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tristansreadingmania 's review for:
Fifty Great Short Stories
by Milton Crane
WHAT MAKES A GREAT SHORT STORY?
The sudden unforgettable revelation of character; the vision of a world through another's eyes; the glimpse of truth; the capture of a moment in time.
All this the short story, at its best, is uniquely capable of conveying, for in its very shortness lies its greatest strength.
It can discover depths of meaning in the casual word or action; it can suggest in a page what could not be stated in a volume.
-- Milton Crane
In my fledgling first few years as a more dedicated reader of prose, the short story anthology was my go-to format. Primarily it was a wonderful way to keep my at that time multi-tasking, by visual culture addled, jumpy brain engaged long enough to absorb one contained narrative, but I also steadfastly relied on it to transport me to a great wealth of worlds and settings, to plant me smack-dab in the heads of fictitious strangers, who naturally didn't remain strangers for long. The "grand novel" to a young, somewhat neurotic, compulsively anal me, was off bounds for a while until I had proven my mettle by consuming shorter works. Self-denial, thy name is Tristan, or so it seemed.
In hindsight though, I see now I was in fact unconsciously adopting the mindset of the journeyman (though initially not in the sense that I actually wanted to apply what I learned to writing myself): Start small, first dissect the mechanics of fiction in its most compressed format, and only then proceed on to bigger - yet not necessarily greater - things.
This approach - even though its execution was far too strictly observed by me - in the end served me well. During that process, acquaintances were made with many a writer, some entirely unsuspected. At the very least, I discovered more of them than if I would have delved into the real meat of their oeuvre first. Short stories have always been somewhat neglected or found to be inconsequential, regarded as something most writers grudgingly have to dabble in to beef up their income between larger projects. A stance I -and masters of the form - have always heavily disagreed with, but I won't further expound on that here.
In short, it helped me in making my taste reveal itself to me. Soon, if a bit rabidly, I started acquiring the collected works of those individuals who managed to speak to me. Which turned out to be a not insignificant number, pity my wallet!
For lovers of the format with a classical bent, Milton Crane's - whose name without fail manages to remind me of lovable dweeb Niles Crane from Frasier, but that's neither here or there - 1952 anthology has been a mainstay for more than half a century.
Running the gammit from technically sound, yet slighty tedious to masterfully invigorating, an anthology like this is bound to be a bit of a muddled affair. Its inherent constraints reveal themselves pretty quickly: the cut-off point at 1952 (thus missing a large chunk of 20th century writing), and the primary focus on Anglo-Saxon writers, with the odd French and Russian one thrown in for good measure being the most apparent ones. Tough choices have to be made of course, and the editor must be applauded for not lazily picking just the best-known, predictable examples. How it plays to a modern audience, I haven't the foggiest idea. A supplement to Crane's orginal selection might be in order here. Surely this can be done.
Still, if you're looking for a comprehensive anthology featuring almost all of the classic masters of the form, you could do far worse. Within, the entire spectrum of human emotion is contained. Dip away, I say!
The sudden unforgettable revelation of character; the vision of a world through another's eyes; the glimpse of truth; the capture of a moment in time.
All this the short story, at its best, is uniquely capable of conveying, for in its very shortness lies its greatest strength.
It can discover depths of meaning in the casual word or action; it can suggest in a page what could not be stated in a volume.
-- Milton Crane
In my fledgling first few years as a more dedicated reader of prose, the short story anthology was my go-to format. Primarily it was a wonderful way to keep my at that time multi-tasking, by visual culture addled, jumpy brain engaged long enough to absorb one contained narrative, but I also steadfastly relied on it to transport me to a great wealth of worlds and settings, to plant me smack-dab in the heads of fictitious strangers, who naturally didn't remain strangers for long. The "grand novel" to a young, somewhat neurotic, compulsively anal me, was off bounds for a while until I had proven my mettle by consuming shorter works. Self-denial, thy name is Tristan, or so it seemed.
In hindsight though, I see now I was in fact unconsciously adopting the mindset of the journeyman (though initially not in the sense that I actually wanted to apply what I learned to writing myself): Start small, first dissect the mechanics of fiction in its most compressed format, and only then proceed on to bigger - yet not necessarily greater - things.
This approach - even though its execution was far too strictly observed by me - in the end served me well. During that process, acquaintances were made with many a writer, some entirely unsuspected. At the very least, I discovered more of them than if I would have delved into the real meat of their oeuvre first. Short stories have always been somewhat neglected or found to be inconsequential, regarded as something most writers grudgingly have to dabble in to beef up their income between larger projects. A stance I -and masters of the form - have always heavily disagreed with, but I won't further expound on that here.
In short, it helped me in making my taste reveal itself to me. Soon, if a bit rabidly, I started acquiring the collected works of those individuals who managed to speak to me. Which turned out to be a not insignificant number, pity my wallet!
For lovers of the format with a classical bent, Milton Crane's - whose name without fail manages to remind me of lovable dweeb Niles Crane from Frasier, but that's neither here or there - 1952 anthology has been a mainstay for more than half a century.
Running the gammit from technically sound, yet slighty tedious to masterfully invigorating, an anthology like this is bound to be a bit of a muddled affair. Its inherent constraints reveal themselves pretty quickly: the cut-off point at 1952 (thus missing a large chunk of 20th century writing), and the primary focus on Anglo-Saxon writers, with the odd French and Russian one thrown in for good measure being the most apparent ones. Tough choices have to be made of course, and the editor must be applauded for not lazily picking just the best-known, predictable examples. How it plays to a modern audience, I haven't the foggiest idea. A supplement to Crane's orginal selection might be in order here. Surely this can be done.
Still, if you're looking for a comprehensive anthology featuring almost all of the classic masters of the form, you could do far worse. Within, the entire spectrum of human emotion is contained. Dip away, I say!