Status
Checked out
Genres
Publication
Picador (2015), Edition: Reprint, 304 pages
Description
A fifth collection by the author of the National Book Award finalist, Varieties of Disturbance, includes pithy one-liners, exploratory observations and letters of complaint, including "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," in which a professor is stymied by her choices.
User reviews
LibraryThing member dawnlovesbooks
Mixture of short stories. Some sad, some funny. Some short, some long. Some made perfect sense, some made none.
LibraryThing member jon1lambert
One of the best books I've read for a long time. It is a collection of articles, short essays, descriptions of dreams, conversations overheard and observations. Some are hilarious, some are very touching, some are masterpieces of insight. The best for me: The cows, The seals and The letter to the
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foundation. The problem of the vacuum cleaner is funny. Many make you stop reading and start writing something in similar vein. Show Less
LibraryThing member cabockwrites
A stripped down review.
Kind of like the stories or poems in Davis' compelling collection "can't and won't." I bought it with no preconceived conceptions, one of those bookstore finds, I think there was a staff pick on it, anyway, I was desperate for something different to read, and I got it.
Some of
I liked less the two or three lines musings, but some I did like.
I think every writer or would be writer should read, "The Language of Things in The House," what she imagines the sounds are from various activities such as "The wooden spoon in the plastic bowl stirring the pancake mix: 'What the hell, what the hell.' I imagine this would be a fun writing exercise in a workshop.
It's good, and it's imperfect enough to want me to keep reading other Lydia Davis collections.
--Caroline
Kind of like the stories or poems in Davis' compelling collection "can't and won't." I bought it with no preconceived conceptions, one of those bookstore finds, I think there was a staff pick on it, anyway, I was desperate for something different to read, and I got it.
Some of
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what I liked a lot...Short fiction pieces from Flaubert's actual writings—I learned this from her very last note in the acknowledgements—most were found in letters written from the author of Madame Bovary to his lover, Louise Colet. I liked less the two or three lines musings, but some I did like.
I think every writer or would be writer should read, "The Language of Things in The House," what she imagines the sounds are from various activities such as "The wooden spoon in the plastic bowl stirring the pancake mix: 'What the hell, what the hell.' I imagine this would be a fun writing exercise in a workshop.
It's good, and it's imperfect enough to want me to keep reading other Lydia Davis collections.
--Caroline
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LibraryThing member TomWaitsTables
Love her style; well-crafted prose. 5 stars if she had something to say.
LibraryThing member peterpobre
I never read short stories. Well hardly ever. But are these short stories, or entries in a commonplace book? Whatever they are I found them compulsively readable. I will let Ms. Davis complete this very short review ... "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I
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have never been here before." [Bloomington, p. 8.] Show Less
LibraryThing member EggButties
I like the conceit of disrupting the structure of the short story - Davis is heavy on details and description (to sometimes a pathological degree), low on action and plot. Some of the most interesting pieces contain just three lines or two paragraphs, which because of the brevity and economy of
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language become puzzles, to be returned to and re-interpreted, unsolvable. Perhaps as a consequence of the level of detail at this extreme micro level, the narrator is obscured - detached and distant, unknowable. What is the meaning of the letter about the peas? Those short riddle stories, what (or who?) hides behind them? They are always cocooned in the narrator's perspective yet give little away. They feel lonely, transient - glimpses of inner moments, lists, preferences. Perhaps they are the best possible description of isolation and the impossibility of true connection. Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe
The more than 120 “stories” collected together in Can’t and Won’t range from pieces as short as a dozen words, through a larger set of paragraph-length “dreams” and incidents sourced from Flaubert’s correspondence, to longer pieces typically “letters” to heads of foundations or
Perhaps surprising, the list of acknowledgements at the end of the book reveals that virtually every piece here has been previously published, often in small literary journals, but also in such esteemed outlets as The Paris Review. That makes one wonder whether publication, individually, would impact a reader’s opinion of many of these literary morsels. Gathered together, perhaps, the weight of any single item may be lost. Or perhaps that’s wishful thinking. For I regret to say that I didn’t find many of the items in this collection particularly illuminating. They are never poorly written. Just a bit dull. Enough so that I found myself wondering more than once, “Why did she bother writing that?” Of course that might be the effect she was hoping for. In which case, this is a brilliant success. But otherwise, probably recommended only for the half dozen or so pieces that do not illicit that questioning response.
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businesses recounting a recent incident. Atypically for Davis, the majority of these items are not particularly humorous. They tend to be pithy but not necessarily instructive in any sense. The “dreams” are most often banal. And it is only in the longer pieces that Davis’ trademark irony flourishes.Perhaps surprising, the list of acknowledgements at the end of the book reveals that virtually every piece here has been previously published, often in small literary journals, but also in such esteemed outlets as The Paris Review. That makes one wonder whether publication, individually, would impact a reader’s opinion of many of these literary morsels. Gathered together, perhaps, the weight of any single item may be lost. Or perhaps that’s wishful thinking. For I regret to say that I didn’t find many of the items in this collection particularly illuminating. They are never poorly written. Just a bit dull. Enough so that I found myself wondering more than once, “Why did she bother writing that?” Of course that might be the effect she was hoping for. In which case, this is a brilliant success. But otherwise, probably recommended only for the half dozen or so pieces that do not illicit that questioning response.
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LibraryThing member flydodofly
It is always with great pleasure when one discovers a mind which seems both related to oneself and brilliant. She does go on a little too long sometimes, and yes, the stories marked "dreams" - what is that all about? But the mixture is a whole and it is a slice of a whole and makes much more sense
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like that, like a jumble sale - must take all! I have not only taken it - I have devoured it all. Show Less
LibraryThing member rmckeown
Lydia Davis, recently awarded the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction, is as interesting and eclectic a writer as I have rarely encountered. Her latest collection, Can’t and Won’t, will wrinkle your brow, bring a smile to your face, and set the reader to thinking about the world and its
Davis was born in 1947 to parents who were both of a literary bent. She married the writer, Paul Auster, but they divorced, and she then married Alan Cote. She has two children. Lydia is most known for her short stories of extreme brevity, referred to as “flash fiction.” Some of her stories consist of a single line, sometimes even as few as 3-4 words. Despite their size, each of these stories contains a nugget of pure gold, some even have streaks of platinum. Here is an example of one of those nuggets titled “The Dog Hair.” She writes, “The dog is gone. We miss him. When the doorbell rings, no one barks. We still find his white hairs here and there around the house and on our clothes. We pick them up. We should throw them away. But they are all we have left of him. We don’t throw them away. We have a wild hope -- if only we collect enough of them, we will be able to put the dog back together again” (4). The sadness and the memories of a beloved pet are all packed into 88 words.
Here is another slightly shorter story, “Circular Story”: “On Wednesday mornings early there is always a racket out there on the road. It wakes me up and I always wonder what it is. It is always the trash collection truck picking up the trash. The truck comes every Wednesday morning early. It always wakes me up. I always wonder what it is” (5). Whatever will she do if they change the route and it passes by her home after lunch?
Here is a pair of funny little tales. “Contingency (vs. Necessity). “He could be our dog. // But he is not our dog. // So he barks at us” (18), and “Contingency (vs. Necessity) 2: On Vacation”: “He could be my husband. // But he is not my husband. // He is her husband. // And so he takes her picture (not mine) as she stands in her flowered beach outfit in front of the old fortress” (20). Some of these stories have a definite poetic flair.
Another of my favorites is “The Bad Novel.” Davis writes, “This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip – I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel” (23). I have experienced this quite a few times, but unfortunately for me, I do not have the patience for more than three strikes. Finally, the title story, “Can’t and Won’t. “I was recently denied a writing prize, because, they said, I was too lazy. What they mean by lazy was that I used too many contractions: for instance, I would not write out in full the words cannot and will not, but instead contract them to can’t and won’t. (46).
The most recent collection by Lydia Davis, Can’t and Won’t has dozens more of these fun and entertaining little nibblettes. She also includes a number of her dreams and fragments of the story of Madame Bovary, which she recently translated. This is one of my favorite novels of the 19th century. I am seriously close to reading this new translation of a classic novel. 5 stars.
--Jim, 12/11/16
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wide variety of inhabitants.Davis was born in 1947 to parents who were both of a literary bent. She married the writer, Paul Auster, but they divorced, and she then married Alan Cote. She has two children. Lydia is most known for her short stories of extreme brevity, referred to as “flash fiction.” Some of her stories consist of a single line, sometimes even as few as 3-4 words. Despite their size, each of these stories contains a nugget of pure gold, some even have streaks of platinum. Here is an example of one of those nuggets titled “The Dog Hair.” She writes, “The dog is gone. We miss him. When the doorbell rings, no one barks. We still find his white hairs here and there around the house and on our clothes. We pick them up. We should throw them away. But they are all we have left of him. We don’t throw them away. We have a wild hope -- if only we collect enough of them, we will be able to put the dog back together again” (4). The sadness and the memories of a beloved pet are all packed into 88 words.
Here is another slightly shorter story, “Circular Story”: “On Wednesday mornings early there is always a racket out there on the road. It wakes me up and I always wonder what it is. It is always the trash collection truck picking up the trash. The truck comes every Wednesday morning early. It always wakes me up. I always wonder what it is” (5). Whatever will she do if they change the route and it passes by her home after lunch?
Here is a pair of funny little tales. “Contingency (vs. Necessity). “He could be our dog. // But he is not our dog. // So he barks at us” (18), and “Contingency (vs. Necessity) 2: On Vacation”: “He could be my husband. // But he is not my husband. // He is her husband. // And so he takes her picture (not mine) as she stands in her flowered beach outfit in front of the old fortress” (20). Some of these stories have a definite poetic flair.
Another of my favorites is “The Bad Novel.” Davis writes, “This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip – I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel” (23). I have experienced this quite a few times, but unfortunately for me, I do not have the patience for more than three strikes. Finally, the title story, “Can’t and Won’t. “I was recently denied a writing prize, because, they said, I was too lazy. What they mean by lazy was that I used too many contractions: for instance, I would not write out in full the words cannot and will not, but instead contract them to can’t and won’t. (46).
The most recent collection by Lydia Davis, Can’t and Won’t has dozens more of these fun and entertaining little nibblettes. She also includes a number of her dreams and fragments of the story of Madame Bovary, which she recently translated. This is one of my favorite novels of the 19th century. I am seriously close to reading this new translation of a classic novel. 5 stars.
--Jim, 12/11/16
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LibraryThing member Kanikoski
I didn't get this at first. Maybe I still don't. Many of the short 'stories' are similar to the social media status updates that I see every day, equally well written, from friends and others. After reading through several of these, the longer episodes seem unnecessarily verbose and in need of
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pruning. The language is certainly clear, almost in the manner of technical writing when it comes to the dream sequences, and the expression is bold. However, what seems to make this 'a thing' is simply that it expresses the everyday thoughts that we all must certainly have. To get this published with dust-jacket reviews that compare it to Kafka, Flaubert, and Proust suggests, in my view, that the author must have influential friends in the publishing business. I still don't get it, no. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
I'm glad Lydia Davis does her thing. I'm unsure we need 280 pages of it, and I'm starting to get a bit suspicious of people who talk about how she's the best thing since sliced bread. I'm starting to suspect that her work will be seen, in hindsight, as peak MFA writing. But also like reading a blog
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back when people still wrote blogs. Show Less
LibraryThing member rmarcin
Some of the stories, I liked. Others, I did not.
LibraryThing member steve02476
Liked, but not quite as much as her earlier stuff.
Awards
NPR: Books We Love (2014)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2014)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Fiction — 2014)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2014
Physical description
304 p.; 5.49 inches
ISBN
1250062438 / 9781250062437