In a special Christmas post, we bring you James Joyce’s festive short story ‘The Dead’: ‘Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest…’
PODCAST: In the final instalment of this Short Story Masterclass series, Jac Cattaneo talks with COLIN BARRETT about the things you leave out of a short story, fictionalised settings, and finding the ending of a story…
JOHN VERLING loses himself in The Essential James Joyce at Christmastime: ‘I’d never thought of Joyce as a page turner, but I read ‘The Dead’ in double quick time, totally taken aback by its depth yet its simplicity…’
ELEANOR FITZSIMONS discusses Oscar Wilde’s ardent storytelling and the stories we never got to read: ‘His own popularity was assured by his eagerness to entertain, to the extent that society hostesses took to including the words ‘to meet Oscar Wilde’ on invitations, in a bid to boost attendance at their gatherings…’
PETER JORDAN profiles the life and writing of Anton Chekhov: ‘…no writer gets closer to articulating the human condition. It took me a long time to understand what he was doing, I still don’t fully understand, I simply know that when reading his work I feel some emotional shift…’
In Arthur Morrison’s collection Tales of Mean Streets, MIKE SMITH finds that the characters are ‘victims of their own inadequacies, rather than of the injustices of the wider world. To some, this must seem an unsympathetic gaze – the brutality certainly shocked his contemporaries – but we are used to brutality now… How should we see these stories?’
KENNETH OKPOMO takes a closer look at one of Nigeria’s literary talents: ‘Helon Habila’s ascendancy into literary fame and stardom did not come by accident or chance; he worked hard for it…’
PODCAST: In the second instalment of this series of Short Story Masterclass podcasts, Jac Cattaneo talks with TESSA HADLEY about the differences between writing short stories and novels, starting points and the power of speech.
‘Consider the word ‘quirky’. Consider the number of times the word is applied to the works of Ali Smith … But maybe it’s not that these stories are ‘quirky’, it’s that so many others are too sedate…’ TRACY MAYLATH looks beyond the quirkiness of Ali Smith’s stories.
PAT TOMPKINS considers the flawed but powerful story of human aspiration and the consequences of industrialisation: ‘Life in the Iron Mills’ brings us a view of outsiders, those ignored and disdained by the wider society. As the best short stories do, it gives voice to the lonely…’
