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zibby's review against another edition
4.0
'and what I had written did not seem important.'
Reading this book is like a magic eye picture: you have to hold in your mind several contrary different versions of events, of characters or interactions. It is a love story, or rather a break up story but it is also a story about beginnings and endings, about the act of writing itself, as a record or memory - how inaccurate and difficult it is. The prose is dense and twists inward on itself but give it your time and this is an immensely rewarding read.
Reading this book is like a magic eye picture: you have to hold in your mind several contrary different versions of events, of characters or interactions. It is a love story, or rather a break up story but it is also a story about beginnings and endings, about the act of writing itself, as a record or memory - how inaccurate and difficult it is. The prose is dense and twists inward on itself but give it your time and this is an immensely rewarding read.
ololyga's review against another edition
5.0
her writing always seems to seep out of the page, contaminating everything I think and do. in this case, it made me anxious depressed & entirely too romantic. I’m surprised it didn’t ruin my whole vacation!
mslaura's review against another edition
2.0
I admire what the author did with this book and the way she captured the challenge of processing memories after the fact, of trying to reconstruct a logical timeline of events as they actually occurred, not how we have come to believe they happened or how we wish they had happened. It was definitely a unique book and was worth reading for that alone. However, the story itself just never grabbed my interest and I never felt at all invested in the characters or their actions, so in the end this book was just okay for me.
merixien's review against another edition
4.0
“Başka biriyle yaşamak kolay değildir, en azından benim için kolay değil. Nasıl bir bencil olduğumu o zaman anlıyorum. Benim için başka birini sevmek kolay olmadı ama giderek buna alışıyorum. Ancak bir ay süreyle kibarlığımı koruyabiliyorum ama ondan sonra yine bencilleşiyorum. Birini sevmenin ne anlama geldiğini anlamaya çalışıyorum. Hippolyte Taine veya Alfred de Musset gibi başka açılardan beni ilgilendirmeyen ünlü yazarlardan alıntılar not ediyorum. Mesela Taine, sevmek başka birinin mutluluğunu kendi amacın yapmaktır, demiş. Bunu kendi durumuma uygulamaya çalışmak isterdim. Fakat, birini sevmek onu kendimden önceye koymaksa, bunu nasıl yapabilirim ki? Üç seçenek var gibi görünüyordu: birini sevmeye çalışmaktan vazgeçmek, bencillikten vazgeçmek veya bencilliğe devam ederken birini sevmeyi öğrenmek. İlk ikisini başarabileceğimi sanmam ama ara sıra birini sevmeye yetecek ölçüde bencilliğimden vazgeçmeyi öğrenebilirdim.”
Kitap kendisini o kadar güzel anlatıyor ki ekleyecek pek bir şey yok. Yazarın öykülerini çok sevmiştim, bu sefer de romanıyla hayran oldum. Unutamadığı eski bir aşkına veda töreni gibi. Bir vazgeçişin sonucu. Yazar dairesel bir anlatımla ilerlediğinden, zaman çizgisini takip etmek ve olay sıralamaları karmaşık gibi görünebilir ancak kendisine alıştığınızda bu sıçramalarda ilerlemeyi de seveceksinizdir. Benim çok sevdiğim bir kitap oldu; her ne kadar bir kurgu- roman da olsa yazarın hayatından izler de taşıyan bir iç döküş-yüzleşme seansı.
Kitap kendisini o kadar güzel anlatıyor ki ekleyecek pek bir şey yok. Yazarın öykülerini çok sevmiştim, bu sefer de romanıyla hayran oldum. Unutamadığı eski bir aşkına veda töreni gibi. Bir vazgeçişin sonucu. Yazar dairesel bir anlatımla ilerlediğinden, zaman çizgisini takip etmek ve olay sıralamaları karmaşık gibi görünebilir ancak kendisine alıştığınızda bu sıçramalarda ilerlemeyi de seveceksinizdir. Benim çok sevdiğim bir kitap oldu; her ne kadar bir kurgu- roman da olsa yazarın hayatından izler de taşıyan bir iç döküş-yüzleşme seansı.
andiswain's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
mspiga01's review against another edition
4.0
Certain points in the book were very poignant, relatable to a current situation in my own life although my details are different than the ones in the book. The long sentences and descriptions are a bit trailing sometimes, but those are the things we remember sometimes.
sneaky_tequila's review against another edition
4.0
I love Lydia Davis. Anyone who knows anything about me at least knows that. There's something about that way that she slips and slides her way through her work--whether it be short stories or something longer--using different techniques, relying on different metaphors, seemingly creating something out of nothing. The End of the Story is a perfect example of that.
This novel starts and finishes with no real plot, no dialogue, no set time frame. All it really is is an idea. A woman is trying to write a novel about a man she once had a relationship with. That's it. And yet Lydia Davis makes so much more out that idea. A simple text turns into a complex, winding narrative that embodies the human memory. Things are jumbled and unsure and stuck together with memories. This one thing happens at first, which reminds you of another thing that happened at the end, which leads to another memory in the middle, which may or may not be how it actually happened.
I keep going back and forth on whether to give this novel 3 or 4 stars, though. While I think it perfectly represented how we, as humans, tend to relive events of our own making in our mind, sometimes I feel like the novel maybe does it a little too well. It took me a looooooong time to get through this book. I had to stop somewhere in the middle, take a break for a few weeks, get my own head on straight trying to work through someone else's memories. Even then, the kind of repetitive nature of this character's mind made me really have to push myself to the... "end of the story." It's one thing to relive something so novel in my own mind, it's another to do it through someone else's.
This novel starts and finishes with no real plot, no dialogue, no set time frame. All it really is is an idea. A woman is trying to write a novel about a man she once had a relationship with. That's it. And yet Lydia Davis makes so much more out that idea. A simple text turns into a complex, winding narrative that embodies the human memory. Things are jumbled and unsure and stuck together with memories. This one thing happens at first, which reminds you of another thing that happened at the end, which leads to another memory in the middle, which may or may not be how it actually happened.
I keep going back and forth on whether to give this novel 3 or 4 stars, though. While I think it perfectly represented how we, as humans, tend to relive events of our own making in our mind, sometimes I feel like the novel maybe does it a little too well. It took me a looooooong time to get through this book. I had to stop somewhere in the middle, take a break for a few weeks, get my own head on straight trying to work through someone else's memories. Even then, the kind of repetitive nature of this character's mind made me really have to push myself to the... "end of the story." It's one thing to relive something so novel in my own mind, it's another to do it through someone else's.
abbie_'s review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
I didn't love this one. That’s probably obvious since it took me four days to finish a 200-page book. There’s a line in it where the protagonist says she is reading a ‘quiet, well written but dull story about deer-hunting’. Remove the deer-hunting bit and that’s my experience with this book. I love quiet novels and the writing is lovely, but there was just no spark. I might recommend it to people who enjoy musings on memory and other writers!