Comments on: Flannery O’Connor on what makes for a good short story http://nigelbeale.com/2008/07/flannery-oconnor-on-what-makes-for-a-good-short-story/ Musings on the Book, Literature, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Collecting, Media, Life and the Arts, and Audio Interviews from The Biblio File radio program pertaining to same by a writer, broadcaster, bibliophile. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:52:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Fray Mollo http://nigelbeale.com/2008/07/flannery-oconnor-on-what-makes-for-a-good-short-story/comment-page-1/#comment-50780 Fray Mollo Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:02:14 +0000 http://nigelbeale.com/?p=1040#comment-50780 It may happened too much time from the moment the previous comment was made. Anyway, who cares. I feel somehow relieved by the fact that someone else has noted the apparent contradiction between what O'Connor and James had said about "weak specification". In my opinion Henry James called the specifications "weak" not because they were vague, or poor or insufficient, which is the point O'Connor was remarking. James called them weak because by the very fact that they are specifications, that is, they specified something. It may happened too much time from the moment the previous comment was made. Anyway, who cares.

I feel somehow relieved by the fact that someone else has noted the apparent contradiction between what O’Connor and James had said about “weak specification”.

In my opinion Henry James called the specifications “weak” not because they were vague, or poor or insufficient, which is the point O’Connor was remarking. James called them weak because by the very fact that they are specifications, that is, they specified something.

]]> By: Steven W. Beattie http://nigelbeale.com/2008/07/flannery-oconnor-on-what-makes-for-a-good-short-story/comment-page-1/#comment-46987 Steven W. Beattie Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:35:37 +0000 http://nigelbeale.com/?p=1040#comment-46987 "Fiction writers who are not concerned with these concrete details are guilty of what Henry James called 'weak specifications.' " While I'm loath to slam O'Connor -- ever -- this assertion has always bugged me. She misreads James here. When he made the comment about "weak specification" he was talking about ambiguity in "The Turn of the Screw." His assertion was that it was better to leave the matter of the ghosts ambiguous, because it is more unsettling that way. Being more concrete as to what was happening in the story would involve "weak specification," which would be less disconcerting for a reader. He was actually saying that in the case of "The Turn of the Screw," it was appropriate to be <em>less</em> concrete, not more so.  "Fiction writers who are not concerned with these concrete details are guilty of what Henry James called ‘weak specifications.’ " While I’m loath to slam O’Connor — ever — this assertion has always bugged me. She misreads James here. When he made the comment about "weak specification" he was talking about ambiguity in "The Turn of the Screw." His assertion was that it was better to leave the matter of the ghosts ambiguous, because it is more unsettling that way. Being more concrete as to what was happening in the story would involve "weak specification," which would be less disconcerting for a reader. He was actually saying that in the case of "The Turn of the Screw," it was appropriate to be less concrete, not more so. 

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