“A body of work probably unique in American writing, in its
combination of lucidity, aphoristic brevity, formal originality, sly
comedy, metaphysical bleakness, philosophical pressure, and human
wisdom. I suspect that 'The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis' will in
time be seen as one of the great, strange American literary
contributions.” ―James Wood, The New Yorker.
"The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall" tells the story of the horrible smell cause by the cats occupying a prison hall and how it was dealt with. Just a few pages long and you may or may not find it entertaining. Most of the stories are like this. I think Jeff M is a fan. I will keep reading.
They are not so different than the prose section of a haibun. Maybe I need to think of them like that.
7 comments:
Hmm..not sure exactly what I think of this one, Patti. It doesn't sound as though it's to everyone's taste. But then, I don't always go for 'what the critics love.'
I know I've read a few of Davis's stories as they've popped into my ken, but don't remember the texts...I should probably refresh my memory. Have a grim J.C. Oates holiday tale, to continue the mood, up for my entry this week: https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2024/11/thanksgiving-by-joyce-carol-oates-omni.html
Coincidentally, I am reading her more recent CAN'T AND WON'T now. Everything Patti said is true. I think I just read them by inertia or something. The main thing about them is just that, their length - or lack of length. But every once in a while there is something of more interest. Otherwise, they balance out the long stories of other writers.
Also currently reading the latest Crippen & Landru collection, THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK by Tom Mead. Mea'd's DEATH AND THE CONJUROR was the first in a series of locked room or impossible crime stories meant to evoke John Dickson Carr and the Golden Age. His detective in the books and most of the stories here is the (so far, at least) rather colorless Joseph Spector. I'm enjoying the puzzles and settings, but so far I have to say, they are no JONATHAN CREEK, whose plots and ingenuity jump out at you in nearly every episode. I tried CONJUROR when it first came out to rave reviews but was not impressed enough to read past the first few chapters, and this book, while enjoyable, does not make me want to go back and try it again.
So, to once again quote the late Marv Lachman, good but not great.
Lydia Davis translated Proust's SWANNS WAY to great acclaim. I have a copy, but haven't read it yet.
Also, which I discovered last year, she was married to Paul Auster for three years in the '70s (I think), and the mother of his son who had a tragic end.
Happy T-day: something I finally had the wit to note, your, Patti, page on the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase/ISFDB: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?151369
Sorry to be a day late commenting here. I bought two inexpensive Kindle books of her stories to try: BREAK IT DOWN from 1986 and VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE from 2007. Just to try out her very short stories.There were lots of other books there but all too expensive. I read one story from the sample of CAN'T AND WON'T at Amazon. It was "The Dog Hair", about a paragraph long, and interesting.
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