I was chatting with my good friend The Chairman the other night about 'micro-fiction'. I had thought such ultra-short stories to be a relatively modern, American fad. However, The Chairman was convinced that he'd read one of Kafka's lesser-known stories (he couldn't recall the title) that was less than a page long, perhaps only a single paragraph. An early forerunner of the genre? I don't know this one - does it ring any bells with anyone?
I think the word limit for these oddball narrative miniatures is usually these days set at 250 (although I'm sure you may find both longer and shorter allowances). I used to have quite a good anthology of pieces of this length, prizewinners, I think, from an American competition of a decade or so ago. One of my favourites of these was this piece, an extremely concise and elegant joke by Amy Hempel, and one which thumbs its nose at the narrow word limit by using a mere 55 words. (This is quite widely published on the Internet already, I find..... so I hope she won't mind my 'compromising' her intellectual property rights. Please think of it as free advertising, Ms Hempel.).
I suspect this piece has also resurfaced in my mind in the last few days because I am about to play at being a host again myself - Caren (one of my occasional commenters here) and her fiancé Niels are coming to stay for a few days. And the apartment is a complete tip.... so I really ought to be doing something about that, rather than wasting my time blogging.
Enjoy the story.
Hostess by Amy Hempel
She swallowed Gore Vidal. Then she swallowed Donald Trump.
She took a blue capsule and a gold spansule - a B-complex and an E - and put them on the tablecloth a few inches apart. She pointed the one at the other. "Martha Stewart," she said, "meet Oprah Winfrey."
She swallowed them both without water.
She swallowed Gore Vidal. Then she swallowed Donald Trump.
She took a blue capsule and a gold spansule - a B-complex and an E - and put them on the tablecloth a few inches apart. She pointed the one at the other. "Martha Stewart," she said, "meet Oprah Winfrey."
She swallowed them both without water.
6 comments:
Interesting.
Have you heard about the short story "The Dinosaur" by Augusto Monterroso? I just discovered it a few days ago. One sentence long.
Also, WIRED magazine had a little exercise in which folks submitted sci-fi stories of 6 words. Very cool. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html
Your friend might have been talking about Kafka's "Cares of a Family Man"-- We read it in my critical theory class last spring. I posted it together with a sarcastic, Freudian-ish critique on my blog: http://leahwiste.blogspot.com/2006/05/this-is-what-i-do.html .
Thanks for that, OMG, most diverting.
I suspect Stan Lee's offering was hovering in the back of your mind when you wrote your recent complaint about air-conditioning maintenance.
Leah, thanks for the Kafka introduction - I didn't know that one either.
A very entertaining dissection. But please don't bandy phrases like 'castration anxiety' around too often.
Have I told you about Omar and me?
One day, soon, I will.
looks interesting. must mark all this down to check out later.
"so I really ought to be doing something about that, rather than wasting my time blogging."
did you clean up a bit for the grand Lease Re-Signing Rigmarole? has it really mussed all up again?
Or are you just worried about the piles of paper? cuz I'm sorry to tell you that probably won't get organized anytime this year, let alone before Caren Niels show up.
Have fun playing host! (I'll be doing a bit of that myself this weekend.)
Ah, well, I only tidied up up the living room for the landlord's visit the other week. Kitchen, bathroom, guest bedroom were all still a bit grungy.
I was just about to get started on the grand clear-up when I got an invitation to go out drinking with my photographer buddy, Nick. So, had to get up at the crack of dawn yesterday to do laundry and such.
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