Lorin Stein meditates on the charms of short stories, which offer "a chance to pay close attention — and have that attention rewarded because, for once, every little plot twist, every sentence, counts":
[Y]ou can't relax and lose yourself in a short story. Short stories bring you up short. They demand a wakeful attention; a good one keeps you thinking when it’s over. They take the subjects of the night and expose them to the bright light of day. They run counter to our yearnings for immersion, companionship, distraction … and for all of these reasons, in my mind they’ve come to stand for a kind of difficulty, emotional difficulty, that we are in danger of losing when we fetishize the charms of the long novel.
The Dish 