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It is truly with the German Novella, beginning in the 18^th century with writers like Kleist and his The Marquise of O. and continuing into the 19^th and 20^th Century with writers like Thomas Mann, that the modern literary novella gains its strength and unique place in literary history. It gains a form and a structure that goes beyond length since they could be from as little as 500 words and as much as 30 000 words. It is with the German novella that strict rules of narrative and composition are created and followed. it had to have a single, suspenseful, event, situation, or conflict, leading to an unexpected turning point providing a logical but surprising end. As important, the themes of these German Novellas explored the dark elements that lurk within civilization, as well as the struggles of man against himself.

Since then, the novella has blossomed and matured, moving into many directions. But for me the best novellas are those that retain the tight structure that one can still find in the well-known novellas that have become classics of the genre.  In them we find a number of commonalities. The modern novella retains what is its most visible and recognizable feature, as well as its strength-its length. Although widely debated, there is now a general consensus that the lower limits are about 15 000 words and an upper limit of about 45 00 words, and that translates into a book of 60 to 150 pages. And it is at that word count that we find the following classic novellas, L’etranger/the outsider by Albert Camus, at 120 pages, Death in Venice by Thomas Mann at 73 pages, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck at 107 pages, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad at 97 pages, The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway at 125 pages, Billy Budd by Herman Melville at under 100 pages and last but not least a Canadian novella Bear written by Marian Engle at 115 pages.

Limitation in the number of character is very important to this genre. A novella needs only one main character, maybe two, and we tend to remember them. Who can forget Meursault in the outsider, or Aschenbach (in Death in Venice,) or Lenny, and George (in Of Mice and Men,) Marlow and Kurtz (in Heart of Darkness,) Santiago better known as the old man, (in The old man and the sea,) Billy in Billy Budd. And Maybe less well known is Lucy in Bear. The compactness of the novellas is created by having the story take place in a minimum number of settings or a confined space, and more importantly, within a short time frame. For Example, we have someone telling a story on a large ship and most of the tale takes only a matter of weeks in Billy Budd. We have a riverboat, and the Congo Jungle all within a matter of months in Heart of Darkness. We have the Old man and the Sea taking place on a small fishing boat in 2 or 3 days; the beach, and Venice all in one summer in Death in Venice, Algiers and the beach in one summer in l’etranger, and a house on a deserted island in Northern Ontario also for one summer in Bear.

The novella offers a concentration of plot, with one situation and no subplot, as well as cornucopia of serious themes, themes that explore the underbelly of society, of humanity, of evil and good in an individual and in society, innocence and experience, madness and sanity. We can see this in all the classic novellas. For example in one we have the story of a famous German writer who departs from his usual routines, falls in love with a young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of indulgence. The themes in that book explore the relationship between art and life, love and death. In another, travelling through colonial Congo, a man is send to pick-up a gifted and profitable trader who may have gone mad.  The limits of human experiences, as well as the nightmarish realities of imperialism are the themes there. There is also a man who does not cry at his mother’s funeral, goes to the beach and the cinema, kills someone and is condemned to death more for the former behavior than the later.  Man’s alienation and contempt for society’s moral values as well as a man who agrees to die for the truth are the themes. A woman living a sheltered life goes to northern Ontario to catalogue the contents of an estate and has an unusual sexual experience with a bear. The liberation of womanhood and the facing of personal truths are the themes. In Billy Bud we have a tragic incident at sea with the handsome and innocent Billy and Claggart his cruel tormentor who falsely accuses him of mutiny. Biblical and homosexual themes abound there.  Santiago endures and successfully survives his supreme ordeal of catching the big fish and then losing it, fighting the timeless battle of man vs. fate. Two drifters, dream of owning their own place find work on a ranch and then tragedy happens. The theme of loneliness and alienation are well illustrated in this gem that always makes me cry when I get to the end. In all these novellas we have that single, simple, concentrated story line wrapped in dark deeply serious themes.

At Quattro we look for all types of literary novellas, some quite experimental, but my favorites are those that still include the mentioned characteristics, for example:

Grace by Vanessa Smith it is 130 pages, with one main character, Grace, a 22 year old young woman. The time frame is a month and it is set in one city, with only a few different locations. The plot is simple; she has an affair with an older man, and later finds that she has contracted herpes. The theme explores the crossing from youth and innocence to adulthood and experience.

Ms. Leibowitz brings literary theory of the novella down to basics, she says that the primary feature of the novella is “Its unique ability to combine the economy of the short story,” which she calls intensity, “with the openness of the novel” which she calls expansion. Walter Sitz another theorist says, “the novella’s flexibility, amenability to innovation and ability to accommodate dramatic development with compactness,” is its strength. These interpretations make sense. When you read a good novella, you know immediately that it is the right length for its content. Something clicks; there is a ha-ha moment when the reader gets that full impact. You know intuitively that if it was shorter, it would not have seemed right, the development would have felt truncated, but you also know that if it had been longer by another 100 pages the impact would have been diluted. Only the novella gives you that perfect length to develop and tightly intertwine the themes, characters, narrative, plot, and to crank up the tension until it is at its highest so that it can create that sudden reversal of fortune or that great epiphany, all within 100 pages. It is because all those literary ingredients are still fresh in the reader’s mind, that when done well, they can blend to perfections by the time you reach that last page.

As the earlier examples have shown, with such rich history the novella should not need a defense, but its lack of commercial success in Canada prompts one to come to its defense and explain one more time why writers should be writing novellas, why publishers should be publishing novellas, and why readers should demand and read more novellas.

For the reader, as we have said, at its very essence, it’s a short read, up to a 6-hour read, and fits in quite well with the lifestyle of the modern reader who wants compact literature of great quality. It allows the reader to get maximum exposure to great literary prose. Because a literary novella is thematically driven to explore serious and often dark and difficult issues, a longer read might be too depressing and/or lose its impact.  As well, an overlong humorous and/or satirical work would tend to wear thin after a while, imagine Animal Farm at 300 pages. As well, readers can sample novellas in translations where they can get a bite-size introduction to a foreign author, a foreign literary sensibility.

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