Conclusions and literature
Dec. 22nd, 2006 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieI am sad to say that yesterday I gave up on Neil Gaiman's new book of short stories, Fragile Things. So few of the stories had anything resembling a conclusion that I just couldn't continue once I'd gotten two thirds of the way through. If there's one thing I hate, it's a story(/novel/movie) that just ends, apparently in the middle of things, and without even the vaguest sense of completion.
This, of course, puts me at odds with approximately 95% of modern non-genre literature.
It's not that I require everything be wrapped up with a pretty red bow. Not at all; while some stories call for that, there are others where leaving loose ends fits much more nicely. But take, for example, Jennifer Shaff's short story "Leave of Absence," which can be found in the Best New American Voices 2006 anthology. Young female P.E. teacher's parents die. While she's mourning, Mr. Spock (yes, that one) lands in her basement. They spend some time at a school bus demolition derby getting metal for spaceship (although he ends up not needing it), and she says she'd like to go back to the future with him. There is a short interlude with the P.E. teacher's crunchy granola hippie brother. Then Scotty abruptly calls down from the Enterprise, and says they're ready to beam Spock back up. P.E. teacher abruptly decides not to go with him, for reasons she can't explain. He leaves. She returns to teaching.
...What can you do with that? What's the point? Why did it take twenty-four pages to tell? Why are SO MANY things written today so very much like it?
I don't have an answer to any of those questions. But I do have this:
This, of course, puts me at odds with approximately 95% of modern non-genre literature.
It's not that I require everything be wrapped up with a pretty red bow. Not at all; while some stories call for that, there are others where leaving loose ends fits much more nicely. But take, for example, Jennifer Shaff's short story "Leave of Absence," which can be found in the Best New American Voices 2006 anthology. Young female P.E. teacher's parents die. While she's mourning, Mr. Spock (yes, that one) lands in her basement. They spend some time at a school bus demolition derby getting metal for spaceship (although he ends up not needing it), and she says she'd like to go back to the future with him. There is a short interlude with the P.E. teacher's crunchy granola hippie brother. Then Scotty abruptly calls down from the Enterprise, and says they're ready to beam Spock back up. P.E. teacher abruptly decides not to go with him, for reasons she can't explain. He leaves. She returns to teaching.
...What can you do with that? What's the point? Why did it take twenty-four pages to tell? Why are SO MANY things written today so very much like it?
I don't have an answer to any of those questions. But I do have this:
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-23 04:53 pm (UTC)Maybe you'll find reasons to like this one that I didn't?