Matthews, B 1901, The Philosophy of the Short-Story, 1st edn, University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.

• Favouring of the novel over the short story as if it were a higher form of art
• Short story vs short novel (“novelet”) – inherently different (novelet is just a small novel, after all)
• “A true Short-story is something other and something more than a mere story which is short” (p 15)
• “Unity of impression” (p 15) – short story is more “precise” in the choices it makes
• Short story contained: one action, one place, one day (this is first degree nonsense)
  • Makes a more interesting further point: the short story has one thing to say – one key emotion or theme to convey, that might span decades or not. The narrative centres around it anyway
• “The Short-story is the single effect, complete and self-contained, while the Novel is of necessity broken into a series of episodes” (p 17), “unity of impression” (p 17)
• Novels are tedious because they conventionally must contain lovers and a hero / heroine; short stories are not bound by this constraint
• “Love seems to be almost the only thing which will give interest to a long story” (p 20)
• The short story writer doesn’t have time to be ploddingly descriptive, must find concise and vivid ways to present the environment
• Fantasy + ethics = big tick from Matthews (fantasy as a reflection of the inner self also highly commendable)
• A beginning writer would do better to write short stories than launch into a novel – teach themselves how to tell a story
• Matthews takes time to honour the great American tradition of bashing the English. He thinks the French are pretty good, though

Dahl – Lamb to the Slaughter

• First off, I love this (and all) of Roald Dahl’s adult fiction
• Action contained, much like a play – the living room, kitchen, and Sam’s grocery. Characters, slightly two-dimensional (fleshed out by our preconceptions and the plot) move through it
• Very little backstory – all action contained in the moment (Mary’s reaction to the news of her husband’s affair rather than a flashback)
• Matthews’ principle of one day, one location, one action etc
• Scene set so you fill in the blanks with what the typical reader would be familiar with (slightly outdated with the wife waiting for her husband, but otherwise contemporary) – does this mean that the readability of certain short stories have an expiration date? Like how Shakespeare is sold with those guides and almost impossible to really understand otherwise
• Story does rely to an extent on clichés – the inefficient policeman, the sweet pregnant wife (of course subverting the cliché so brilliantly – elegant that Dahl keeps her mind on realistic preservation of the child but elevates Mary past role of wife and mother to very clever person and murderer)