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oceliastanley's review
challenging
informative
reflective
i am so pleased with myself for this impulse purchase. something i will definitely read again! when i say i want to be articulate, i mean like lydia davis. she is so precise and intentional with her words, and each essay is so neatly revised that it flows like stream of consciousness almost, but not rambly at all. she is also so aware of her own biases and fallibility - every statement is qualified, or followed up with doubts, but not in a tiresome way - her writing is still very self assured somehow. trying to work out how she does this. some essays definitely hit harder than others (as is the way of the world, or at least the way of essay collections) i particularly enjoyed the ones about memory and her own writing process/influences. one of those books that reminded me why i like to read/made me excited to read more!
charlie1000r's review
5.0
This was an absolutely fantastic collection of essays. I mostly know Davis for her short stories, but it was great to get a better understanding of her life and work through these non-fiction pieces. My favorites were the "Forms and Influences" essays, four in total, which discuss her methods and the other writers she's read over the years. Because her stories are so short, there are a couple of instances where she was able to include several versions of the same story in its entirety in order to show its evolution, which provided some great insight into her process. I was less thrilled with some of her essays on visual artists, but even they were worthwhile reads simply for showing the breadth of her writings. I can't wait for volume two, which I believe will focus on her work as a translator.
asensualcow's review
I decided to change up my approach to goodreads cause star reviews are dumb I think. or like not enough. anyways I read this before any of her short fiction and now i'm so excited to read her short fiction!
nc_exlibris's review
3.0
I think I have to agree with the New York Times Book Review on this one...mostly full of piss and wind.
nhusain14's review against another edition
4.0
Besides Davis' own, these essays are a dissection of very good writings:
Kafka: "The picture of dissatisfaction presented by a street, where everyone is perpetually lifting his feet to escape from the place on which he stands."
In “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” she writes, “Once he told me he loved me because I was like San Pablo Avenue.”
She goes right on to another, even more surprising comparison: “He was like the Berkeley dump.”
Nabokov said he never set out to write a novel but to get rid of it. Maybe the notebook is also, for me, a place to get rid of everything, and the more exactly I put it down the more completely I get rid of it.
Lawrence’s introduction begins: “When we think of America, and of her huge success, we never realize how many failures have gone, and still go to build up that success. It is not till you live in America, and go a little under the surface, that you begin to see how terrible and brutal is the mass of failure that nourishes the roots of the gigantic tree of dollars.”
Flaubert: “What a bitch of a thing prose is! It’s never finished; there’s always something to redo. Yet I think one can give it the consistency of verse. A good sentence in prose should be like a good line of poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.”
Stendhal: “I am witty no more than once a week and then only for five minutes.”
Kafka: "The picture of dissatisfaction presented by a street, where everyone is perpetually lifting his feet to escape from the place on which he stands."
In “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” she writes, “Once he told me he loved me because I was like San Pablo Avenue.”
She goes right on to another, even more surprising comparison: “He was like the Berkeley dump.”
Nabokov said he never set out to write a novel but to get rid of it. Maybe the notebook is also, for me, a place to get rid of everything, and the more exactly I put it down the more completely I get rid of it.
Lawrence’s introduction begins: “When we think of America, and of her huge success, we never realize how many failures have gone, and still go to build up that success. It is not till you live in America, and go a little under the surface, that you begin to see how terrible and brutal is the mass of failure that nourishes the roots of the gigantic tree of dollars.”
Flaubert: “What a bitch of a thing prose is! It’s never finished; there’s always something to redo. Yet I think one can give it the consistency of verse. A good sentence in prose should be like a good line of poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.”
Stendhal: “I am witty no more than once a week and then only for five minutes.”