William Trevor Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Patrick Skene Catling

Critical Essay by Patrick Skene Catling

A good short story, like a good poem, exists only in its expression. Its essence is irreducible and immutable. As William Trevor has written (in a review in praise of one of the writers of short stories he most admires, Sean O'Faolain), 'the better the short story the less easy it is to re-tell'. By this criterion, among others, Trevor's short stories are among the best in English…. I have just re-read 59 of [his] stories and I cannot imagine how any of them could be improved by any alteration. Every story seems as perfect (as Philip Larkin might put it) as an egg.

Perhaps [Trevor's] most important virtue, rare among all sorts of people, especially writers, is that he acknowledges without condescension the value of every human life, no matter how restricted, distorted or embittered: even the outwardly most ordinary person feels extraordinary; everyone is unique and marvellous and...
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