Novel length: is bigger necessarily better?

Cafe Society
21

“Necessarily” better? Of course not.

Mere length is not always a virtue. That’s always been true, whether we’re talking about movies, songs, novels, plays, poems, operas, or almost any other art form.

But it isn’t necessarily a drawback, either. It all depends on how interesting the story, characters and/or themes are, and how talented the creator is.

“Anna Karenina” and “The Brothers Karamazov” were both over 800 pages, but for me, they flew by. I was so engrossed, I finished them both quickly. On the other hand, I’ve read short stories that seemed to go on forever (like Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”).

If a movie is gripping, 3 hours elapse in the blink of an eye. If it’s a bore, 90 minutes seems like an eternity.

Length is only a drawback in a bad piece of work. I mean, both King Crimson and the Ramones have recorded a LOT of lousy songs over the years… but the Ramones’ bad songs are over in 2 minutes, while King Crimson’s bad songs may last 15 minutes. On the other hand, Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony lasts 40 minutes, and nobody think’s it’s too long.

So, there’s no hard and fast rule. If you’re a writer, and you think you’ve got a great story, and you think you need 600 pages to tell it properly, by all means write 600 pages. If you’re a composer, and you think the song you’re writing needs 12 minutes, then write a 12 minute song. But do it because you think the work calls for it, not to impress people.

22

I understood the reason for a sewer description; I just didn’t understand the reason for a 25 page sewer description. It’s not so much the fact that he added these types of descriptions, but that he is so long-winded in doing so that bothered me.

I didn’t mind the monologues much, although I do agree that he does ramble philosophically quite a bit. For that matter, I should amend what I said about War and Peace and note that Tolstoy could have done without the 150 page discussion of history he uses to close the novel.

23

Only better implies necessarily better; everything else is a crapshoot. But In many respects a longer book could give one the inkling of higher quality… after all, it does cost publishers more to print such a long book (at the very least it is much more editing to be done… no author will be published without editors going over it with a brush, then a comb, then tweezers, then…). So the fact that they felt the book could manage at such a length might hint.

:shrug: Hey, it is possible, isn’t it?

24

So, the consensus is, bigger is not necessarily better?
Thank God.

25

Looks like I’ll have to work on my chat-up line, then…

26

I stopped reading Steven King when he blatantly seemed to be writing “by the pound.” Example: IT. Yoicks! That book had way too much unnecessary tonnage.
I won’t dismiss a book by another author simply because it is long, but I think part of an author’s job is editing a story into a manageable length. I don’t need to know every single detail of a story to enjoy it.
One thing I really hate is when authors pad their skinny little stories with descriptions of what everyone is wearing! It doesn’t matter! Get over it!

27

RealityChuck said:

Sorry to say, but LotR bored me to tears. Now, I read stupidly fast, so I enjoy longer than average novels (the Wheel of Time series is a good example), but I want some meat to what I’m reading. Tolkien was long-winded, but didn’t necessarily have much to say, IMHO. The Fellowship of the Ring could have done without the first 150 pages or so.