A review by megapolisomancy
The End of the Story by Lydia Davis
2.0
1. Who would have guessed that an overly self-conscious novel about a self-conscious character/narrator/author writing a novel about the self-conscious remembrance of a failed love affair would be boring and eye-roll-worthy and self-involved? Just kidding, anyone could have guessed that.
2. A quote: Vincent (husband of the unnamed narrator [whose name is presumably Lydia Davis... it's that kind of book:] in the portion of the story in which this novel is being written, you follow?) happens to be reading a novel that includes the same sorts of things he hopes I will leave out... I don't think Vincent likes the book enough to go on with it.
But I suspect he thinks I should also leave out my feelings, or most of them. Although he values feelings in themselves and has many strong feelings of different kinds, they do not particularly interest him as things to be discussed at any length, and he certainly does not think they should be offered as justifications for bad actions. I'm not writing the book to please him, of course, but I respect his ideas, though they are often rather uncompromising. His standards are very high.
Me too, Vincent. Me too.
But really, not that feelings can't be an interesting thing to write about (Written On The Body being a good example of a book not too far off from this one, thematically speaking) but the kicker here is their being "offered as justifications for bad actions." And not just bad as in like "said a mean thing" or whatever but bad as in "cowering outside his apartment to observe him at home with his new girlfriend."
3. "Davis has written a brilliant essay in the form of a novel." says the New Yorker and while I don't know about "brilliant," this is definitely more of an essay than a novel. Not an essay interesting enough to fill 240 pages, though.
2. A quote: Vincent (husband of the unnamed narrator [whose name is presumably Lydia Davis... it's that kind of book:] in the portion of the story in which this novel is being written, you follow?) happens to be reading a novel that includes the same sorts of things he hopes I will leave out... I don't think Vincent likes the book enough to go on with it.
But I suspect he thinks I should also leave out my feelings, or most of them. Although he values feelings in themselves and has many strong feelings of different kinds, they do not particularly interest him as things to be discussed at any length, and he certainly does not think they should be offered as justifications for bad actions. I'm not writing the book to please him, of course, but I respect his ideas, though they are often rather uncompromising. His standards are very high.
Me too, Vincent. Me too.
But really, not that feelings can't be an interesting thing to write about (Written On The Body being a good example of a book not too far off from this one, thematically speaking) but the kicker here is their being "offered as justifications for bad actions." And not just bad as in like "said a mean thing" or whatever but bad as in "cowering outside his apartment to observe him at home with his new girlfriend."
3. "Davis has written a brilliant essay in the form of a novel." says the New Yorker and while I don't know about "brilliant," this is definitely more of an essay than a novel. Not an essay interesting enough to fill 240 pages, though.