That was a very interesting discussion on the length of short story
Prof.Rao raised. I believe that, in all the forms of fiction, short story
is the most powerful, and also very difficult to write. Short story
prospered the most probably, in English. Though telugu writers discovered
the importance of this form quite early, it did not quite catch on as did
the concept of novel. For interested people, I recommend Smt.Parvati's
prize winning article on 'telugu navala - social impact', published in
TAGDV's souvenir a couple of years ago. Short stories did not catch on
until the boom in weekly and monthly magazines about 10 years ago. In his
(fairly long) introduction to the short story anthology, 'Tellers of
Tales', Maughm writes: The possibility of publication, the exigencies of
editors, have a great influence on the kind of work that a particular time
has produced. So, when magazines flourish which have room for stories of
considerable length, stories of that length are written; when newspapers
publish fiction, but can give it no more than a small space, stories to
fill that space are written. There is nothing disgraceful in this. The
competent author can write a story in a couple of thousand words as easily
as he can write one in ten thousand. But he chooses a different story or
treats it in a different way. Guy de Maupassant wrote one of his most
celebrated tales, 'The Legacy', twice over, once in a few hundred words for
a newspaper and the second time in several thousand for a magazine; I think
no on can read the two versions without admitting that in the first there
is not a word too little, and in the second not a word too much. (BTW,
Ramakrishna gaaroo, The Necklace was written by Maupassant too).
What Maughm wrote above exactly reflect my sentiments in this matter. A
parallel example in Telugu may be Sreepaada subrahmaNya Saastri. Most of
his stories are of considerable length, and cannot be read in one sitting.
It seems he wrote these same stories much shorter at first for publication
in magazines, or for radio broadcast. Then he would expand them to his own
satisfaction, and these expanded versions were published in his anthologies
(three volumes recently published by viSaalaandhra). So, I guess, it
finally boils down to the author's prerogative-whether he (she) finds it
necessary to write a certain length to do justice to the subject. If the
output is good, I don't think the reader would be complaining about the
length.
This reminds me of a prize winning story in the above mentioned TAGDV
souvenir. The basic story line was good, but I sincerely felt that the same
story could be told in about half the size, and more effectively. May be I
am biased, because I had to type that story into the computer from an
illegible manuscript!:-)
I am eager to hear what others have to say in this regard.
Regards to all
Nasy