I\u2019m a sucker for novellas. I always seek them out in the bookshops, although they are sometimes hard to locate, their narrow spines often lost between the thicker books on the shelves. Once popular, the novella has languished in the past few decades and it was difficult, as a writer, to sell a novella to a publisher or agent. But, today the novella is having a bit of a revival. Some American magazines will accept novellas, Bath Fiction recently had a competition for the novella-in-flash and there are now small publishing houses, such as Peirene Press in London, who publish novellas in translation and Melville House in the USA.<\/p>\n
What exactly is a novella? It\u2019s a short novel, yes, between twenty and forty thousand words – long enough for a reader to inhabit a world but short enough to be read in one sitting. But it is much more than that. A novella tends to focus on one view or one voice, highlights one feeling and portrays one psychological human trait. It zooms in on one aspect of a story. It provokes us to think and use our imagination.<\/p>\n
The novella is \u2013 at least it should be – an intense experience, like watching a movie. There\u2019s a strong resemblance between the screenplay (twenty thousand words) and the novella. Both operate within the same constraints of economy\u2014there\u2019s space for a subplot (possibly two but no more), characters are established with quick strokes but are allowed room to live and breathe, and the central idea, even if it is just below the horizon, always exerting its gravitational pull.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s no room for digression. No room for passenger writing. Every word is doing a job. So pay attention. A short novel is an event, not a trip<\/em>.\u2019 Cynan Jones – writing for Peirene, 2016.<\/p>\n Author Ian McEwan believes the novella is the superior literary form to the novel. (2012) \u2018If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy<\/em>.\u2019 McEwan believes that brevity appeals to readers, because \u2018you can hold the whole thing structurally in your mind at once.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n A novella is Italian for a \u2018little novelty.\u2019 One Thousand and One Nights<\/em>, written in the 10th century, is one of the earliest examples of serialised novellas. Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales<\/em> (1386-1400) could also be considered a type of novella but the novella really came into its own in the 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> century – think of Conrad\u2019s Heart of Darkness<\/em>, Kafka\u2019s Metamorphosis<\/em>, Thomas Mann\u2019s Death in Venice<\/em>, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw<\/em>, Ernest Hemmingway\u2019s The Old Man and the Sea<\/em>, Kate Chopin\u2019s The Awakening<\/em>, Jean Rhys\u2019s Wide Sargasso Sea<\/em> \u2013 to name but a few.<\/p>\n More recent classics include the Catalan, Stone in a Landslide<\/em> by Maria Barbal – a miracle of compression. In a mere 120 pages we get the complete life story of an old woman, covering the entire 20th <\/sup>century.<\/p>\n Some of my favourite novellas are The Dig<\/em> by Cynan Jones, Veronique Olmi\u2019s Beside the Sea<\/em>, A Meal in Winter<\/em> by Hubert Mingarelli, Khirbet Khizeh<\/em> by S. Yizhar, and Train Dreams<\/em> by Denis Johnson. Wioletta Grieg\u2019s book, Swallowing Mercury<\/em> might also be described as a novella \u2013 or perhaps it\u2019s a memoir? But that\u2019s the fun of these books. They often defy categories. The novella has ambivalence built into its very DNA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m a sucker for novellas. I always seek them out in the bookshops, although they are sometimes hard to locate, their narrow spines often lost between the thicker books on the shelves. Once popular, the novella has languished in the past few decades and it was difficult, as a writer, to sell a novella to … Continue reading The Novella<\/span>