Summer Shorts

The Guardian gives you a very special gift - six specially commissioned short stories for Summer reading from some of the best writers around; Jeanette Winterson, Nick Hornby, Rose Tremain, Yiyun Li, Jay McInerney, AM Homes. Enjoy!!

The Novel Is Dead ... Long Live the Novel

Is fiction really still up to telling the truth about our turbulent times?

VS Naipaul declared the novel dead in a New York Times interview last month. (You can also listen to an extract here.)

Now, novelist Jay McInerney, (himself a witness to the tragedy of 9/11) makes a convincing case for the continued relevance of fiction in the Guardian .

Leon Wing's very articulate take on the article can be read here. Leon also provides further proof, (if further proof is necessary!) that the form is alive an kicking by invoking Patrick McGrath’s novel, Port Mungo. (One I'll have to read now - thanks Leon.)

I also fail to see signs of the novel's untimely demise. Quite the opposite. (I've slipped between the covers of John Banville's The Sea now and am totally seduced: this is fiction writing alive and kicking!)

Still, one needs folks like Naipaul to take an extreme position now and again so that others can have the pleasure of knocking him down.

McInvery made me smile with this thought:

The only reason we listen to Naipaul is because he wrote A House for Mr Biswas and A Bend in the River. If the novel doesn't matter any more then his opinion wouldn't seem to count for more than my doorman's opinion.

Quite!