Anyone ever read a novel like this?

[RGame]

I've been wondering if there's a novel that is actually a book of short stories using the same character that covers that character's entire life? Something like ten or twenty vignettes or stories that might have the first story at age ten, the next one five or ten years later, and so on.

I got an idea to try and write something like that and I know it must have been done before. I'm curious to read a book like that now. Anyone read one?

 

[scooter13]

The only book I know like that was not in fact written to be that way. It was compiled later, and that being Hemingway's "The Nick Adams Stories". As far as I know there is some speculation that not all of the stories were supposed to be about Nick, but they fit the timeline when they put it together. I read it about a year ago and found it interesting.

 

[mehastings]

The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing is like that. So are Local Girls and the three Ya-Ya books.

 

[manatherindrell]

The Rowan is like that. It was published as short stories and was later incorporated into a novel.

 

[WoundedThorns]

i could only think of anne of green gables.. an 8 book series. i wouldn't call those books short, but they progress in time w/ her life.

 

[steffee]

Dubliners.

Not really Joyce's life exactly but it does cover every period from birth to death, and is fascinating to read.

 

[sirmyk]

My first novel is merely a collection of five novellas / novelettes with characters weaving in and out of each story. Many writers do this. Go with it; it's a cool style.

Twenty vignettes of a single character is pretty much a novel (about a single character) broken into twenty chapters.