Books @lemmy.ml Varyk @sh.itjust.works 8mo ago

What's a good book that unfolds over a short time in-story? No spoilers, thanks.

Everything takes place over a few hours, or entirely set during the immediate aftermath of an automobile crash, for example?

I'd like to avoid "and it was all a dream", time travel, or similar plot devices if possible.

I'm curious what a novel of any length purposely confined to a strict time window in-story reads like.

Maybe I should be reading more plays.

Thanks.

23 comments

Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine - basically takes place over the course of a lunch break - with a few footnotes and digressions.

OK, a LOT of footnotes and digressions. But, still, a lunch break.
- Great, thanks
Ulysses by James Joyce takes place in a day... 🫠

~~Also, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens takes place in one night~~

Oops, I forgot you said: I'd like to avoid "and it was all a dream", time travel, or similar plot devices if possible

Wow, it's really hard to think of books that only take place in a few hours. The only ones I can think of take place over the course of a day. Yeah, I guess reading plays would be your best bet
- Plenty of good plays I need to catch up on anyhow
  
  Plays tend to be very definite in timeframe.
  
  For example God of carnage happens during a dinner iirc? And Death and the maiden during a night or so (except preface and conclusion).
- Oops, I forgot you said: I’d like to avoid “and it was all a dream”
  
  But it wasn't! Even if it did inspire the immortal line: " There's more of gravy than of grave about you"
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World — Elif Shafak.
- Seems on point, thanks
Try the classical Greek tragedies—one of the requirements of the genre is that the action is supposed to take place in less than a day (Aristotle’s “unity of time”).
- I'll look into the unity of time, thanks
I haven’t read it yet, but Martin Riker’s novel The Guest Lecture apparently takes place in the mind of a professor lying awake in bed the night before she’s supposed to deliver a lecture.
- Thanks, definitely worth looking into
The Children's Story by James Clavell.

IIRC, the book takes about 20 minutes to read and the events that take place occur in real time.
- Okay, cool thanks.
  
  I read shogun a couple years ago, I wouldn't mind reading something by him that only takes 20 minutes.
The heroes by Joe Abercrombie is about a 3 day long battle.
- Should I read the first four books to catch up to those events?
  
  It can definitely be read standalone and was written to be standalone, but the other books are also fantastic and absolutely worth reading.
Other people have already said Ulysses and Mrs Dalloway, both modernist classics that take place in a single day. There are a couple of other examples of similar novels, but the only one that springs to mind right now is a deeply annoying experimental 'novel' called Fidget by Oliver Goldsmith, which I don't recommend at all. He wore a tape recorder and spoke out loud describing everything he did that day, then transcribed it all and that's the book. If you do decide to read it, don't say I didn't warn you.

I don't know if this will count for you, but there's a hypertext novel called 253 by Geoff Ryman which IIRC takes place over just a couple of minutes, with very short chapters describing the thoughts of each of the 253 passengers on board a train. He did later also publish a print version.
- Thanks, fidget does sound deeply annoying
@Varyk How short a time are we talking?

This one might be a bit of a cheat, but: The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Technically everything happens within a day.
- A day is good, and I love that title.
  
  I didn't have a hard and fast timeline going in deliberately, i'm more interested in all of your recommendations.
  
  I'll definitely be looking into that, thanks.

23 comments