Saturday, 5 August 2006

The world's shortest novel

According to Umberto Eco, who's the sort of chap who knows this sort of thing, this, by Augusto Monterroso, is the world's shortest novel: El Dinosaurio ('The Dinosaur'). Here it is, the whole thing:
Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.
("When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.")
Think about it. Comments on the plot and theme will be entertained below.

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11 comments:

  1. That's great! The perfect Friday night read while sipping Bailey's. If I forget part of the story, easy peasy to go back and check what happened. :)

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  2. I wonder if that book by Bob Jones titled something like "the achievements of the Labour Party from 19... to 19... counts as it was full of blank pages ha ha

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  3. The last one I heard was:

    "The last man on earth heard a knock on the door"

    But in honesty, I believe that was the shortest short-story in the world. Of course, it's been 15 years since I went on that writing course.

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  4. It's a bummer if you are paid on word count.

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  5. It's so hard to forget it's easy to forget, if you know what I mean. *.*
    Pretty clever idea, actually!

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  6. The shortest novel ever would be written is "Achievements of Politicians to general public" - 0 words. The lengthiest novel ever to be penned would be "Evils politicians cause" (Only problem is that this novel will never get finished)

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  7. I think the shortest was written by Ernest Hemingway, in 6 words

    "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

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    Replies

    1. it's short story.

      Delete

  9. Not really a story. Just a sentence
    😒

    ReplyDelete

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