What is a Novella?

A novella is a short novel, a hundred pages or so, maybe less and certainly not more than 200, though it could be a little longer. Get the idea? A good one can be quite eloquent. Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, about a stuttering British sailor who inadvertantly kills his abusive ship captain is quite spectacular. Tomas Mann’s Death in Venice is a novella too, but controversial these days, at least with me, given its theme of a dying male writer’s attraction to a beautiful young boy. Regardless, you must have the ability to suggest a lot in just a few words to craft a good novella. Movies have been made of both. I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, novellas are easier to adapt because they are more compressed than novels.

It’s easy to make too much out of length and classification. A good 100 pages is much better than a mediocre 500. I’ll take Melville’s novella against Norman Mailer’s tedious 600+ page novel, The Naked and the Dead any time. Why the book has such a good reputation, is beyond me.

Next: What is a short story?