Comments on short chapters and long
This chapter finishes the journey Hans makes to see what is left of his home. No sooner does he find that his remembrance of the dreadful night is truth, than he is attacked and the chapter ends. It ends somewhat abruptly and unsatisfactorily, but evidently Bardelys considers this sort of short chapter with a jagged ending to be a good way to force us to read on through the chapter breaks.
This makes me consider the whole question of short chapters vs. long ones.
Short chapters are like hors d’oeuvres, small and tasty, designed to whet the appetite rather than satisfy it. I suppose the theory is that we will just go on reading and reading and ignore the chapter breaks altogether.
Long chapters, on the other hand, mark significant progress in the logical development of the tale. For the purpose of this discussion, I will consider this the main distinction between short and long chapters: a short chapter takes us only half a step down the tale’s road, or less; a long chapter takes a full step.
Bardelys has given us one such step here: Hans leaves the Groening-stead and along with the farmhand Otto, he goes back to where his home used to stand. There he sees that his home is no more. The realization will presumably force Hans (and Otto, who is looking more and more like a major character at this point) to take up a new course of action – go back to Groening-stead and tell them what they saw, or fall prey to the things that lurk among the trees, or go into the Schwarzwald itself in search of Bertie Groening, or encounter more wicken-creatures like Yellow Socks or the White Lady. Or something else will occur to them. In all events, the course of the action Hans has been taking has now hit a wall: there is no going home for him! Where shall he then go, and what shall he do? The answers to these questions form the next step in his journey through the tale, and will take a new chapter if it is long.
But Bardelys has divided the journey back to the Forester’s House between two chapters, though it is less than one day’s march even for the hobbling Hans. Somehow the two chapters don’t seem to equal a ‘full’ chapter, a ‘decent-sized’ chapter.
But a talesman surely doesn’t want to tire his audience out waiting for a chapter to end. Getting many small, ‘bite-sized’ chapters allows us to put down the book every four or five pages – we know we can always read on, and a new break will be offered to us shortly.
(Composed on keyboard Friday 14 November 2008)
