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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.18786380 [Reply] [Original]

What do you consider the best short story written in the 21st century?

>> No.18786421

>>18786380
/lit/ doesn't care about shorts baby

>> No.18786693

>>18786421
Why is this?

>> No.18786700

Cat Lady by Mira Boyle

>> No.18786728

>>18786700
Got a link?

>> No.18786827

https://www.guernicamag.com/superman/

>> No.18787317

>>18786827
Just read this and liked it a lot. Do you have more?

>> No.18787322

>>18786700
This

>> No.18787436

>>18787322
Post a link then juggo

>> No.18787442

>>18786380
me

>> No.18787459

>>18786380
Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian. She deconstructs the modern man with devestating accuracy.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

>> No.18787878

>>18786380
Probably something by Delicious Tacos. I really liked The Gift but Universal Basic Woman is also pretty popular. He’s the voice of a generation.

>> No.18788233

>>18787459
This.

>> No.18788263

>>18787459
this story was to boring to finish, but you are right about the modern man part

>> No.18788311

>>18786380
all the 21C story stories i enjoy i dont think are technically any good if i apply any sort of metric to them, like Sam Pink or Tao Lin. they're just sort of "real". the start of Delicious Tacos most famous novella is very good but as a whole it falls flat.

what else

>> No.18788333

>>18786693
We prefer bottomless

>> No.18788350
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>>18787459
>He was tall, which she liked, and she could see the edge of a tattoo peeking out from beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt.

>> No.18788373

>>18788350
Manlet detected

>> No.18788387

>>18788350
step outside for once incel, this is the world we live in

>> No.18789379

>>18788387
I think the poster might have been making a point about how pathetic the writing is and not about the content.

That sentence reads like something a young grandma would write after reading something akin to 50 Shades of Grey.

>> No.18789387

>>18787459
Modern Anglo probably

>> No.18789405

>>18789379
It's the female equivalent of a guy writing 'she had nice breasts, which he liked, and her clothing was stylish but not slutty'. Why do women get away with this

>> No.18789439

>>18789405
>Why do women get away with this

I wasn't aware men couldn't write 'she had nice breasts, which he liked, and her clothing was stylish but not slutty'.

Perhaps you're right, though. I hope you aren't.

Fucking nerds taking over the world has fucked us.

>> No.18789464

>>18789439
A guy would rightfully be mocked for writing that. It's childish to complain about le double standards anyway, that line just made me lol, like oh really you like tall guys with tattoos

>> No.18789474

>>18789464
That's the point I was trying to make. It's extremely poor writing, to the point where it comes across as ironic.

>> No.18789479

>>18789474
We all know it's not ironic though...

>> No.18789521

>>18789479
Exactly, that's what makes it so sad.

>> No.18789564

>>18787459
Are you butterfly? Also, this story was decent but it's sounds like she just fucked an incel lmao

>> No.18789706

>>18787459
unironically great story

>> No.18789731

>>18789379
It's not bad though, it's accurate and concise. Neurotically excising every single detail that could be construed as trite is not how to write a story.

>>18789405
Except that writing is bad ('stylish', 'not slutty', leave absolutely no picture in my head) and incel and this is good because she's the protagonist and it's convincing. She gets away with it because you're too caught up on the sex of the author to see how accurate both characters are, which is why she gets 1 million dollar advances on her stories, and you get to seethe

>> No.18789744

>implying anyone here reads short stories
>implying anyone here reads 21st century writing
The fact that Cat Person is the only one mentioned shows this, because it's the only one anyone here has heard of.
Try Midnight in Dostoevsky

>> No.18789760

>>18789731
How sheltered are you that you don't think corporate entities take into account the sex of individual when choosing who to give carrots out to?

>> No.18789766
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>>18789744
>Try Midnight in Dostoevsky
based, that's what I came to post. "The Starveling" really sticks with me too.

>> No.18789807

>>18789731
Lol

>> No.18789926

>>18789744
Does anybody here even subscribe to literary magazines, keep up to date with the up and coming writers and poets? I sure as shit don't

>> No.18789980

>>18789926
you know what the standards are for publication at the New Yorker, Paris Review, Southern Review, etc etc. and they're not literary quality or literary significance. so why bother.

>> No.18790029

>>18789980
>so why bother
To keep abreast of developments in the field? To find new writers to explore? To measure your own writing against contemporaries in your field?
How do you know there is no merit or significance to be found?

>> No.18790090
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>> No.18790345
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>>18787459
The prose is fairly underwhelming, considering both the magazine and the author's "credentials"
>Barnard College
>PhD in English from Harvard
>MFA from University of Michigan
The story and narrative are, themselves, passable. Obviously it's missing a lot of the reflection upon why Robert is a socially inept fuck , why he doesn't deserve sympathy or an explanation , the fact that Margo is somewhat of a bitch for not just politely breaking up with him , and her friend being similarly callous when she takes the wheel and brutally dumps him on her behalf . Aside from that, it does nail "the manchild" down pretty well, as well as the general autism that manages a woman's mind when it comes to dating.

Obviously, the New Yorker isn't publishing the highest quality, most thought-provoking literature it receives in its submissions box. It's publishing what its readership (Brooklynite Bobos and their parallel urbanites elsewhere who absolutely must have this magazine face-up-and-center on their coffee table) wants. Seeing as that readership wants what's trendy and "in-vogue," which itself is defined by magazines like TNY, TNY is effectively publishing literature that promotes the ideas that the magazine wants to promote. They create the demand and then supply it. Literary quality, which requires a discerning artistic eye and a lot of time/effort, can be bypassed in favor of propaganda, which requires only a set of checkboxes.

Recall that #MeToo started only months before Cat Person was published, though it started with hollywood megakike Harvey Weinstein and not some fat basedboy nobody named Robert.
Weinstein would actually get a humanizing puffpiece short story in the New Yorker three years later. Unsurprising given who owns and operates TNY.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/08/white-noise