Five Things I Love (& 5 I Can Do Without)
Short Books not Long Ones
Five Things I Love 2
The books I like best are 120-200 pages. I love novellas, books of miniature essays, collections of flash fiction. I like it best when a writer is concise, when they get in and out quickly. This is why I am drawn to the books of Deborah Levy, Sarah Manguso, Bohumil Hrabal…and also to The Red Notebook by Paul Auster and The Great Gatsby.
I want to be the kind of writer who gets in and out quickly. Instead my books tend to stretch well past 90,000 words. Why do I always say too much? Or, perhaps a better question: how can I learn to say more in fewer words? In conversations with friends and acquaintances I tend to sit back and listen. Observe. Bide my time. I am only verbose on the page. Or so I think.
However: my son and husband, who know me better than anyone, agree that I talk a lot. “You are always talking,” my son says. “Especially during the movie,” my husband adds. “Especially during the most important part of the movie,” my son says, “when they reveal the meaning of life.”
Once, a woman I recognized from my son’s elementary school attended one of my readings. She came up to me afterward, having kindly bought my book, and as I was signing it she expressed her surprise. “Oh, I didn’t know this writer was you! But you’re so shy! You’re the mom who stands alone in the corner of the playground and doesn’t talk to anybody!”
It is true I stood alone in a corner of the playground. I was always reading a book. In the corner of the playground, while my son climbed on the monkey bars, I could extend the solitude of reading for another few minutes, until it was time to go home, resume my role as mother and wife, and (apparently) start talking a mile a minute.
In my defense I think I’m so quiet in the world, so beholden to brevity, that when I get home I let down my hair. The words have to go somewhere. Into a book, sure. Into an essay. Onto my computer or into the notebook. But some words have to be spoken, in which case there are two people, mainly, to whom I speak them: the aforementioned and unfortunate son and husband. Bless their hearts.