Novella Challenge! (COMPLETE)

CHALLENGE COMPLETE!!

What is a novella?? And why read one? According to wikipedia a novella is:

A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. While there is some disagreement of what length defines a novella, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000….Occasionally, longer works are referred to as novellas, with some academics positing 100,000 words as the novella‒novel threshold.

And the reason for reading them is that they are short!!! That will be a fun one for me!

This Challenge is to read 6 novellas between April 2008 and September 2008. If you are interested go to: The Novella Challenge!

My 6 Books for the Novella Challenge are:


Franny and Zooey- JD Salinger
Town House-Tish Cohen
Sarajevo Marlboro-Miljenko Jergovic
Farmworker's Daughter- Rose Castillo Gibault
The Waitress Was New- Dominique Fabre
Moving Parts- Magdalena Tulli

NOTE: Completed books in orange.

The Waitress Was New

Title: The Waitress Was New
Author: Dominique Fabre
Pages: 117
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Completed: 24, March, 2008
Yearly Count: 12
Snaps: 4.5/5

Pierre is a bartender, a sweet man who has almost reached the age at which he could retire. He loves what he does, it is what he lives for and how he breathes. This book humble, yet so triumphant and full of life at the same time! It is very real, no huge ups and downs, no drum rolls, no brass bands. It is just what the author Dominique Fabre has intended: plain, simple, beautiful. He aims to share the life of a person on the margins, or someone that would not usually be interesting enough to write about, someone who you may not even notice. For some reason it feels like he could have chosen me or you in choosing Pierre, it is a person that is not worthy, and yet he never says that he is. It's pureness is very attractive.

The Waitress Was New drives the reader a desire to know this raw individual, Pierre. To learn more about him and his situation, and what will become of him in the end. The novel is human, and real and is not full of dramatic effect moments or overly sentimental junk. It is a story of a regular bartender, in a regular place, doing regular things. It is the way that Fabre conveys it all that is interesting...you dive down deep and come up with your fists full, and at the end of this novel he leaves you wishing for more, but knowing at the same time that it was the way it should be.

For the full 117 pages I was engulfed in reading this book it is so full of heart and personality. I am always more interested in the books that are about people that seem real to me and this is definitely one of those. It is about people-watching, living, loving, dying, old age, changes and sticking through it. I loved it. Here are some quotes for you that I thought were really great:

"I'm a fixture around here, people realize that. I served a few beers, brought the school kids their coffee, two coffees plus three glasses of water, and the girl greeted me with a peck on the cheek" (p. 16).

"I don't look outside too much because everything that matters to me in life always ends up sitting down at my bar, but just then I had a feeling, and I looked out toward the street. Yes, it was going to rain" (p. 22).

" I get off at seven but I'm never a stickler about leaving on time, what have I got to do at home? I'm just a barman, and the longer I stay on the more life goes by in the best possible way. So there we are" (p. 38).

"They come and go, for the most part. Let the world turn around us, beyond our spotless bars, in the end every day will be carefully wiped away to make room for the next. That's why I make myself watch the late-night news on Channel 3, you can't just forget everything, after all" (p. 98).

Franny and Zooey JD Salinger

Title: Franny and Zooey
Author: JD Salinger
Yearly Count: 4
Rating: 4.5/5
Pages: 202

Challenges This book is in:
My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge #1
Eponymous Challenge #1
Novella Challenge #1



I highly enjoyed this book, I enjoyed it so much that after reading it I did not have enough of Salinger so I went over to the public library and immediately borrowed Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour , also by JD Salinger!
These stories were initially published in the NY Times, separately. They both involve Franny, who is eccentric and somewhat overwhelmed...really even overwhelming! However she is a blast to read about and the transitions she goes through from when the book starts to when it ends makes it comepletely worth the emotional wreck that this family is.

It is almost like I got what I did despite the fact that the book talks about a group of wonderbread kids who have life so easy that they try and make it complicated. I realised that I did have a hard time tolerating their fainting spells, and when they insulted their mamma and called her fat and such. I began to see them as more spoiled and less actually practising what they knew.

It seems that Salinger could have chosen to use these wealthy, upper class, wonderbreads because of the impact it could have on the reader. It is easier to take something from a preacher who you can see does not have it all together either, you can relate to him...and maybe that is why the author chose to do it that way. Maybe he was mocking the whole idea, as in these are they only type of people who can afford to mope around and recite little prayers....who knows what he meant to do...I do know what I got from it though. But the way the book is written I think almost every reader would get something slightly different. If I were you I'd give this one a try, it is really good.

Also reviewed by:
pussreboots Franny and Zooey