Suggestions: July 2014: Short Stories & Novellas

[Polly Parrot]

I will leave this one open for a while to get some suggestions going. Plenty of time.

Any short story or novella, no specific genre.
Feel free to suggest more than one title. I will limit the poll to ten options so if you suggested multiple titles and there are more than ten suggestions I will PM you about which one to put forward.

 

[Polly Parrot]

Italo Svevo, The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl (1926)
The fable-like story of an old man's sexual obsession with a young woman is a distillation of Italo Svevo's concerns--attraction of an older man to a younger woman, individual conscience versus social convention, and the cost of sexual desire. This novella is a marvel of psychological insight, following the man's vacillations and tortuous self-justifications to their tragic-comic end.

 

[Conscious Bob]

I suggest Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, I've always fancied reading it.

 

[Polly Parrot]

Me too but I never got round to it.

 

[Cassiopeia]

Brida... Paulo Coehlo!!

 

[steffee]

How long is too long to really be considered a novella?

Anyway, I'm keen to suggest Amélie Nothomb's The Character of Rain. (Link)

The Japanese believe that until the age of three, children are gods, each one an okosama, or 'Lord Child'. On their third birthday they fall from grace and join the rest of mankind. Narrated by a child - from the age of two and a half up until her third birthday - this novel reveals how this fall from grace can be a very difficult thing indeed from which to recover.

Or, if that's too long (144 pages), then perhaps Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives.

 

[Polly Parrot]

144 pages doesn't seem overly long. Plus, looking at the number of suggestions so far, I might go ahead and add both to the poll.

 

[SuperReaderGirl]

I'm guessing most people have read these in school, but figured I'd offer them as suggestions just in case. They're horrifying but thought-provoking.

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

 

[steffee]

I'm guessing most people have read these in school, but figured I'd offer them as suggestions just in case. They're horrifying but thought-provoking.

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Not read either of those at school. Or since, for that matter.

 

[Polly Parrot]

Poll is up.

 

[pontalba]

Not read either of those at school. Or since, for that matter.

The only Jackson I've read (and loved) is We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Really good stuff.