breadandmushrooms's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
honestlysean's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
It’s Lydia Davis so of course it’s fantastic, mesmerizing, and all of the good adjectives. Pushes the idea of what can be a story. Just a collection of marvels.
The cows <3
The cows <3
nicolemhill's review against another edition
2.0
I picked this one up because I was fascinated by THE COLLECTED STORIES, but this collection was much more of a mixed bag to me. Some of the shorts are characteristically clever. Others are just plain irritating.
lanadelrhett's review against another edition
dark
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
beccajdb's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.25
Unique reflections that seem to be about almost nothing, but strike such a chord. Deep, lyrical with a disarming simplicity and ideas that stay with you.
nick_jenkins's review against another edition
5.0
Davis's work reminds me somewhat of stand-up comedy (which I'm not sure I ever would have thought of if I hadn't read David Grossman's Horse Walks into a Bar earlier this year). I mean that not just in the humor of her stories, or the fact that many of them are observational in a kind of slanted or skewed way, but that the proper way to absorb them is to think of them less like independent efforts--just as I don't think stand-up is, properly speaking, just a set of discrete jokes or bits--and more like a kind of performance or routine.
Even more than in her earlier work, this performative aspect becomes clear in this volume of Davis's short stories, especially in the extraordinary centerpiece of the book, "The Letter to the Foundation," or in the later "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," which are largely about the writer's anxieties and aversive attachment to teaching. Teaching here figures in as a displacement of writing: the writer wants to write but must teach in order to earn money. But it is a displacement of another sort as well, because--like reading aloud, which the writer also performs in this book--it shifts the question of audience away from the moment of writing and into other literary activities. Davis also performs for us as a reader, at one point ("Not Interested") as a reader who cannot engage with the kind of books that are supposed to be intellectually enticing to her. ("Please spare me your imagination, I'm so tired of your vivid imagination, let someone else enjoy it.")
At any rate, the point--I think--is that it seems less important to read Davis's work as pure prose (although I don't think the book or an excerpt of it would necessarily make for a good monologue) in the sense that one is looking for a particular kind of pleasure in the normal prosaic units: at the sentence level or at the level of plot (contained in a single story or set of linked stories). Instead, they give pleasure in other ways: with the rhythms and dynamic shifts, the surprises and monotonies that build up when one reads a good many of these in a row. That, I think, is the best way to read them.
Even more than in her earlier work, this performative aspect becomes clear in this volume of Davis's short stories, especially in the extraordinary centerpiece of the book, "The Letter to the Foundation," or in the later "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," which are largely about the writer's anxieties and aversive attachment to teaching. Teaching here figures in as a displacement of writing: the writer wants to write but must teach in order to earn money. But it is a displacement of another sort as well, because--like reading aloud, which the writer also performs in this book--it shifts the question of audience away from the moment of writing and into other literary activities. Davis also performs for us as a reader, at one point ("Not Interested") as a reader who cannot engage with the kind of books that are supposed to be intellectually enticing to her. ("Please spare me your imagination, I'm so tired of your vivid imagination, let someone else enjoy it.")
At any rate, the point--I think--is that it seems less important to read Davis's work as pure prose (although I don't think the book or an excerpt of it would necessarily make for a good monologue) in the sense that one is looking for a particular kind of pleasure in the normal prosaic units: at the sentence level or at the level of plot (contained in a single story or set of linked stories). Instead, they give pleasure in other ways: with the rhythms and dynamic shifts, the surprises and monotonies that build up when one reads a good many of these in a row. That, I think, is the best way to read them.
baudier's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
scottishben's review against another edition
5.0
Lydia Davis is the type of author that could write about complaining about the colour of peas of packaging or the fact that she does not have a dog and do so in a way that is not only interesting but strangely profound and essential.
Like Richard Ford there is a very distinctive way in which she writes so that reading almost any sentence of hers it is almost always immediately identifiable as hers.
She is well known to write very, very short short stories, some of which are less than 20 words, and yet many of these convey more than many much, much longer works.
This is not a perfect collection and to be honest it did overstay its welcome slightly with me. In many ways this is my fault. I read the collection over the course of a week or so and many short story collections benefit from a decent amount of pauses between stories that I did not really give it. It is also in part that I felt the quality was a little more variable than in previous volumes. There are some of my favorite of her stories in this volume but also some of the least memorable.
Many of the stories are grouped as "dream" or "from Flaubert" but this is not really explained until the end of the book what these actually are. I didnt really like many of the Flaubert stories but this may just be me.
Overall though the highs of the collection outweigh the lows and there will be many of these stories that I read and reread, indeed I have already reread some of the stories several times.
Like Richard Ford there is a very distinctive way in which she writes so that reading almost any sentence of hers it is almost always immediately identifiable as hers.
She is well known to write very, very short short stories, some of which are less than 20 words, and yet many of these convey more than many much, much longer works.
This is not a perfect collection and to be honest it did overstay its welcome slightly with me. In many ways this is my fault. I read the collection over the course of a week or so and many short story collections benefit from a decent amount of pauses between stories that I did not really give it. It is also in part that I felt the quality was a little more variable than in previous volumes. There are some of my favorite of her stories in this volume but also some of the least memorable.
Many of the stories are grouped as "dream" or "from Flaubert" but this is not really explained until the end of the book what these actually are. I didnt really like many of the Flaubert stories but this may just be me.
Overall though the highs of the collection outweigh the lows and there will be many of these stories that I read and reread, indeed I have already reread some of the stories several times.
smooove_reads's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0