted a bit more modern with the inclusion of writers like Hannah, Madison Smartt Bell, and Andrea Barrett, they still have a good grasp on the stories that I would consider the most influential to modern short fiction writing, such as Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," Faulkner's "The Bear," Welty's "Why I Live At The P.O.," and Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants." I'm interested to go home and see what's been cut now.

Come join me in the land of anticipating a trilogy. We've got the minions building some pyramids. They're quite fetching.

Maybe. But I won't buy the third unless someone else reads it first and tells me that he actually went back and revists and gives appropriate conclusion to the shit he brought up.

Favorite short stories(besides my "sister", Ms. O'Connor) probably: Everything in "Goodbye, Columbus" but especially the title and "Defender of The Faith"(Which I love so much I...named a fic after it? Well, Mr. Roth knows love hurts, right? But the two stories have sod-all relation...I just couldn't resist the reference.) Oh, and that Dorothy Parker one where she's waiting for a man to call...not that deep, but funny and universal. Isn't it "The Telephone Call"? ETA: If I thought too hard about how young PR was when he wrote that stuff, I'd probably kill myself.

I'd say that short stories can be more experimental than novels. It's a more flexible format for the writer and the audience. And the publisher. So you can do stuff like The Lady or The Tiger, The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, To Build A Fire... I wouldn't say that short stories are better if they have mysterious/shocking/etc. endings. But those kinds of endings are better in short stories. Not that there aren't exceptions in both directions, but I suspect that any kind of experimental writing is going to be more common in short stories. Particuarly SF stories, since they're on the fringes of the fringes.

Ooo, Borges! A favorite, and a good point about how his endings tend to clarify the surreality. Sort of.

I should pick up Norton. Pretty much all of my short story collections are genre.

(The joke of "To Build a Fire" is that it was originally written as a children's story, and was considerably less dark than its current format. I twas actually rewritten for publication twice, and the version we read today is the darkest version.)

I can occasionally find mainstream short story collections a slog, especially if there is no unifying theme or principle -- it's like sitting at table with no idea what the next course will be. Also, for some reason the dominant paradigm of mainstream story stories right now seems to be kind of -- dull, to me. I can't really describe how, just, it's rare that a short story outside the genre really turns my thumbscrews, whereas recent mainstream novels have worked well. Maybe I'm crappy at picking short stories?

Shirley Jackson is a great short story writer, beyond "The Lottery." I would tell you why, but I am full of snot and cold medicine.

But I love her! And her novels are so short -- she really gets the most out atmosphere and characters in a compact form.

Yeah, she's an excellent economical writer. A more recent novel in her style is Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory, which is a great piece of mundane horror from the viewpoint of an unreliable narrator. The other two Banks novels I've read were terrible, though.

The other two Banks novels I've read were terrible, though.

Which ones were they?

Song of Stone was one, but I can't recall the name of the other one offhand.