One night the pack comes to the cabin and she’s amongst them, and he sees that she has broken her leg, and he takes her into the cabin and puts it in a splint. But it turns out that-if what he’s seen is the truth and not simply what he longs to see-his daughter isn’t dead, but rather she has been taken and brought up by wolves. Okay, so Grainier believes his daughter is dead. Most of the books we discuss on Five Books have been out for a long time, so we’re very relaxed about that. And there’s this extraordinary scene which has never left me. Eventually he rebuilds his cabin on the site of the old one. He has no choice but to continue with his life, but carries a huge amount of grief.
Robert Grainier marries and has a daughter, and there is a terrible fire where his cabin burns downs, and he loses both of them. So maybe that sentiment affects novellas as well in the UK.įor me, the heart of this novella is a wildfire. We also don’t celebrate the short story as much as, say, in the States. the UK, just to clarify for our international readers. They are so intense but compact, so that every word has to count, and it’s about what is left out as much as what’s included.
But actually, I’m sure novellas are just as hard to write as something longer. Perhaps publishers think it puts readers off because they aren’t getting a big, chunky tome that must have taken the author ten years to write and will take a couple of weeks to read.
I think that’s because they worry that readers consider value for money when they buy a book. The story can be sucked up all in one go, and that’s a wonderful thing.Ĭorrect me if I’m wrong, but I think publishers are a bit leery of publishing novellas these days. All the novellas I’ve chosen you can read in two or three hours, so you don’t need to stop to go to sleep, to cook the dinner, to change a nappy or whatever else it is you have to do. For me, as a reader, I think novellas are about being able to get into a story that is intense and engrossing-more so than a short story-but one that you can hold in your head all in one go, unlike a longer novel. I don’t personally have an issue with attention span at the moment, but I know a lot of people do, so I can see that novellas would help with that. A lot of readers have been telling us recently that their attention span is shot-so short, powerful books like these are really welcome. Thank you for recommending to us five of the best novellas.
0 kommentar(er)
