Okay, I’ve got a thing about verbal economy, but maybe this is too damn parsimonious.
A while back the online magazine Smith presented a six-word “story” by Ernest Hemingway:
For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
A remarkably concise tale indeed—pathos concretized pithily. Smith invited its readers to go mano-a-mano with Papa, and six-word memoirs from its readers came pouring in. The best were culled, and a book was born: Not Quite What I Was Planning, now available from your neighborhood bookseller.
Here are a few examples from the Amazon blurb:
- Found true love, married someone else.
- After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.
A few more from the Smith site:
- This place is getting borderline crowded.
- Married with children (and second thoughts).
- Brush with Death; Comb with Life.
- Interrupted invisible burnings always bright beneath.
- I grew into an abusive child.
I’m trying hard to like these things. Some are clever, but something is bugging me. Maybe it’s the preponderance of abstract words. Or maybe it’s the syntax—too many words need to be supplied by the reader. Is that what makes them start to sound like snippets from the personal ads, or telegrams? Maybe six words is six words too few. Maybe twelve is really the lower limit for a reasonable intellectual or emotional payoff. Even then, what we get might be more like an aphorism or witticism than a “memoir” or “story.”
I think Hemingway’s sixer was pretty darn good (even though it, too, reads like a classified ad). I don’t know if I’ll seek out more.
Addendum 2008.03.02: Last week Salon got into the act. The results to date are not encouraging.
My fav: Brush with Death; Comb with Life.
Not so sure how I feel about all of these as ¨stories.¨ I mean, they don´t really qualify, do they? But some of them are witty/funny.
p.s. Ernest H.–not such a good writer in my book (no pun intended). Just sayin´…
You read the wrong Hem. I mean, what HS teacher in his or her right mind would assign To Have and Have Not instead of the early stories, which are gems? Even A Moveable Feast would’ve been better. Well, be thankful the assignment wasn’t Across the River and Into the Trees.
I agree that “Brush with Death …” is cute; but it ain’t a “story.”
Anyhoo, thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment.
No, no, no. Old Man and the Sea is what turned me off from his books forever. I realized something was wrong when I wanted the fish to eat the fisherman because 1. it would make a better ending, and 2. the book would end faster.
😀
I wouldn’t assign Old Man either. Well, I guess you’re an permanently formed anti-Hemingwayan, due at least in part to a misguided introduction to his writing. (There’s a good deal of Hemingway that is arguably quite awful. Old Man isn’t awful, but it’s not what I would use to get someone started.)