Longer Short Stories

When our initial fiction packet containing what were called "Short Stories" was freshly removed from my printer, I succumbed to a bit of laughter when I noticed how short they actually were. This week's discussion about three comparatively long stories, which I will call "normal-length" in acknowledgement of their eponymous categorization, are more along my lines of expectation.

There's a lot to admire about this form of writing, and how they influence these stories; the time given to develop characters and cause intrigue, if not emotional involvement with the reader, without proper introductions is fascinating, and the descriptive terminology used in the stories is widely necessary to uphold the enrapturing nature of a short story, yet still somehow entirely unique amongst one another. Perhaps my respect for short-form literature stems from this necessity: drawing a reader in and causing some sort of provocation, whether it be curiosity at the plot or admiration of the atmosphere or a connection to the characters, is not an easy thing to do, yet we see such variation here in such a limited scope that it's hard not to admire these works.

The first story is, I'd like to think, my favorite, though the ending admittedly confused me. The writer presents us with a rather mundane scenario of internship at what appears to be some sort of psychology/sociology hub, complete with terminology that would probably rise above the typical dialog of many readers, yet makes it work tremendously. We are presented with a duality of sorts, in which a so-called observation is flipped on its head halfway through the story. While we may realize what's going to happen pretty quickly through the story, thanks to the curt-yet-revelatory descriptive nature of the writing and in particular the environments, its the nameless characters who steal the show, leaving us reveling in a scenario neither one of them is certain about, but one that we know is ultimately debilitating for the participants and cruel for the instigators.

The precise use of scientific annotations really helps drive this one home; while most people would look at things like this and roll their eyes, in this story they provide insight to the mentality of the characters (which is, really, non-existent otherwise), and the entire setting can be envisioned as some artsy movie, in which we can watch the mental stagnation and degradation of these characters with verifiable emotions. It certainly ends on an ineffably odd note (unless I misunderstood something obscure in the midst of the story), but the context of the entire writing is nothing short of clever, enjoyable manipulation of the human psyche-- both in the story, and of the reader.