Why do I like novellas?

[Swammerdami]

Let me confess at the outset that I guess I have read little literary fiction compared with many of you. So my remarks suffer from small sample size. (Most of the fiction I do read is popular spy/crime/detective thrillers.)

Fiction is classified by length into novels, novellas, and short stories. But I suppose the length imposes a big effect on the work's structure; and it's like three different genres. I like novellas.

Let's start with Fyodor Dostoevsky. Decades ago I bought Brothers Karamazov and forced myself to read it. In a stupor I perversely let my eyes gaze (or glaze) over every page in the book. Why I persisted I do not know. If I had to summarize it now, I'd write "There were four brothers, and one killed his father. Which brother? Who cares." Doubling down on the perversity I forced myself to read -- or at least start -- two other Dostoevsky novels. No luck.

I bought a book with Dostoevsky short stories. they were excellent! But I'm not really a fan of short stories: maybe they're just too ... short.

But Dostoevsky's novella Notes from Underground is near the very top on my list of favorite literature! (This is due in part to the similarities between the novella's protagonist and myself -- but if you need to discuss that, please post in the Psychiatry for Swammi thread.) The Gambler is another novella-length Dostoevsky I found quite readable.

Ernest Hemingway: Same thing. His short stores are very good. But his novella The Old Man and the Sea is my very very favorite piece of literature. But I don't think I've ever even finished a full-length Hemingway novel.

John Steinbeck. Again the same thing! I love his novellas Of Mice and Men and The Pearl. I've never even been able to finish any of his novels.

I've read very little Jack London, but his novella-length Call of the Wild is one of my very favorites. (For decades it was my standard response to the "Favorite Novel?" question.) I also liked London's To Build a Fire, a 40-page "short story." And John le Carre's shorter novels are his best.

Googling I see that much fiction I've enjoyed by Graham Greene is classified as novellas. Scanning their list, I see that Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara is a "novella". I've read almost zero Faulkner, but someone excerpted one of his novels down to novella size and I enjoyed that! A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, some works by Franz Kafka and some Doyle novellas about Sherlock Holmes are more examples, but you get the idea. (There are exceptions. I love Mark Twain, so the longer the better when I'm reading his fiction!)

Any others here who find novellas to be the perfect length for good reading?

 

[rousseau]

Even better, I prefer poetry. It's as short as fiction gets.

I'm the same way, I rarely find full novels worth the payback. I stopped reading them quite a while ago.

 

[southernhybrid]

I used to love those long Russian novels, but hated Hemingway, enjoyed some novels like "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson MC Cullers, and "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, to name a few. But, about 10 or so years ago, I lose my love for fiction. I even hate poetry if it's longer than about 10 or 15 lines, so I only read nonfiction, and enjoy it very much. We all have different tastes and I also think out tastes often change over the years. So, whatever you enjoy is all that matters. If I read, I want to learn something new or at least try to learn something new.

 

[rousseau]

When you break it down most novels are about the equivalent of a long playing film. They can be very good, but at the end of the day authors are restricted to a standard narrative. So those who like novels are those who like reading very long stories.

For the most part, the kind of stories that reach mass appeal aren't something I want to spend weeks with. Not enough payback.