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À Vau-l'eau
''À vau-l'eau'' (English: ''With the Flow'' or ''Downstream'' or ''Drifting'') is a novella by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels on January 26, 1882. Plot Summary The work — which has little in the way of plot — tells the story of Jean Folantin, a downtrodden Parisian civil service clerk whose quest for even a modicum of happiness or material comfort always ends in failure. The book chronicles Folantin's everyday disappointments, typified by his search for a decent meal (there are numerous descriptions of the disgusting food he has to eat). At the end of the novella, Folantin pessimistically resigns himself to give up hope and "go with the flow":" realised the futility of changing direction, the sterility of all enthusiasm and all effort. 'You have to let yourself go with the flow; Schopenhauer is right', he told himself, '"Man's life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom". So there's no point trying to speed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". There is disagreement regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words; at 250 words per page, this equates to 70 to 160 pages. See below for definitions used by other organisations. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, princip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |