The Skinny on Slender Novels [2]

How these novels (and a few others) work

1.  ANGLE OF NARRATION

Monolog:

• Night, Edna O’Brien, 1972

• Travesty, John Hawkes, 1976

• The Fan Man, William Kotzwinkle, 1974

• Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1864

Group Discussion:

• The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy, 1886

Case Study:

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886

Account of life events before imminent death:

• Tinkers, Paul Harding, 2009

• The Yellow Rain, Julio Llamazares, 1988

• Woman at Point Zero, Nawal el Saadawi, 1975

Memoir/personal narrative:

• The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa, 2003

• Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson, 1992

• House of Jasmine, Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, 1987

• Sleepless Nights, Elizabeth Hardwick, 1979

• Closely Watched Trains, Bohumil Hrabal, 1965

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, 1962

• Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan, 1955

Collective memoir:

• The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka, 2011

• We the Animals, Justin Torres, 2011

• Leaving Cheyenne, Larry McMurtry, 1963

Testimony about event/crime:

• They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Horace McCoy, 1935

Account of a past relationship told by a witness [or narrator]:

• Sula, Toni Morrison, 1973

• Jamilia, Chinghiz Aitmatov, 1958

• Thousand Cranes, Yasunari Kawabata, 1952

• The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers, 1951

• Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton, 1911

• Daisy Miller, Henry James, 1878

Account of past event(s) told by a witness:

• Chess Story [aka The Royal Game], Stefan Zweig, 1942

• Hadji Murat, Leo Tolstoy, written 1896-1904

Frame story/Story within a story:

• Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton, 1911

Epistle/Diary/Notes:

• The Time Night, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, 1992

• Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth, 1800

• The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774

Fragments on a Theme:

• Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, Xiaolu Guo, 2008

• Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson, 1992

• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros, 1984

• A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Danilo Kiš, 1976

• Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, 1972

Satire:

• Puckoon, Spike Milligan, 1963

• Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1946

• The Foundation Pit (trans. by Chandler & Meerson), Andrey Platonov [written 1931]

• The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton, 1908

• Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth, 1800

Noir:

• Down There [aka Shoot the Piano Player], David Goodis, 1955

• After Dark, My Sweet, Jim Thompson, 1955

• Double Indemnity, James M. Cain, 1943

• They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Horace McCoy, 1935

2.  CONTAINING/FOCUSING DEVICES

One day:

• The Waitress Was New, Dominique Fabre, 2005

• Shyness and Dignity, Dag Solstad, 1996

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1961

• Seize the Day, Saul Bellow, 1956

• The Pilgrim Hawk, Glenway Wescott, 1940

One night:

• Man in the Dark, Paul Aster, 2008

• Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O’Nan, 2007

• By Night in Chile, Roberto Bolaño, 2000

• The Time Night, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, 1992

• Night, Edna O’Brien, 1972

The span of one event:

• Hunger, Elise Blackwell, 2003 [Seige of Leningrad]

• In the Flesh, Christa Wolf, 2002 [sickness]

• The Funeral Party, Ludmila Ulitskaya, 2001 [wake]

• Fear and Trembling, Amélie Nothomb, 1999 [working for bad boss]

• Evening, Susan Minot, 1998 [wedding weekend, remembered]

• The Lover, Marguerite Duras, 1984 [affair]

• A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr, 1980 [task]

• Travesty, John Hawkes, 1976 [impending car crash]

• Puckoon, Spike Milligan, 1963 [transporting body]

• Chess Story [aka The Royal Game], Stefan Zweig, 1942 [ocean crossing]

• Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter, 1939 [influenza epidemic]

One Event and its fallout [or anticipation]:

• On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan, 2007 [failure of wedding night]

• Intimacy, Hanif Kureishi, 1998 [leaving wife]

• Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates, 1992 [car accident, abandonment]

• The Fifth Child, Doris Lessing, 1988 [birth of child]

• Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto, 1988 [murder of friend’s mother]

• Cal, Bernard MacLaverty, 1983  [loving the wife of man he’s to kill]

• Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1981 [lead-up to murder]

• The Ice Palace, Tarjei Vesaas, 1963 [disappearance of closest friend]

• The Pearl, John Steinbeck, 1947 [finding giant pearl]

• The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West, 1918 [man ruined by war]

One Place:

• Saddam City, Mahmoud Saeed, 2003

• We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson, 1962

• Border Town, Shen Congwen, 1934

Buildup to a surprising event:

• Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates, 1992

• Ghosts, César Aira, 1990

• Closely Watched Trains, Bohumil Hrabal, 1965

• Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan, 1955

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