Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words. He is reported as having said it was his best work. I think he might have been smiling a little tongue-in-cheek when he said that. I hope he was. Nevertheless, when I heard this, having been a fan of his novels in my teens, I wanted to read his ‘best work’.
This is it: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
It is maybe clever. The way that some modern art is clever. It sets up questions in the reader as modern art sets up questions in the viewer. It relies on the reader bringing something to the piece, as art does. But, just as I am suspicious of Duchamp’s urinal turned on its head, so I am suspicious of that six-word piece - and in both cases I am not altogether certain of why I am suspicious. I have heard that some think Hemingway's piece is so poignant, that it suggest so much in those shoes not ever having been worn. But just as I still wonder if Duchamp’s urinal is really art, or all those white or blue or yellow canvasses, or all those accidental spilled-paint works, so here I am left wondering if there is enough of a story here. A neat little party game, certainly, but maybe that is all.
It is no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with flash fiction. As a way of writing it seems to be very fashionable at the moment. I notice that more and more competitions have sprung up for flash fiction. It remains to be seen if this is anything more than a ‘flash in the pan’ (sorry!). Some say flash fiction better fits our in-a-rush world. I don’t know about that. What I do know is that I love writing flash. It is like sketching. The lines can be free and quickly drawn and it does not have to be complete in the way that a story or novel is. It can be like poetry, too, with every word resonating. And if what you write turns out to be rubbish, then it is no great loss of time. But I hate flash too. I hate reading flash, hate that I am left with a short taste of something, and left wanting a bigger bite. Even with pieces where I can see the craft and can marvel at the result - maybe more so with these 'wonderful' pieces. Clever and thrilling, but ultimately not enough.
I have had some success with flash fiction of my own, but I have also taken flashed pieces and explored them more fully as stories, fleshed them out. Or written sets of flashes, or a whole series of connected and at the same time separate flashes. As a writer and as a reader these are much more satisfying.
Maybe, as Adam Marek says in his essay included in Vanessa Gebbie’s textbook for the short story, I am one of those who does not have the right gland, the gland that encourages the ‘right’ response to short fiction. I don’t know.
The first story I ever wrote ambitiously attempted to create a whole Andean village in 3000 words. I think I was writing a little novel. Not just capturing a moment in the life of this Andean place, but suggesting a whole life for the village beyond the words on the page. Is that what Hemingway has done here? Suggested a bigger story beyond his six words? Are the shoes unworn because they were merely bought as a gift by a doting aunt, but bought as the wrong size for the baby’s big feet (comedy)? Are we to think that the baby shoes were bought before the birth of the baby and not ever worn because the baby was stillborn (tragedy)? Are they just the wrong colour – blue when the baby turned out to be a girl (human interest)? I could go on inventing… just as standing in front of a yellow canvas with the title ‘Yellow, 42’, I could go on ‘seeing’ things in the brush strokes. I don’t think ‘Yellow, 42’ works for me as a piece of art. And similarly this Hemingway 6 word piece doesn’t add up.
It is not a story. It is, for this reader at least, unsatisfying in its brevity. Just as unsatisfying as flash is for me. When my children were young enough that I could read to them, they wanted the stories I read to spin on and on. Not just because it meant that they were putting off sleep, but because the longer the stories went on the more complete the world they had been lead into, and the more wonderful the experience. Yes, as short story writers, we sometimes have to leave room for the reader to enter into the story and to complete it sometimes. The reader has to bring something of themselves into the reading; but they do not bring the whole story.
Duchamp’s urinal is a urinal. An artist calling it art doesn’t, in my view, make it art. Even the army of critics scratching their sage beards and nodding and saying ‘marvellous’ does not convince me. With Hemingway, the same. His 6 words constitute little more than an ad in a personal column where I am more conscious that every word costs the advertiser money than I am of any story. So, for me, not his best work by more than a few baby steps.
You are, of course, allowed to disagree.
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