In his Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Pierce defined a novel as "a short story padded." The inability to prune a story to its essential story is a unfortunate quality shared by many modern writers and the primary reason that bookshelves are filled with that bloated form of literature. William Faulkner once wondered if writers didn't become novelists after having failed at the short story, "the most demanding form after poetry." Perhaps this is the reason there are even fewer great short stories than there are novels.
I certainly wouldn't know what works would fill the category of "greatest short fiction" which is why -- as is my standard disclaimer -- the following list of short stories is not intended to be representative of the best or most profound works in a particular category. These are merely my favorite 25 stories (at least the ones I could remember). The list is in no particular order and contains links to the stories whenever they are available online.
Here then are my favorite short stories:
1. Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back (The last story Flannery O'Connor is the first in my estimation of great short stories.)
2. Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions
3. Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
4. Frank Stockton, The Lady or the Tiger?
5. Ambrose Bierce, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge
6. W. W. Jacobs, The Monkey's Paw
7. Stephen Vincent Benet, The Devil and Daniel Webster
8. George Saunders, Pastoralia
9. Jonathan Lethem, Hardened Criminals (A strange tale that describes a prison whose walls are made entirely out of convicts.)
10. Flannery O’Connor, Good Country People (A Cinderalla story -- Southern Gothic style)
11. Ring Lardner, Haircut
12. Shusaku Endo, The Final Martyrs (A great tale of cowardly regret by one of Japan's greatest Christian writers.)
13. Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
14. Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest
15. Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist
16. Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
17. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birth-mark
18. James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
19. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (One of the best examples of an undderrated genre: Horror.)
20. Jack London, To Build A Fire
21. Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game
22. John Cheever, The Swimmer (On first reading this story I could see what all the fuss was about. But years later I still can't forget the haunting ending.)
23. Flannery O’Connor, Good A Man Is Hard To Find
24. George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
25. Jonathan Lethem, The Happy Man (The soul of the main character in this strange story makes occasional visits to hell. His body, though, remains behind in a zombie-like state to be cared for by his exhaustively patient family. A peculiar, moving tale of speculative fiction by one of the best writers in America.)
1
Joe:
For what possible reason can you say that horror is an underrated genre? Those of us who like horror, love it. Some people can't stand it because it's too...horrible. Sometimes I think you're a crank, disguised as an intellectual.
posted on 12.02.2005 7:43 AM2
I need to read Parker's Back, since you've put it at the top. A Good Man is Hard to Find is one of the most haunting stories I've ever read. The Misfit is the archetype for every sociopathic, "natural born" killer since.
posted on 12.02.2005 7:48 AM3
I've read so many short stories over the years, but when asked to recommend one, the first one that comes to mind is "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" by Mark Twain. This story is pretty much unlike anything else the man wrote, as evidenced by its dark tone and themes. I thought it was outstanding and would offer that up at the top of my list. You can find the full text of it online here.
http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/the-man-that-corrupted-hadleyburg-and-other-stories/
posted on 12.02.2005 8:31 AM4
JD For what possible reason can you say that horror is an underrated genre? Those of us who like horror, love it. Some people can't stand it because it's too...horrible.
The reason I say that is because I think most people consider it rather “low-brow” and associate the genre with the more mundane stuff, thinking it is nothing more than monster tales and ghost stories. I don’t think the reason people don’t like it is because it is too “horrible” because that term fits about 90% of all fiction.
Sometimes I think you're a crank, disguised as an intellectual.
I’m quite flattered. I am a crank, but for you to think that I disguise it is something of a compliment.
I need to read Parker's Back, since you've put it at the top. A Good Man is Hard to Find is one of the most haunting stories I've ever read.
With all the praise heaped on Good Man, which is a great story, I’ve never understood why PB is so often overlooked in anthologies. The only thing I can think of is that the religious symbolism is more overt and the main character in the story is almost literally “Christ-haunted.”
5
I enjoy (and teach) several of your listed works. I'm disappointed to see that Kate Chopin and Saki (H.H. Munro) are not represented. I love "The Lottery", but I can think of two better Shirley Jackson short stories:"An Ordinary Day With Peanuts" and "A Possibility of Evil".
I'm glad you include "A Good Man is Hard to Find". I sort of expected to find it on your list, as O'Connor was a devout Christian. It is one of my all-time favorites, a brilliant marriage of subtle characterization and third-person omniscient point of view.
posted on 12.02.2005 12:54 PM6
And for what it's worth, the old Doobie Brother's song "I Cheat the Hangman" is "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" put to music.
Yeah, I know, it's not a short story ...
posted on 12.02.2005 2:18 PM7
Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God
posted on 12.02.2005 3:09 PM8
I prefer Hills Like White Elephants to A Clean, Well-lighted Place. The latter story is just a hyper-abbreviated The Sun Also Rises while the former is Hemingway at his very best.
A bit of trivia: London wrote To Build a Fire not in Alaska, but on Oahu.
9
Some highlights from my own short-fiction readings include:
• Bears Discover Fire by Nicholas Whyte
• The Man Born Blind by C.S. Lewis
• Harrison Bergeron and All The King's Horses and really several others from the two short-story collections by Kurt Vonnegut
• Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl (actually, i've enjoyed quite a few of his tales - and a lot of them seem to have found their way into television shows or movies)
And at risk of sounding cheesey, I really did like
• In a Grove by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke
10
"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison and "24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai" by Roger Zelazny
posted on 12.02.2005 7:23 PM11
What, no Bradbury? He's probably the greatest living writer of short fiction.
posted on 12.02.2005 9:26 PM12
And also no Jorge Luis Borges? Such as The Circular Ruins, A Lottery in babylon, The Library of Babel and Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius?
posted on 12.02.2005 11:57 PM