What's the point of short stories? I've read novels

>>9478549
You've read shit stories or are retarded if you can't see the point of short fiction. Have you read Chekhov, Borges, Tolstoy's short stories? Dostoevsky has some great ones. They are economic and deliberative pieces of writing without the bloat of plot, that can be read in one sitting. Here are my favourite short collections

Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinthes
Anton Chekhov - About Love And Other Stories (OUP, Bartlett trans)
Dostoevsky - White Nights & Other Stories (OUP, Myers trans)
Tolstoy - Death Of Ivan Ilyich and Others (Penguin)
Philip K Dick - Reader (Gollancz)

It's also the best form of genre lit particularly sci-fi.

>>9478549
Short stories can b e just as great as novels. There are a decent amount of writers who were masterful short story writers, so i'm not sure why you've not been exposed to at least one of them yet. I think the first short story I read that had a lasting effect on me was Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birth Mark: I shed a few tears at the end, and that's not even an especially amazing short story.

>>9478549
Read Chaucer, Chekhov, Von Kliest, Kafka, Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor, Barth, Barthelme, Borges, Denis Johnson and Nabokov and get back to me.

Also Raymond Carver. He only ever wrote short stories, and he does them very well.

>>9478549
Read the best short story of all time first: The Cask of Amontillado by Poe. Can confidently say that it will create a suspense unparalleled by anything you've ever read.

>>9478621
fpbp

>>9478549
OP, what is the purpose of film? Or one hour television series? Or poetry? ANY of these can be done well. Critical recognition is in the artist's vision and execution. You are reading garbage short stories. See first post for good recommendations.

Short Works in large volume can give you a much richer context of the mind and works of an author - especially authors who primary works were short stories, serialized or otherwise unpublished. I still maintain that Ernest Hemingway's Complete Works are a more important contribution to Modernist writing than any of his novels, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Vonnegut's Complete Works as well and will probably arrive at the same conclusion.

Also, short stories and other abbreviated works allow for the expression of less refined, more radical concepts which make them excellent for exploratory works - this is why so much of Science Fiction has its roots in anthology writing and multi-volume publishing. Since the investment of man hours in any given work is much lower, the writer is free to take bigger risks.

Short stories, despite protestation from academia and critics, have only ever been used as "idea qualifiers". It's the difference between an old man talking about building a shed, and putting the plan into action. They're brief works of technical skill that allow one to say "X is a good author" without ever exploring real intricacy.

There is no good author who primarily works in, or is known for, short fiction.

The novella is what a short story misguidedly aspires to be, and is itself the highest form of literature.

>>9479589
>There is no good author who primarily works in, or is known for, short fiction.
Borges

>>9478621

horrible recs you absolute generic pleb

go outside lit once and a while

>>9479589
Edgar. Allan. Poe.