Short Stories

[myrna22]

Which is what everyone has been saying to Myrna the entire time.

So anyone talk about some Tim Pratt?

Then everyone has completely missed my point. The idea here,apparently, is go along with everyone else, don't have any independent opinions? Do not think for yourself seems to be the big idea here. And logical fallacies win the day?

[NickAdams]

It does baffle me here that so many posters either have no interest in or no knowledge of anything written since the early 1900's. Why is that?

Flannery O'Conner, Truman Capote, & JD Salinger also wrote great short stories. But the premier American short story writer of the late 20th century is Raymond Carver.

I've read only "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I've returned to a couple of the stories once or twice, but I would pick a Donald Barthelme collection if I had to go with a late 20th century American author.

Which is what everyone has been saying to Myrna the entire time.

So anyone talk about some Tim Pratt?

I clicked on the link and read a few paragraphs. Not my cup of tea ... and not because it's genre fiction, but because of the prose. Thanks for introducing me to the site though. I may take a look at some of the other fiction.

[keilj]

Then everyone has completely missed my point. The idea here,apparently, is go along with everyone else, don't have any independent opinions? Do not think for yourself seems to be the big idea here. And logical fallacies win the day?

naw, you're missing some good posts where people share differing opinions, things they've read that others haven't, so on.

Plus, in all honesty, you've stated time and again about new/recent writers who are not in the "old classics who everybody pipes on about" category, yet you have not shard these writers names, or books they've written, with us at all

[myrna22]

naw, you're missing some good posts where people share differing opinions, things they've read that others haven't, so on.

Plus, in all honesty, you've stated time and again about new/recent writers who are not in the "old classics who everybody pipes on about" category, yet you have not shard these writers names, or books they've written, with us at all

This thread is about short stories and I posted a long list of stories and authors.

No the whole point here is don't disagree, don't have an independent opinion. Just like all of you who can only talk about 'classics' because you are afraid of anything you haven't been told what to think about.

[OrphanPip]

This thread is about short stories and I posted a long list of stories and authors.

No the whole point here is don't disagree, don't have an independent opinion. Just like all of you who can only talk about 'classics' because you are afraid of anything you haven't been told what to think about.

My.. my... let's rein in the antagonism a little bit.

Plenty of people are quite fond of Proulx (although I think she's grossly over-rated), O'Connor (a fantastic writer, "A Good Man is Hard" to Find is one of my favourite short stories), and other contemporary writers. (O'Connor isn't quite contemporary though)

I don't perceive all too much of a bias against the contemporary in most threads. If you go to the older great short stories thread, many post-WW2 stories are proposed.

Although, you'll find most of the people with an interest in world literature tend to circulate in the poetry section.

[keilj]

This thread is about short stories and I posted a long list of stories and authors.

No the whole point here is don't disagree, don't have an independent opinion. Just like all of you who can only talk about 'classics' because you are afraid of anything you haven't been told what to think about.

well speaking from personal experience - in high school and college, I actually got totally driven away from nearly all books becasue of hot air instructors and hot air student who liked to pontificate on about "great old books", many of which I thought were not very good books. Because of these pretentious blowhards, I had to essentially go back and learn from scratch what I liked in a book, what kind of writers I liked, so on.

But there is also the problem of finding the lesser known authors. I could go broke buying and sampling newer fiction, much of which is rubbish, to find the hidden gems. This probably has as much to do with the modern paradigm of publishing for profit as it does with my lack or skill at finding the unknowns or lesser knows

Then there is also the topic of Americans (and perhaps other nationalities as well) and how they do fall into the "drone" mindset of being fed their opinions. But I think if anything, the folks on this site are at least well-read, and are perhaps better suited to combat this kind of "mindless regurgitation" than most other forums I have been on

[Drkshadow03]

I clicked on the link and read a few paragraphs. Not my cup of tea ... and not because it's genre fiction, but because of the prose. Thanks for introducing me to the site though. I may take a look at some of the other fiction.

Heh. Tim Pratt is one of my favorite short fiction writers. Still haven't tried any of his novels, though.

[NickAdams]

My.. my... let's rein in the antagonism a little bit.

Plenty of people are quite fond of Proulx (although I think she's grossly over-rated), O'Connor (a fantastic writer, "A Good Man is Hard" to Find is one of my favourite short stories), and other contemporary writers. (O'Connor isn't quite contemporary though)

I don't perceive all too much of a bias against the contemporary in most threads. If you go to the older great short stories thread, many post-WW2 stories are proposed.

Although, you'll find most of the people with an interest in world literature tend to circulate in the poetry section.

well speaking from personal experience - in high school and college, I actually got totally driven away from nearly all books becasue of hot air instructors and hot air student who liked to pontificate on about "great old books", many of which I thought were not very good books. Because of these pretentious blowhards, I had to essentially go back and learn from scratch what I liked in a book, what kind of writers I liked, so on.

But there is also the problem of finding the lesser known authors. I could go broke buying and sampling newer fiction, much of which is rubbish, to find the hidden gems. This probably has as much to do with the modern paradigm of publishing for profit as it does with my lack or skill at finding the unknowns or lesser knows

Then there is also the topic of Americans (and perhaps other nationalities as well) and how they do fall into the "drone" mindset of being fed their opinions. But I think if anything, the folks on this site are at least well-read, and are perhaps better suited to combat this kind of "mindless regurgitation" than most other forums I have been on

I personally didn't read anything in High School, but I didn't attend either.
But debate has gotten to the Freudian limit:

Freudian - "You have unresolved issues with your parents."
Subject - "No I don't."
Freudian - "You do, but you are in denial and that means that issues are worst than I thought."
Subject - "You're right."
Freudian - "That's what I wanted to hear."

We are at the point where someone can't genuinely like "classics" without being thrown in to the catergory. But thinking for others is not far from not thinking for yourself and that's what happens when one generalizes others (not directed at the posters quoted).

Even Carver is a safe choice and when I say James Joyce is a fine short story writer, I mean James Joyce; however, if I say the same about Carver, I mean the Carver-Lish team.

Heh. Tim Pratt is one of my favorite short fiction writers. Still haven't tried any of his novels, though.

You can still enjoy him.