"Novels in Three Lines" Felix Feneon, Translated and with an Introduction by Luc Sante

In my new spill drawings I have changed the scale of the coffee stains, which results in less readable text content. I was interested to see how this decision has shifted the emphasis away from an abbreviated article, and more onto each individual word that’s exposed. I’ve been reminded of a book I read last year Novels in Three Lines. The book is a collection of brief news stories, written by Felix Feneon, and published in 1906 in the Paris daily newspaper Le Matin. It’s a good read for anyone interested in Twitter as well, he works within the limits of three printed lines for each brief piece of news. Below is an excerpt from the introduction, and a few examples of Feneon’s writing:

“Newspapers in many countries apart from the United States run columns of such brief stories, which in French are called faits-divers (“sunday events”; “fillers” are nearly but not quite the same—there is no simple English equivalent). They cover the same subjects as the rest of the paper—crime, politics, ceremony, catastrophe—but their individual narratives are compressed into a single frame, like photographs. They may suggest, portend, echo, pose questions, present enigmas, awaken troubling memories, but they usually do not have a second act.“

The charge of embezzlement against the management of
the Toulon artillery amounts to nothing, according to the
manager’s inquiry.

Scheid, of Dunkirk, fired three times at his wife. Since he
missed every shot, he decided to aim at his mother-in-law,
and connected.

No more briar pipes. Their makers, in Saint-Claude, have
stopped work until they are paid better.