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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this collection and all the risks that Davis takes in departing from what we traditionally think of as "story." I didn't necessarily think that they all worked, but I enjoyed every second of it. This is a great collection to read if you want to be challenged and inspired to break all the rules you've inherited as a reader or have been taught in every writing class you've ever taken.
Only a couple of the stories in the entire collection are longer than a few pages. Some are as short as a sentence or two. However, this is a wonderful collection. Lydia Davis plays with language and words, tenses and images. I purposely disciplined myself to only read one story a night until near the very end so I wouldn't rush through them. I enjoyed reading some of the shorter pieces to my wife, friends, and colleagues. Many of the stories were intelligent and witty. I would recommend to fans of Barthelme, but mixed in with writers like Aimee Bender or Kelly Link...writers who really stretch the boundaries of ideas and wordplay.
Collaboration with a Fly
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
p. 8
I tend to like short stories. So after I read an article about Lydia Davis, I naturally checked out a book of her stories. Although it took me awhile to get through this collection, the stories were well worth reading. I just got distracted by some other books along the way.
Davis has a way with words that leaves me flabbergasted. How do people take the English language bent it and twist it as Davis does? Every story stands on its own. Their common theme is Davis' willingness to play with subjects and styles, to say things that have never been thought before.
My mother has always said that I read so much that I should write. In this book, Davis showed me that I haven't the faintest idea how to write a story. I just want to sit back and admire writers' talents.
There are more than 50 stories in this book. They range from one sentence (see above) to more than 40 pages. For me, each was a way of looking at the world that I had not considered before.
If you have any interest in contemporary fiction or short stories, please try a few of Lydia Davis' stories. She is amazing.
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
p. 8
I tend to like short stories. So after I read an article about Lydia Davis, I naturally checked out a book of her stories. Although it took me awhile to get through this collection, the stories were well worth reading. I just got distracted by some other books along the way.
Davis has a way with words that leaves me flabbergasted. How do people take the English language bent it and twist it as Davis does? Every story stands on its own. Their common theme is Davis' willingness to play with subjects and styles, to say things that have never been thought before.
My mother has always said that I read so much that I should write. In this book, Davis showed me that I haven't the faintest idea how to write a story. I just want to sit back and admire writers' talents.
There are more than 50 stories in this book. They range from one sentence (see above) to more than 40 pages. For me, each was a way of looking at the world that I had not considered before.
If you have any interest in contemporary fiction or short stories, please try a few of Lydia Davis' stories. She is amazing.
Short stories? You call these short stories?
Well, it doesn't really matter what you label them....They are fun,
they are innovative, they zing your mind.
Well, it doesn't really matter what you label them....They are fun,
they are innovative, they zing your mind.
Another go at finishing books from the spring semester...
Lydia Davis is like nothing I've ever read before. In the just over 4 months since I began reading excerpts of this collection of her short fictions, I've gone back and forth over whether I love or hate her style, whether I find the brutal economy and utter truth of her prose fantastic or too jarring. She takes the most ordinary moments of life and makes them into the most literary bits of prose. The fascination of her prose is not the characters, who are so very clearly flawed humans, or the plots, which often don't even really exist, but rather the force of her unique project and unique language.
One of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read. Recommend.
Lydia Davis is like nothing I've ever read before. In the just over 4 months since I began reading excerpts of this collection of her short fictions, I've gone back and forth over whether I love or hate her style, whether I find the brutal economy and utter truth of her prose fantastic or too jarring. She takes the most ordinary moments of life and makes them into the most literary bits of prose. The fascination of her prose is not the characters, who are so very clearly flawed humans, or the plots, which often don't even really exist, but rather the force of her unique project and unique language.
One of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read. Recommend.
Davis's prose seems deceptively simple, but in reality perfectly captures the vagaries, humor, inanities and pain that together constitute the human condition. You sometimes have to work for it as a reader, but it's worth it. She's brilliant.