The Novel Wins By Points, The Short

The Short-story Writer Knows That He Can't Proceed Cumulatively, That Time Is Not His Ally. His Only Solution Is To Work Vertically, Heading Up Or Down In Literary Space.

We Know That Attention Acts As A Lightning Rod. Merely By Concentrating On Something One Causes Endless Analogies To Collect Around It, Even Penetrate The Boundaries Of The Subject Itself: An Experience That We Call Coincidence, Serendipity – The Terminology Is Extensive. My Experience Has Been That In These Circular Travels What Is Really Significant Surrounds A Central Absence, An Absence That, Paradoxically, Is The Text Being Written Or To Be Written.

Skill Alone Cannot Teach Or Produce A Great Short Story, Which Condenses The Obsession Of The Creature; It Is A Hallucinatory Presence Manifest From The First Sentence To Fascinate The Reader, To Make Him Lose Contact With The Dull Reality That Surrounds Him, Submerging Him In Another That Is More Intense And Compelling.

I Can't Think Of Another Writer Who Can Move Me As Surreptitiously As Vian Does

Memory Is A Mirror That Scandalously Lies.