Posted on 24/01/04
The art of the matter
The French have two words for short stories -- conte and nouvelle -- "the tale" and "the news" -- and this is a useful distinction. The tale can be set anywhere, and can move into realms that are off-limits for the novel -- into the cellars and attics of the mind, where figures that can appear in novels only as dreams and fantasies take actual shape, and walk the Earth. The news, however, is news of us; it's the daily news, as in "daily life." There can be car crashes and shipwrecks in the news, but there are not likely to be any Frankenstein monsters; not, that is, until someone in "daily life" actually manages to create one.
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