*0-:8;,=,?4A0 4?0=,?@=0,9/@7?@=0 *0-:8;,=,?4A0 4?0=,?@=0,9/@7?@=0
&&"
$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D$=0>>E$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D
):7@80 >>@0 =?4.70
&?=,92009=0=07,?0/ ::;>49,":A07&3:=?&?:=D'30'09>4:9-0?B009?3009=0>,9/?304=&?=,92009=0=07,?0/ ::;>49,":A07&3:=?&?:=D'30'09>4:9-0?B009?3009=0>,9/?304=
@7?@=,7:9?0C?@7?@=,7:9?0C?
#=9, 0A49
.3A,,.,/84..:77020
:77:B?34>,9/,//4?4:9,7B:=6>,?3??;>/:.>74-;@=/@00/@.7.B0-
$,=?:1?30:8;,=,?4A0 4?0=,?@=0:88:9>0B4>3&?@/40>:88:9>,9/?30!:/0=9 4?0=,?@=0:88:9>
0/4.,?0/?:?30/4>>0849,?4:9:1>.3:7,=7D,9/;=:10>>4:9,7491:=8,?4:9$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D$=0>>>070.?>/0A07:;>,9//4>?=4-@?0>
<@,74?D=0>:@=.0>49>0A0=,760D>@-50.?,=0,>1:=B34.34?>;,=09?@94A0=>4?D4>1,8:@>49.7@/492-@>490>>?0.39:7:2D30,7?3
A0?0=49,=D80/4.490,9/:?30=>070.?0//4>.4;7490>49?303@8,94?40>,9/>.409.0>
*0-:8;,=,?4A0 4?0=,?@=0,9/@7?@=0
?30;00==0A40B0/1@77?0C?,9/:;09,..0>>70,=90/5:@=9,749?303@8,94?40>,9/
>:.4,7>.409.0>;@-74>30>90B>.3:7,=>34;1:77:B492?090?>:1?30/4>.4;7490:1.:8;,=,?4A074?0=,?@=0,9/?30F07/:1.@7?@=,7
>?@/40>/0>429,?0/,>.:8;,=,?4A0.@7?@=,7>?@/40>$@-74.,?4:9>49?305:@=9,7,=049/0C0/49?3099@,74-74:2=,;3D:19274>3
,92@,20,9/ 4?0=,?@=03,/BD.60,70D?30=?>,9/@8,94?40>4?,?4:99/0C'3:8>:9%0@?0=>&?30@8,94?40>9/0C
*47>:9@8,94?40>9?0=9,?4:9,7:8;70?0&#?309?0=9,?4:9,74-74:2=,;3D:1?30!:/0=9 ,92@,20>>:.4,?4:9:1
80=4.,,9/&.:;@>7>0A40='305:@=9,74>,G74,?0/B4?3?30$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D$=0>>8:9:2=,;3>0=40>:1::6>49:8;,=,?4A0
@7?@=,7&?@/40>:9?,.?.7.B0-;@=/@00/@
%0.:8809/0/4?,?4:9%0.:8809/0/4?,?4:9
0A49#=9,&?=,92009=0=07,?0/ ::;>49,":A07&3:=?&?:=D'30'09>4:9-0?B009?3009=0>,9/?304=@7?@=,7
:9?0C?
*0-:8;,=,?4A0 4?0=,?@=0,9/@7?@=0
3??;>/:4:=2
'34>?0C?3,>-009/:@-70-749/;00==0A40B0/-D0C;0=?>49?30F07/
'30,-:A0?0C?;@-74>30/-D$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D$=0>>E$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D3,>-009/:B97:,/0/?480>,>:1
'34>/:.@809?3,>-0098,/0,A,47,-70?3=:@23$@=/@00$@->,>0=A4.0:1?30$@=/@0(94A0=>4?D 4-=,=40>$70,>0.:9?,.?
0;@->;@=/@00/@1:=,//4?4:9,7491:=8,?4:9
'34>4>,9#;09..0>>5:@=9,7'34>80,9>?3,?4?@>0>,1@9/4928:/07?3,?/:0>9:?.3,=20=0,/0=>:=?304=49>?4?@?4:9>1:=
,..0>>%0,/0=>8,D1=007D=0,//:B97:,/.:;D/4>?=4-@?0;=49?>0,=.3:=7496?:?301@77?0C?>:1,=?4.70>'34>5:@=9,74>
.:A0=0/@9/0=?30+""74.09>0
UNIVERSITY PRESS <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu>
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
ISSN 1481-4374 <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb>
Purdue University Press ©Purdue University
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the
humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature
and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." In addition to the publication of articles,
the journal publishes review articles of scholarly books and publishes research material in its Library Series.
Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-
Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities
International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and
Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative
Cultural Studies. Contact: <clcweb@purdue.edu>
Volume 23 Issue 3 (September 2021) Article 3
Orna Levin,
“Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story:
The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3>
Contents of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021)
<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/>
Abstract: Orna Levin discusses in her “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The
Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context” the strange genre-related loops in Maya
Arad's novel (2009), through the tension between the two genres represented in the text and their
cultural contexts. The text hints to the reader that the central conflict on the plot is genre-related, and
thus the entire work is a manifestation of self-conscious literature. The focus of the discussion is on
the concept of strange loops coined by Hofstadter (1979, 2007). The strange genre-related loops in
the narrative are represented in three different spheres: the textual construct, the array of characters,
and the perception of creative writing. Reviewing the strange genre-related loops in this work
highlights the unique nature of this text, which attempts to establish itself as a short story – novel,
while demonstrating an awareness of its artistic and cultural contexts.
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 2 of 8
Orna LEVIN
Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and
their Cultural Context
The plot of the novel The Short Story Master, by Maya Arad, tells of the professional and personal crisis
of the master of the short story, who failed in his mission to write a novel. The text hints to the reader
that the central conflict that moves the plot along is neither romantic nor existential, but rather genre-
related, and thus the entire work is a manifestation of self-conscious literature. The focus of the
discussion is on the concept of strange loops coined by Hofstadter. The strange genre-related loops in
the narrative are represented in three different spheres: the textual construct, the array of characters,
and the perception of creative writing.
Strange Loops and the Literary Text
The concept of strange loops originates from the realm of computer science and hierarchical systems,
yet at the same time it also serves as a concept in the realm of culture in general. In fact, Hofstadter,
coined the concept while analyzing the music of Bach and the visual art of Escher (Gödel, Escher, Bach
10-15). A strange loop forms when an upward or downward motion within a hierarchical system is
iterated, in other words, there is a return to the initial point of departure. The structure of the endless
loop undermines the hierarchy and creates a sense of strangeness. In his book Gödel, Escher, Bach,
Hofstadter explains the structural – mathematical links between the works of these three artists. In his
next book, I Am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter continued the discussion on an existential–philosophical
level, focusing on the individual's awareness of his or her own consciousness. Human beings, according
to Hofstadter not only exist, but also create their own existence: "In the end, we are self-perceiving,
self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference" (363).
The last quotation might equally describe the workings of a literary text. In other words, following
the plot of a literary text nearly always involves some loop movements. This is particularly noticeable
in stories with associative structures that generate multiple movements. In fact, the existence of textual
loops, even if they are not always strange loops, is part of the definition of the literary text. After all,
the text is linear and has a starting point, but the concepts of narratology reveal that the plot's literary
unfolding rarely follows the chronology of events. Rather, the textual reconstruction, called the fabula
(as opposed to the sujet), involves a variety of different and opposing movements: backwards
(analepsis), forwards (prolepsis), upwards (climax) or in an unexpected direction (turning point). These
movements take the sujet's straight and flat quality and give the story a "life of its own."
Given this this interpretation of Hofstadter's notion of strange loop, I borrowed the term and applied
it in the current study to the realm of poetic genres, and particularly to the ‘struggle’ between the short
story and the novel, as presented in the text of Maya Arad, an author, who lives in the US and writes in
Hebrew. I intend to examine this ‘struggle’ not only in the context of Arad's previous works but also as
part of her entire poetics, including the later works. An examination of the creative act is a prominent
theme in the books of this author, who is a linguist by profession, a fact which early on attracted the
attention of literary critics (Livne 32). Like many contemporary British and US-American novelists—such
as Toby Litt (e.g. Finding Myself, 2003), or Tricia Sullivan (e.g. Occupy Me, 2017), as well as the late
John Berger (in his nonlinear novel G., 1972), Michael Cunningham (e.g. The Hours, 1998) and A. S.
Byatt (e.g. Possession, 1990)—Arad also devoted her artistic efforts to imagining the "potential" of the
narrative text more than to the "act" of creating a particular narrative (Ceia 4).
Arad's first novel, Another Place, a Foreign City, which was written in verse, transferred the plot and
structural framework of Pushkin's famous poem "Eugene Onegin" to the site of a well-known military
base in Israel. The author's preoccupation with genre combinations is noticeable also in her play titled
The Righteous Forsaken, which was inspired by a comedy in verse written by Alexander Sergeyevich
Griboyedov. The subtitle "a comedy in verse" is only partially manifested in Arad's text, as the rhyme
scheme is not maintained throughout the text, which in turn contributes to the sense of poetic farce.
Defining literary works by genres and creating a hierarchy among them is an issue with which Arad
is concerned in her essays as well. In the book of essays, written by the couple Reviel Netz and Arad,
and dedicated primarily to poetry, there is a single essay about Israeli prose in the final chapter of the
book (Netz and Arad 243-399). Based on the construct of the book and particularly the final essay, it
appears that the two authors consider poetry to be a genre superior to prose, while at the same time,
they appear to favor a blurring of the boundaries between the two genres (Netz and Arad 250).
Her book, The Hebrew Teacher (2018), seems to be a hybrid between the short story and the novel.
This book is not a novel but a collection of three long stories. The first story, after which the book is
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 3 of 8
named, is structured as a tribute to the memoir genre, while the second story, titled "Visit (Pictures),"
is organized as a collection of tiny chapters, or Rashomon-type scenes. Despite the difference in genre
and their presentation as seemingly unrelated stories, it seems that the thread connecting the three
stories in the book lies in the heroes that stand in their center. Finally, in her last book All about Abigail
(2021), Arad deals with the tension between writing prose and writing poetry through an identity
confusion experienced by the protagonist, who while being considered a poet is already a reputed writer.
The plot of the novel The Short Story Master deals with the professional and personal crisis
experienced by the protagonist, Adam Tahar-Zehav (in Hebrew: "pure gold"), who is the Short Story
Master. He has published five collections of short stories, but has failed in his mission to write a novel.
In the world of the novel, he represents the status of the short story in contemporary Israeli literature.
Unable to produce what his audience desires most—a novel—Adam Tahar-Zehav is immensely
frustrated. He is still a famous author, thanks to his earlier works; however, his readership is dwindling,
he has been experiencing protracted writer's block, his love life is at an impasse, and worst of all, the
short story is no longer fashionable—even he now finds it unsatisfying.
The protagonist's crisis as a writer and his personal middle-age crisis become melded, and this
agonizing problem is accompanied by a doubled romantic crisis: on the one hand his girlfriend, Galit
Golan, has left him, and on the other hand, Meital Einav is not emotionally available to commit to a
relationship, because she is waiting to rekindle a relationship with an ex-lover. Ironically, each of the
women in the life of Tahar-Zehav only intensifies his distress: Galit is a pulp-fiction writer and Meital is
a young literary researcher who teaches at the University and among other things, lashes out against
the short story form, claiming that it is no longer relevant. Thus, introspection, along with the theme of
crisis, are the motifs that propel the plot development in the novel.
At the same time, the text hints to the reader that the central conflict of the novel is neither the
romantic nor the existential one, but rather the conflict of genres, which renders the entire work a
manifestation of self-conscious literature, in line with Alter's claim that the novel is indeed a fitting arena
for a self-conscious examination of the work's poetics. In this novel, the tension between the short story
and the novel is the pivotal point from which other conflicts emerge and develop. Therefore, I wish to
focus this investigation on the existence of strange genre-related loops, and to examine their
representation in three different spheres of the novel: the textual construct, the array of characters,
and the perception of creative writing.
"Segments That Do Not Add up to a Whole"—Strange Genre-related Loops in the Textual
Construct
The reader experiences the first strange genre-related loop even before the reading has begun. The title
of this lengthy novel constitutes a reductive definition, given that the novel as a genre is essentially
recognized by its length. Yet beneath the title, The Short Story Master, there is a subtitle presented in
small print, which reads "a novel." In this manner, the reductive cycle is broken and the work regains
its proper proportions. Also in the table of contents, the reader encounters the power play between the
two genres: nine chapters which are short stories appear in highlighted font, whereas the ‘regular’
chapters of the novel are presented in regular font. Thus, the graphic representation of the text echoes
the iterative dialogue between the novel and the short story even before the reading has begun.
The structure of the two genres is one of the issues that preoccupies the protagonist as he attempts
to draw analogies between the short story and the novel. The protagonist's comparison between literary
and architectural structures plays on the association between building and structure, emphasizing the
gap between the two. Hence, it is not surprising that the protagonist perceives structure to be the most
constraining aspect of the short story: "The short story is confined to a 2 x 4 dungeon with no windows
and a broken key. There is no room to move… no air. It breathes only the exhaled carbon dioxide" (Arad
The Short Story Master 110). A reductive motion is noticeable throughout this entire description, yet it
ends by exceeding the boundaries of reality: on the one hand, there is the illogical loop of breathing
exhaled carbon dioxide, which suggests that the short story is—like carbon dioxide to oxygen—inferior
to the novel, while on the other hand, by imbuing the short story with an amazingly strange ability, this
loop undermines the suggested hierarchy between the genres.
The structure of the novel raises several questions. Among the 453 pages of the novel are scattered
nine short stories that the protagonist has written. This does not create a pleasant polyphony of genres;
rather, it underscores the extent of the crisis experienced by the protagonist-author as well as by the
real author. Such a mask narration (Phelan 197-204) express Arads' thoughts and beliefs. In an
interview conducted following the novel's publication, Arad mentioned that this hybridization of genres
came after she had initially planned to write a short story, but then rejected that in favor of a novel
constructed of short stories (Sela). Thus, the novel's structure echoes back to the pivotal theme of the
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 4 of 8
plot, as well as to the author's unavoidable dilemma, which produces for the reader an unresolvable
enigma: is this a novel constructed as a collection of short stories, or is it a collection of short stories
with transitional segments that form an independent story? Indeed, the final short story bears the same
title as that of the entire novel, thus creating an interminable paradoxical reflection of strange loops.
In addition to these loops, there is an interesting loop between one of the short stories that appears
in the novel The Short Story Master and another novel by Arad. The story "Omsk" (Arad 382-367)
describes Ronit's journey to a children's home in Omsk, Siberia, for the purpose of adopting a baby boy.
The plot follows the anticipation and preparation until the tragic end: the protagonist's decision not to
adopt because of the baby's apathetic appearance and her inner feeling that something was wrong. In
2015 the short story "Omsk" became a novel titled Lady of Kazan. This is an example of a loop that
encompasses the two genres, the short-story and the novel, in the broad context of Arad's literary work.
Although Arad elaborated the plot in the novel, and changed the names of the characters, the place,
and even the gender of the baby (see especially Arad Lady of Kazan 322-242), one can hardly miss the
connection between the texts.
An additional strange loop emerges as it becomes evident that some of the short story plots continue
to unravel the plot of the novel's frame story. By placing the primary and secondary frames on the same
level, the twisting structure undermines the work's hierarchical structure and emphasizes its instability.
This undermining motion is noticeable, for example, in the transition between the chapter titled "Like
Any Other Man" and the chapter titled "Avinoam." The former deals with the protagonist's occupation
as a creative-writing instructor. In this context, Tahar-Zehav recalls the first time he encountered the
short-short story by Shofman (a Jewish-Israeli author, 1888-1972), "Like Any Other Man," which he has
been incorporating in his creative-writing workshops ever since. Then the chapter switches back to the
protagonist's present time, when he—and the readers—are exposed to the written work of his students
in the workshop, who were assigned to write a story "a la Shofman." The chapter ends by questioning
the typical tendency to equate the author with the protagonist of a story. As he supports his argument
against such a conflation, Tahar-Zehav refers to his own short stories, last among them is the story
titled "Avinoam." This title is also the last printed word in the chapter, which is followed by an ellipsis,
thus inviting the reader to continue to the next chapter in the novel, which is Tahar-Zehav's short story
"Avinoam."
Furthermore, there are also strange loops that create one endless loop and which feature a circular
construct within the chapters. As noted, the chapter titled "Like Any Other Man" contains the entire
short story by Shofman, which bears the same title. This creates a larger loop, as Tahar-Zehav refers
explicitly to Shofman's story, which in turn is a version of the Biblical story of Samson (“Book of Judges”
16, 7). However, this intertextual structure continues to twist and evolve, returning the reader to the
(fictional) chapter in the protagonist's novel, as the protagonist uses Shofman's story for his teaching
purposes. All in all, there are four related fictional spheres: the biblical source, the short story by
Shofman, the excerpts from the stories written by the students in the workshop, and finally, the chapter
in Arad's novel. Furthermore, an excerpt read by one of the students contains obvious references to
Shofman. Thus, within this chapter, the literary hierarchy is toppled, as the fictional levels become cogs
in the mechanism that Tahar-Zehav uses to prompt the students in his workshop to exercise their
burgeoning skills.
The most complex loop is created by the self-reference, in which all the other loops resonate. Beyond
the technique of iteration that stems from the structure that places a story within a story within a story,
the excerpt read by the student creates yet another loop, which emphasizes the power of the reiterative
mechanism: the last printed words in this story are identical to its title, but placed between quotation
marks. Thus, as the ending of the story is also its beginning, the loop is endless and eternal.
Another interesting loop found in the novel is used to describe the relationship between the segment
and the whole. The short story is perceived as a fragment, whereas the novel represents the whole:
“The short story is not merely ‘short’; it is a fragment, a shard, a fraction of a tale that is all happenstance
and arbitrariness. Which is why it is no longer relevant to our lives, which we construct for ourselves.
More to the point, we tell it to ourselves, adding layer upon layer, like a plot-driven novel, based on
cause and effect” (Arad The Short Story Master 116, my emphasis).
In one of the dialogues between Adam and Meital, they mention Cervantes as the "forefather" of the
metanarrative form of using a fragment to tell a tale. The Adventures of Don Quixote is considered the
prototype of the modern novel, despite being a series of linked short stories, each of which can stand
on its own. In response to the protagonist's distress about writing a single whole story in the form of a
novel, Meital proposes a solution, namely, connecting fragments and thus creating a whole. The
protagonist immediately objects, claiming that the gaps will be even more prominent if he attempts to
connect the fragments, which is—in fact—a description of the structure of Arad's novel. In light of his
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 5 of 8
adamant refusal, Meital suggests that he write about the impossibility of writing, or, in other words, the
difficulty of constructing a whole, which only throws the fragments and gaps into high relief.
The essential self-referential quality of writing about the impossibility of writing is what places the
novel in the realm of self-conscious literature. Throughout the novel this aspect unfolds at the same
time as it is being discussed, as Arad writes about the protagonist who is unable to write and therefore
writes about the impossibility of writing. The convolution of this coil of loops reaches the highpoint in
the last chapter of the novel, which bears the same title as that of the entire novel. The chapter is
constructed as a continuum of 15 fragments that represent pieces of the protagonist's life, presented
through the prism of a creative-writing crisis. Some of the sentences in this chapter repeat verbatim
sentences that appeared in previous parts of the novel. This copy-paste mechanism creates an aesthetic
imbalance, while emphasizing the intertextuality between the novel as a whole and its last chapter. Due
to this self-referentiality, the last chapter conveys the essence of the entire novel, which is why it also
bears the same title.
"The Man Who Made the Short Story His Life's Masterpiece": Strange Genre Related Loops in
the Formation of Characters
Adam Tahar-Zehav is a 43-year-old man whose future is behind him, so to speak, and his irrelevance
follows him like a shadow everywhere he goes, both in his personal life and in his writing. Despite the
feeling of stagnation that characterizes his writing block and his entire life, to the readers Adam emerges
as an antihero who experiences change and who causes them to change their attitude towards the
protagonist. At the beginning of the novel, Adam is described as embittered, arrogant, and opportunistic,
a caricature of the stereotypical, nasty author. However, following the venomous article through which
Meital launches a direct attack against him, the tables are turned, and fragments of his true and naive
character are revealed. As a result, the reader can empathize with the character and with his state of
mind as he faces this crisis.
Not only is Adam Tahar-Zehav "The Man Who Made the Short Story His Life's Masterpiece" (Arad The
Short Story Master 112), but his entire life is comparable to a short story in its lack of relevance. Like
the short story, the protagonist who writes short stories is "an outlier on the path of life" (351). This
description echoes Meital's claim that the focal character in any short story is always a marginal
character: “The meaninglessness and the nothingness draws [the short story] towards the margins.
You'll rarely find a short story that is not about wretched and miserable characters who live in the social
margins… When was the last time you read a short story about a CEO?” (110).
Hence, like the characters in his short stories, Adam is an author who has been relegated to the
margins. The loop that melds the stories with their author gains an ironic and venomous tone when the
characters begin using poetic concepts during their pillow-talk (enabled by the fact that in Hebrew the
word for a romantic relationship and the word for a literary novel are homonyms, and the word story is
also used to mean affair): "I was actually encouraging her to give it a chance. Not that it would lead to
a novel or anything like that, but sometimes what you need is exactly some kind of short story" (Arad,
The Short Story Master 362, my emphasis). Furthermore, the romantic triangle between Adam, Meital,
and Paul is an accurate reflection of Adam's existential triangular relationship with the short story and
the novel. Meital sees Paul as a man with whom she has a relationship, whereas she considers Adam to
be more of a ‘short story,’ an affair.
Interestingly, the protagonist as author identifies not only with the text he writes, but also with its
characters, and particularly that of the narrator. Although the text is not written in first person, it
encourages an existential link between the character of the author (in the novel) and the characters of
his short stories, which are presented throughout the novel. The association between author and literary
characters is especially evident in the interim chapters that are strewn between the short stories.
However, this is not the attitude of the author-protagonist, who repeatedly expresses a different
approach.
No, it is absolutely forbidden to identify the author with his characters… No, by no means.... Let someone
dare to try… [The author] has earned the right not to be compared to his characters. Yes, it is a privilege,
one that is earned through hard work. You have to have some artistic ability in order to hold the reins of
the short story tight enough, but not too close to the bosom; you need to remain close to the development
of the story, but also maintain some kind of ironic distance. (Arad The Short Story Master 70)
To defend his view, Adam makes the claim that none of his readers ever thought he was writing about
himself. Yet, what is the text that the reader holds if not the life story of the protagonist? Moreover,
Meital states that the severance between the author and his characters is the cause of his crisis, the
very factor that is impeding Adam's artistic development. Therefore, she tries to convince him to write
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 6 of 8
about himself, to let his writing take his life in a new direction, and even to write about the impossibility
of writing (which is indeed the way the novel is cast).
The loop that develops around the character of Meital is particularly interesting. Meital is a literary
critic who launches an attack against the short story and considers the novel to be the high point of
literature. However, ironically, at the university she teaches a course on the principles of the short story.
When her relationship with Adam begins to develop, she expresses an existential anxiety, which
coincides with her genre preferences: "At the end I'll find myself in your story… The ultimate
degradation—to be a character in a short story—not even a novel" (264). It is precisely at this point
that another strange loop begins, because Meital is a character in a novel that consists of short stories.
Her conspicuous role as a character in the short story is emphasized in the last fragment that seals the
novel. In other words, Meital becomes a short-story character within a novel, while at the same time
she is a character in a novel presented to the reader in the form of short stories.
"The Imprisoning Genre": Strange Genre-related Loops Shape the Perception of Creative
Writing
The relationship between the novel and the short story is not characterized solely by differences in the
length of text; in fact, it harkens back to the canonical view of literature from the beginning of time.
The short story genre was at its most popular between the end of the eighteenth century and the middle
of the nineteenth century, and despite its positive reception, in terms of its significance, it remained
secondary to the novel (Baxter 17-25; Matthews 73-80). The short story is perceived as a counter-
genre in relation to the novel (Pratt 91-113). Despite its popularity during most of the nineteenth
century, the short story remained a "vastly underrated art" (Friedman 117).
The renowned short story writer Anton Chekhov stated in 1889 that "Brevity is the sister of talent."
Indeed, literature in general and particularly contemporary literature, as it is developing at the beginning
of the twenty-first century, favors reduction and brevity as a vital artistic power (Nelles 94; Stewart
53). Minimalism is not seen as a poetic weakness, because the strength of the literary representation is
measured by its compactness. By this criterion, the short story manages—almost paradoxically—to
contain an entire world. It seems that in the current era, the existence of short stories and short-short
stories is actually endangering the genre of the novel, and holds greater promise for the short story, as
befits the digital age (Botha 201-220).
Although the tension between the short story and the novel is not resolved in literary research, Arad
suggests that the answer is quite obvious. Well-grounded in the cultural milieu with which her texts
interact, Arad views the novel as the primary genre and contends that the genre of the short story does
not correspond existentially to humanity's current state of affairs: “So much has come to pass since the
classical novel first flourished. The twentieth century happened. Huge things happened, horrible things,
massacres on a scale humanity has never known before, destruction… . To handle such things, one
needs large-sized tools—the largest there are” (Arad The Short Story Master 164).
The relationship between reality and the poetic form that suits it rejects the genre of the short story,
finding it too small a tool to contain life. It is not surprising that the novel—rather than the short story—
manages to provide an in-depth look at history, so much so, that occasionally there is confusion between
viewing history as a novel and the novel as history (Irom). Moreover, the hierarchy between the two
genres is reflected in the definition of the short story provided in the novel: "The essence of the short
story is not its length, but rather in its being a 'non-novel'" (Arad The Short Story Master 247). This
definition demonstrates the superior position of the novel in terms of the importance of the two genres;
in other words, the short story is not a goal unto itself, but rather a stop on the way to the genre of the
novel. Indeed, the short story genre has always suffered from a lack of an adequate definition, having
been unfavorably compared to other genres (Van Achter 3). This image of the short story genre
undermines both its vitality and its prestige. Cynical descriptions have compared the short story to a
neophyte, an opening act, a wading pool, a training arena (Arad 163), and even to a forgery (115). All
of these descriptions demonstrate that the short story is perceived as incomplete.
The most significant imagery that reflects the incompleteness of the short story genre appears in an
article by Meital in The Short Story Master. The strangeness created by integrating an essay into the
novel's plot seems to endow the essay with greater validity. Yet the manner in which the text oscillates
between the essay and the protagonist's thoughts as he reads it, reveals the tension between the
academic truth and the artistic truth. The essay is nothing less than a eulogy for the short story genre.
Using violent, death-related imagery, such as imprisonment (Arad 111), euthanasia, coma, dying (109),
and in the throes of death (117), the short story is presented as a dead genre. Yet, as in previous
examples, here too, the recurring loop between the hierarchies of ruler and subject, good and evil, truth
and lie becomes cyclical. In this instance, this effect is achieved by means of the liminal model: "The
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 7 of 8
contemporary short story – perhaps it isn't dead yet, but it certainly is not alive" (Arad 108). Not unlike
the image of inhaling carbon dioxide, as mentioned earlier, the short story's liminal status, suspended
between life and death, is another indication of the genre's wondrous existence and nearly inexplicable
survival. Moreover, in this strange loop of "not dead and not alive," the prospect of the short story
genre's non-existence can be seen as harkening back to its earlier emergence, thus creating an endless
cycle of its potential existence.
The thirteenth fragment in the last chapter of the novel is dedicated to the question of the essence
of creative writing, which echoes back to previous discussions presented in the novel, some of them
between Adam and Meital, and some between Adam and himself. Addressing the question of the
meaning of writing and its sources, Adam replies: "I write because I can't… because I can't do anything
else" (Arad 452). Here, the loop is created in the fluctuating motion between the act of writing the novel
and the non-writing around which the novel's entire plot revolves. This is a written text about an
unwritten text. The artistic potency of this step is further strengthened as the boundaries of the text are
transcended. The protagonist's words echo back to Franz Kafka's perception of art, as it is presented in
the story, "A Hunger Artist." The focal point in this short story by Kafka presents art as a lack of choice.
The analogy between Adam, the novel's protagonist, and Kafka's protagonist plucks the former from his
insignificance and anonymity and marks him as a ‘Prototype of the Artist.’
In one of the chapters in the novel, Adam is invited to attend an academic conference on the subject
of the hostility between the genres of the novel and the short story. It is interesting that Arad chooses
to incorporate an academic discussion in a book of prose (which is characteristic also of her novels,
Seven Vices, Behind the Hill, and The Hebrew Teacher), as this serves to extend the boundaries of the
plot by highlighting her own dual status as an academic and a novelist. At this conference, the novel is
presented as the pinnacle of a writer's artistic development. Nevertheless, in the context of the current
era, the novel is presented as an antithesis to the marvel of reduction: “To write a short story is to
capture the secret of reduction, and nowadays no one wants to make do with less; everyone seeks to
take up as much space as possible, to fill more and more pages. In this day and age we have exchanged
the wisdom of brevity and measure for too much of nothing” (161).
As mentioned in the novel, one of the factors that serves to differentiate between the genres of the
short story and the novel is the distinction between story and description, between an event and a filler
(Meital uses the terminology of Roland Barthes, nuclei and catalysts, see 174). In a conversation that
takes up five pages of the novel, Meital explains to Adam that unlike the short story, the novel is replete
with fillers that take up space and have no immediate significance in terms of moving the plot along.
Presumably, this is yet another definition of the difference between the genres and underscores the
superiority of the novel: “The prose of the novel is characterized by a high ratio of fillers to events. But
when this type of prose is inserted into the short story form, this implies reducing the events to a bare
minimum, which is what creates the feeling of imprisonment and constraint” (179).
Meital's argument that size does matter is very central to the power-play between the novel and the
short story; however, an in-depth examination of this segment of their dialogue reveals an interesting
loop, created by the characters and conveyed to the reader. The conversation is fragmented by divergent
topics that have no immediate significance for the development of the argument. The repetition of the
phrase "where were we?" (175) emphasizes the tangential nature of these interruptions. In other words,
as Adam and Meital discuss the role of fillers in a novel, their discussion leads the reader to experience
the effect of such fillers. This is a case of definition by way of example. An interesting question is to
what degree is the conversation between Adam and Meital a filler in the novel? Or is it an event? The
answer obviously depends on one's perspective at any given moment, whether on the text as a novel
or on the novel as a meta-text examining literary genres.
Summary
The novel The Short Story Master, by Maya Arad, reveals the tension between the genres of the novel
and the short story, and their cultural contexts. In my analysis I have demonstrated that the major
conflict that moves the plot along is genre-based, which places the novel in the realm of self-conscious
literature. Focusing the analysis on the issue of the literary genre contributes to the interpretation of
the text and leads to a deeper understanding of the theoretical argument. To demonstrate this, I
employed the term strange loops and developed it in the context of the tension between the genres. I
revealed the existence of these strange genre-related loops in three spheres: the textual construct, the
array of characters, and the perception of creative writing. In each of these spheres I analyze the
manner in which the strange loops serve to undermine the purported hierarchy between the genres (as
well as other hierarchies). Hence, these strange loops suggest that the text does not aim to weigh in on
the battle between the genres, but rather to sustain it and thus call attention to it. In this sense, the
Orna Levin, “Strange Genre-related Loops in a Novel-Short Story: The Tension between the Genres and their Cultural Context”
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 23.3 (2021): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol23/iss3/3 page 8 of 8
playful self-awareness that the strange loops create provide insight into the uniquely hybrid nature of
the text, as it establishes a new cultural and artistic genre: the short-story novel.
1
Works Cited
Alter, Robert. Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre. California UP, 1974.
Arad, Maya. Haalma Mikazan (Lady of Kazan). Xargol and Modan, 2015.
---. Hamora Leivrit (The Hebrew Teacher). Xargol and Modan, 2018.
---. Kinat Sofrot (All about Abigail). Xargol and Modan, 2021.
---. Makom acher veir zara: Roman becharuzim (Another Place, a Foreign City: A Novel in Verse). Xargol, 2003.
---. Oman hasipur hakatzar (The Short Story Master). Xargol, 2009.
---. Tzadik neezav (The Righteous Forsaken). Achuzat Bayit, 2005.
Baxter, Charles. “Introduction”. Sudden Fiction International: 60 Short-Short Stories, edited by Robert Shapard
and James Thomas. W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, pp. 17-25.
Book of Judges (2017). Mechon Mamre Bible Online. https://www.mechon-mamre.org/i/t/t0716.htm
Botha, Marc. “Microfiction.” The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story, edited by Ann-Marie Einhaus.
Cambridge UP, 2016, pp. 201-220.
Ceia, Carlos. "Genre Categorization in Contemporary British and US-American Novels." CLCWeb: Comparative
Literature and Culture, vol. 18, no. 3 (2016). https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.2895
Friedman, Norman. “What Makes A Short Story Short?” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 1958, pp. 103-117.
Harmon, William. A Handbook to Literature (9th edition). Prentice Hall, 2003.
Hofstadter, Douglas. R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books, 1979.
---. I am a Strange Loop. Basic Books, 2007.
Irom, Bimbisar. "Genre and Political Transition: The Problematic of the Collective Novel in Norman Mailer's The
Armies of the Night: History as a Novel; The Novel as History". Genre, vol. 44, no. 1, 2011, pp. 29–53.
Livne, Yoni. "Maya Arad: The Short Story Master." Yedioth Ahronoth, 4 December 2009 (in Hebrew).
Matthews, Brander. “The Philosophy of the Short Story”. The New Short Story Theories, edited by Charles E. May.
Ohio UP, 1994, pp. 81-88.
Nelles, William. "Microfiction: What Makes a Very Short Story Very Short?" Narrative, vol. 20, no. 1, 2012, pp. 87–
104.
Netz, Reviel, and Arad, Maya. Placing the Emphasis: Essays about Israeli Literature. Achuzat Bayit, 2008 (in
Hebrew).
Phelan, James. Living to tell about it: A rhetoric and ethics of character narration. Cornell UP, 2005.
Pratt, Mary Louise. “The Short Story: The Long and the Short of It”. The New Short Story Theories, edited by
Charles E. May. Ohio UP, 1994, pp. 91-113.
Sela, Maya. "Writing Hebrew, Living English". Ha'aretz, November 19, 2009. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-
news/culture/1.5178390
Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Duke UP,
1993.
Van Achter, Erik. On the Nature of the [Portuguese] Short Story: A Poetics of Intimacy. PhD diss., U Utrecht, 2010.
Online publication, accessed May 24, 2018. http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/37540
Author's profile: Orna Levin is a senior lecture of Hebrew Literature at Achva Academic College and serves as the
head of the Be simulation and research center. Her studies focus on literature with an emphasis on cultural aspects
of the literary text. Among her publications are the book Contiruptance: Poetical fluctuations in Naomi Frankel’s
work (2019); and the articles “Techno-poetics in micro-stories of the digital age: The case of Alex Epstein” (2020);
and “Nano-poetics and a nano-representation of the Israeli milieu in Yossel Birstein's short-short bus-stories”
(2021). Email: <[email protected].il>
1
The term 'short-story novel,' which corresponds of course with the term known as a short story, describes not
only the length of a text (something between the short story and the novel, roughly between 15,000 and 50,000
words), but mainly represents the attempt to combine the compression of the short story with the development of
the novel. In fact, no satisfactory definition has ever been formulated for the short novel (Harmon, 2003).
