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Loading... The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (original 2009; edition 2010)by Lydia Davis
Work InformationThe Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis (2009)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Love her stories, her language, her spirit, her sense of observation, her humor. ( ) This small rather large chunk of a book is filled with stories that intrigue and make you wonder at what you just read. The humanity, humor, and relentless inventiveness on every page opens new vistas in what story-telling is all about. What does it mean to be an author, a writer, someone who puts words on paper - permanent, yet distilling the evanescent thoughts that might otherwise have been forgotten? Every time I open the book and read I end up setting it down so I can laugh or cry or more often sit and wonder at what just happened. Lydia Davis is a genius! The first three books in this collection; Break It Down, Almost No Memory, Samuel Johnson is Indignant, were wonderful. However the final book, Varieties of Disturbance, while good, felt more forced and less natural to me. However, her writing is concise, insightful, and beautiful in all four books collected here. I highly recommend this book! I'm giving the book 4.5 stars out of 5. So now I have read all four of the individual books collected in the big orange volume. Several of these last stories were a bit different from the others--more of them were more like exercises in sociological inquiry or "studies" of human behaviour, interesting but . . . are they stories? Well, who cares, why not! What came into my mind was a study of Shakespeare's wife written by Germaine Greer -- the information about who she "really" was has to be gleaned from skimpy records of, say people with licenses to brew beer (she did), who inherited the "best bed" (she didn't) -- a picture does emerge but it is built as much on one's own ideas as the facts presented. The point, in other words! When Davis is at her best she is like a terrier pulling the squeaker out of a toy, intent and thorough, she'll take a behaviour apart until you cry uncle -- the best in this collection for me was the piece on what she learned from the baby. I do think even a non-short story reader might find Davis rewarding although I might be mad to think so. One of her stories has inspired me to take my mother's letters (I've kept about fifty) to read through and catalogue aspects of -- as a way to see what emerges, what might come through the whole and reveal more about who she was. I think Davis is extraordinary, original, funny, wise and humble. *****
Davis approaches the short-story form with jazzy experimentation, tinkering with lists, circumlocutions, even interviews where the questions have been creepily edited out. You don’t work your way across this mesa-sized collection so much as pogo-stick about, plunging in wherever the springs meet the page. With the publication of this big book... Davis might well receive the kind of notice she's long been due. She is the funniest writer I know; the unique pleasure of her wit resides in its being both mordant and beautifully sorrowful DistinctionsNotable Lists
A single-volume compilation of the National Book Award finalist's short stories includes "Break it Down" and "Varieties of Disturbance." No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. Penguin Australia2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia. Editions: 024114504X, 0241950031 |