jasonfurman's review against another edition
4.0
A really fascinating collection of short stories. Most of them are very short -- a few pages or in some cases even a paragraph (one of these is pasted below). They are all impeccably written, mostly odd, invariably disorienting with their psychological shifts. Most of them are about relationships, many of them failed. All of them are economical with only a minimum of necessary detail.
But better than a description is to read one of them entitled "What She Knew":
"People did not know what she knew, that she was not really a woman but a man, often a fat man, but more often, probably, an old man. The fact that she was an old man made it hard for her to be a young woman. It was hard for her to talk to a young man, for instance, though the young man was clearly interested in her. She had to ask herself, Why is this young man flirting with this old man?"
But better than a description is to read one of them entitled "What She Knew":
"People did not know what she knew, that she was not really a woman but a man, often a fat man, but more often, probably, an old man. The fact that she was an old man made it hard for her to be a young woman. It was hard for her to talk to a young man, for instance, though the young man was clearly interested in her. She had to ask herself, Why is this young man flirting with this old man?"
aoutramafalda's review against another edition
5.0
4.5*
- Story 4*
- The Fears of Mrs. Orlando 4*
- Liminal: The Little Man 3.5*
- Break It Down 5*
- Mr. Burdoff's Visit to Germany 4*
- What She Knew 4*
- The Fish 3*
- Mildred and the Oboe 4*
- The Mouse 4*
- The Letter 4.5*
- Extracts from a Life 3*
- The House Plans 4*
- The Brother-in-Law 4.5*
- How W.H. Auden Spends the Night in a Friend's House 4*
- Mothers 3.5*
- In a House Besieged 3.5*
- Visit to Her Husband 4*
- Cockroaches in Autumn 3*
- The Bone 4*
- A Few Things Wrong with Me 4.5*
- Sketches for a Life of Wassily 4.5*
- City Employment 4.5*
- Two Sisters 4.5*
- The Mother 5*
- Therapy 4.5*
- French Lesson I: Le Meurtre 4.5*
- Once a Very Stupid Man 4*
- The Housemaid 4*
- The Cottages 4*
- Safe Love 4*
- Problem 3.5*
- What an Old Woman Will Wear 4.5*
- The Sock 4*
- Five Signs of Disturbance 4.5*
- Story 4*
- The Fears of Mrs. Orlando 4*
- Liminal: The Little Man 3.5*
- Break It Down 5*
- Mr. Burdoff's Visit to Germany 4*
- What She Knew 4*
- The Fish 3*
- Mildred and the Oboe 4*
- The Mouse 4*
- The Letter 4.5*
- Extracts from a Life 3*
- The House Plans 4*
- The Brother-in-Law 4.5*
- How W.H. Auden Spends the Night in a Friend's House 4*
- Mothers 3.5*
- In a House Besieged 3.5*
- Visit to Her Husband 4*
- Cockroaches in Autumn 3*
- The Bone 4*
- A Few Things Wrong with Me 4.5*
- Sketches for a Life of Wassily 4.5*
- City Employment 4.5*
- Two Sisters 4.5*
- The Mother 5*
- Therapy 4.5*
- French Lesson I: Le Meurtre 4.5*
- Once a Very Stupid Man 4*
- The Housemaid 4*
- The Cottages 4*
- Safe Love 4*
- Problem 3.5*
- What an Old Woman Will Wear 4.5*
- The Sock 4*
- Five Signs of Disturbance 4.5*
ampersunder's review against another edition
4.0
This book has been on my to-read shelf for ages because I was repeatedly turned off from continuing past the beginning of the first story, because the first story is a piece of Davis's later novel The End of the Story which made me kind of depressed when I read it on our honeymoon. Of all times to read that novel, on a honeymoon! It's the only sour impression I have of Davis's work, because I made the dumb decision to read a depressing book during a holiday that was meant to be even a better time than other holidays. So I would try to read this book but never get through the first story. Well, this time I braved it and finished and even moved on to the second story. Yay for me, because this collection is great and Davis is definitely a writer worth reading.
From "Break It Down":
"Then you forget some of it all, maybe most of it all, almost all of it, in the end, and you work hard at remembering everything now so you won't ever forget, but you can kill it too even by thinking about it too much, though you can't helping thinking about it nearly all the time."
From "Sketches for a Life of Wassilly":
"Working on a list, he would send himself into a certain room to check a book title or the date and forget why he had gone there, distracted by the sight of another unfinished project. He received from himself a number of unrelated instructions which he could not remember, and spent entire mornings uselessly rushing from room to room. There was a strange gap between volition and action: sitting at his desk, before his work but not working, he dreamt of perfection in many things, and this exhilarated him. But when he took one step toward that perfection, he faltered in the face of its demands. There were mornings when he woke under a weight of discouragement so heavy that he could not get out of bed but lay there all day watching the sunlight move across the floor and up the wall."
From "Five Signs of Disturbance":
"Each time she looked down at them, the three quarters separated into groups of one quarter and two quarters, but each time she was prepared to put one back it appeared to her as one of a pair, so that she couldn't put it back. This happened over and over again as she rolled closer to the booths, until finally, against her will, she put one quarter back. She told herself the choice was arbitrary, but she felt strongly that it was not. She felt that it was in fact governed by an important rule, though she did not know what the rule was."
From "Break It Down":
"Then you forget some of it all, maybe most of it all, almost all of it, in the end, and you work hard at remembering everything now so you won't ever forget, but you can kill it too even by thinking about it too much, though you can't helping thinking about it nearly all the time."
From "Sketches for a Life of Wassilly":
"Working on a list, he would send himself into a certain room to check a book title or the date and forget why he had gone there, distracted by the sight of another unfinished project. He received from himself a number of unrelated instructions which he could not remember, and spent entire mornings uselessly rushing from room to room. There was a strange gap between volition and action: sitting at his desk, before his work but not working, he dreamt of perfection in many things, and this exhilarated him. But when he took one step toward that perfection, he faltered in the face of its demands. There were mornings when he woke under a weight of discouragement so heavy that he could not get out of bed but lay there all day watching the sunlight move across the floor and up the wall."
From "Five Signs of Disturbance":
"Each time she looked down at them, the three quarters separated into groups of one quarter and two quarters, but each time she was prepared to put one back it appeared to her as one of a pair, so that she couldn't put it back. This happened over and over again as she rolled closer to the booths, until finally, against her will, she put one quarter back. She told herself the choice was arbitrary, but she felt strongly that it was not. She felt that it was in fact governed by an important rule, though she did not know what the rule was."
ananyabhargava's review against another edition
4.0
i read the titular story, which is probably the most ambitious story in this collection, two years ago and it has stayed with me since. this was my first time reading this collection in its entirety; and this time around, i gravitated towards the simpler stories that chronicled everyday domestic problems, like the story about the mouse that became a staple in an unhappily married couple's kitchen, and the one about the man who lives in a shed on the land he has purchased and draws heaps of blueprints of his dream house but never acts on his plans. i savored and kept (keep) returning to these uncharmed stories because the straightforward manner in which they delved into the minutiae of the narrators' lives made them feel a lot more profound than the stories that pushed for meaning or cloaked it under clever literary devices.
sethdmichaels's review against another edition
5.0
Love an envy the way she writes. It's extremely simple, straightforward and descriptive but somehow also strange, distant and creepy. A lot of the stories are surreal and abstract like Borges, but more intimate and domestic. She describes the lived experience of depression better than almost anyone.
Cheating on Goodreads, because I have a very long Collected Stories and I'm going to mark off the individual books as I complete them in sections. Don't judge me too harshly.
Cheating on Goodreads, because I have a very long Collected Stories and I'm going to mark off the individual books as I complete them in sections. Don't judge me too harshly.
verycarefully's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure what I think of this one.
For the most part, the protagonists of all the stories felt very samey. Neurotic, alienated, self-obsessed, self-conscious. It's worse when written in the third person, as many of them are; a first-person catalogue of someone's every anxious thought feels a littel more genuine, at least. Still, the main effect these stories had was to make me feel disconnected, uncomfortable, and often bored.
At the same time, there were paragraphs here and there that struck me so strongly I had to stop and write them down, which rarely happens at all. I'll be interested to see if Davis' later work takes a more appealing direction, or if the small parts I liked in this collection will disappear entirely.
I did quite like many of the shortest stories in the collection; at only a very few paragraphs, perhaps they escape some unconscious expectation of mine, so that simply capturing a mood or a small sequence of thoughts feels less unfulfilling.
For the most part, the protagonists of all the stories felt very samey. Neurotic, alienated, self-obsessed, self-conscious. It's worse when written in the third person, as many of them are; a first-person catalogue of someone's every anxious thought feels a littel more genuine, at least. Still, the main effect these stories had was to make me feel disconnected, uncomfortable, and often bored.
At the same time, there were paragraphs here and there that struck me so strongly I had to stop and write them down, which rarely happens at all. I'll be interested to see if Davis' later work takes a more appealing direction, or if the small parts I liked in this collection will disappear entirely.
I did quite like many of the shortest stories in the collection; at only a very few paragraphs, perhaps they escape some unconscious expectation of mine, so that simply capturing a mood or a small sequence of thoughts feels less unfulfilling.
ardinareads's review against another edition
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Enjoyed this collection of short stories even though no story in particular stood out to me
More...