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Samuel Johnson Is Indignant
From one of our most imaginative and inventive writers, a crystalline collection of perfectly modulated, sometimes harrowing and often hilarious investigations into the multifaceted ways in which human beings perceive each other and themselves. A couple suspects their friends think them boring; a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she's set too high a goal; and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors. Lydia Davis once again proves in the words of the Los Angeles Times "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction."
201 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2001
55 people are currently reading
2005 people want to read
About the author
Lydia Davis
352 books1,466 followersLydia Davis, acclaimed fiction writer and translator, is famous in literary circles for her extremely brief and brilliantly inventive short stories. In fall 2003 she received one of 25 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” awards. In granting the award the MacArthur Foundation praised Davis’s work for showing “how language itself can entertain, how all that what one word says, and leaves unsaid, can hold a reader’s interest. . . . Davis grants readers a glimpse of life’s previously invisible details, revealing new sources of philosophical insights and beauty.” In 2013 She was the winner of the Man Booker International prize.
Davis’s recent collection, “Varieties of Disturbance” (May 2007), was featured on the front cover of the “Los Angeles Times Book Review” and garnered a starred review from “Publishers Weekly.” Her “Samuel Johnson Is Indignant” (2001) was praised by “Elle” magazine for its “Highly intelligent, wildly entertaining stories, bound by visionary, philosophical, comic prose—part Gertrude Stein, part Simone Weil, and pure Lydia Davis.”
Davis is also a celebrated translator of French literature into English. The French government named her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her fiction and her distinguished translations of works by Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve, Michel Butor and others.
Davis recently published a new translation (the first in more than 80 years) of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, “Swann’s Way” (2003), the first volume of Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” A story of childhood and sexual jealousy set in fin de siecle France, “Swann’s Way” is widely regarded as one of the most important literary works of the 20th century.
The “Sunday Telegraph” (London) called the new translation “A triumph [that] will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world.” Writing for the “Irish Times,” Frank Wynne said, “What soars in this new version is the simplicity of language and fidelity to the cambers of Proust’s prose… Davis’ translation is magnificent, precise.”
Davis’s previous works include “Almost No Memory” (stories, 1997), “The End of the Story” (novel, 1995), “Break It Down” (stories, 1986), “Story and Other Stories” (1983), and “The Thirteenth Woman” (stories, 1976).
Grace Paley wrote of “Almost No Memory” that Lydia Davis is the kind of writer who “makes you say, ‘Oh, at last!’—brains, language, energy, a playfulness with form, and what appears to be a generous nature.” The collection was chosen as one of the “25 Favorite Books of 1997” by the “Voice Literary Supplement” and one of the “100 Best Books of 1997” by the “Los Angeles Times.”
Davis first received serious critical attention for her collection of stories, “Break It Down,” which was selected as a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. The book’s positive critical reception helped Davis win a prestigious Whiting Writer’s Award in 1988.
She is the daughter of Robert Gorham Davis and Hope Hale Davis. From 1974 to 1978 Davis was married to Paul Auster, with whom she has a son, Daniel Auster. Davis is currently married to painter Alan Cote, with whom she has a son, Theo Cote. She is a professor of creative writing at University at Albany, SUNY.
Davis is considered hugely influential by a generation of writers including Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, who once wrote that she "blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction."
Davis’s recent collection, “Varieties of Disturbance” (May 2007), was featured on the front cover of the “Los Angeles Times Book Review” and garnered a starred review from “Publishers Weekly.” Her “Samuel Johnson Is Indignant” (2001) was praised by “Elle” magazine for its “Highly intelligent, wildly entertaining stories, bound by visionary, philosophical, comic prose—part Gertrude Stein, part Simone Weil, and pure Lydia Davis.”
Davis is also a celebrated translator of French literature into English. The French government named her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her fiction and her distinguished translations of works by Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve, Michel Butor and others.
Davis recently published a new translation (the first in more than 80 years) of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, “Swann’s Way” (2003), the first volume of Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” A story of childhood and sexual jealousy set in fin de siecle France, “Swann’s Way” is widely regarded as one of the most important literary works of the 20th century.
The “Sunday Telegraph” (London) called the new translation “A triumph [that] will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new audiences throughout the English-speaking world.” Writing for the “Irish Times,” Frank Wynne said, “What soars in this new version is the simplicity of language and fidelity to the cambers of Proust’s prose… Davis’ translation is magnificent, precise.”
Davis’s previous works include “Almost No Memory” (stories, 1997), “The End of the Story” (novel, 1995), “Break It Down” (stories, 1986), “Story and Other Stories” (1983), and “The Thirteenth Woman” (stories, 1976).
Grace Paley wrote of “Almost No Memory” that Lydia Davis is the kind of writer who “makes you say, ‘Oh, at last!’—brains, language, energy, a playfulness with form, and what appears to be a generous nature.” The collection was chosen as one of the “25 Favorite Books of 1997” by the “Voice Literary Supplement” and one of the “100 Best Books of 1997” by the “Los Angeles Times.”
Davis first received serious critical attention for her collection of stories, “Break It Down,” which was selected as a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. The book’s positive critical reception helped Davis win a prestigious Whiting Writer’s Award in 1988.
She is the daughter of Robert Gorham Davis and Hope Hale Davis. From 1974 to 1978 Davis was married to Paul Auster, with whom she has a son, Daniel Auster. Davis is currently married to painter Alan Cote, with whom she has a son, Theo Cote. She is a professor of creative writing at University at Albany, SUNY.
Davis is considered hugely influential by a generation of writers including Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, who once wrote that she "blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction."
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 167 reviews
March 4, 2018
Review Writing
She thought that perhaps she should limit the review to 805 words. This was the average length of the stories in the book. But the median length was far less. She researched, and estimated it to be 205 words. 27 stories had fewer words, the shortest one-pagers being one-liners. She thought to quote those shortest:
he certainly looks indignant
and
so his book was fishless?
These made her laugh, even out loud upon some readings. On other readings however they only caused her to smile. Still, she appreciated them, thankful for so little effort required on her part.
But what else to put in so short a review? Perhaps some brief comments on named stories? Something like the reviews that a friend wrote? She wondered if the friend was paid for those reviews. Probably just in the usual currency, she thought. Anyway, wouldn’t that be plagiaristic?
She thought of introducing the review with a section about as long as this median story. Would that seem simple-minded? Would her editor approve? But she had no editor. And, she thought, she wasn’t a she anyway. But the writer being reviewed was. Or rather is.
Stories she made special marks beside: Boring Friends, A Mown Lawn, Jury Duty, A Double Negative, Information From the North Concerning the Ice:, Away From Home, Two Sisters (II).
Stories she wrote cryptic comments for:
City People - sad tale
Betrayal - somewhat dark
The White Tribe - disturbing
Priority - trials of a wife & mother
The Meeting - very unusual style for her
Blind Date - curious
Old Mother and the Grouch - Unhappiness on the home front
New Year’s Resolution - more quandaries
Interesting - not much is interesting
Happiest Moment - mind-bogglingly curious story in a sentence
Happy Memories - sad/ominous/hopeful
Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman - Astounding. Very moving.
Mir the Hessian - Quite a one-pager
Alvin the Typesetter - ominous ending
Special - made me laugh out loud
Selfish - liked on second read
My Husband and I - yew
Spring Spleen - downer? or amusing?
Her Damage - a woman & her forgiving husband
Workingmen - them & us
In a Northern Country - horrifying
Company - quite good - and something I relate to.
The transformation - many adjectives can apply
The Furnace - Strange. True?
The Silence of Mrs. Iln - strangely upbeat
Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms - my eyes leaked
Other comments, most longer, that she wrote:
Happiest Moment – a story she has written is a story she read about what a Chinese student said, to his English teacher, was the happiest moment of his life being a trip his wife made on which she ate duck and of which she often spoke to him about.
Jury Duty – This one-sided narrative composed entirely of Answers with the Questions missing has a curious feel to it. The Answers express an ambivalence about the whole experience. The comparison with lady bugs is perhaps telling, and perhaps not. The ‘Yes!’ at the end utterly enigmatic.
Right and Wrong – one of her old types of narrative.
Alvin the Typesetter – what do you think of? my reader, you must read it to know!
My Husband and I – very weird
Two Sisters (II) – see the other Two Sisters (in Break It Down). 5x2 = 10 sisters, and 10 women with sisters – all different. How many women all together?
There were six stories more than ten pages long. She noticed that she had done a lot of underlining in three of these, some underling in a fourth. In one she had done much underlining at first, then hardly any. Had she lost interest? Had she forgot to read the last few pages? But in the longest one, the fictional biography of Marie Curie, which she had found very moving, there were no underlines at all.
She wondered what this all meant. There were many possibilities … but
she decided to quote more stories.
A Double Negative
At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.
Information from the North Concerning the Ice:
Each seal uses many blowholes and each blowhole is used by many seals.
Special
We know we are very special. Yet we keep trying to find out in what way: not this way, not that way, then what way?
Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms
They have moved into separate bedrooms now.
That night she dreams she is holding him in her arms. He dreams he is having dinner with Ben Johnson.
She decided that was good enough.
She thought that perhaps she should limit the review to 805 words. This was the average length of the stories in the book. But the median length was far less. She researched, and estimated it to be 205 words. 27 stories had fewer words, the shortest one-pagers being one-liners. She thought to quote those shortest:
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant:
that Scotland has so few trees.
he certainly looks indignant
and
Certain Knowledge from Herodotus
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
so his book was fishless?
These made her laugh, even out loud upon some readings. On other readings however they only caused her to smile. Still, she appreciated them, thankful for so little effort required on her part.
But what else to put in so short a review? Perhaps some brief comments on named stories? Something like the reviews that a friend wrote? She wondered if the friend was paid for those reviews. Probably just in the usual currency, she thought. Anyway, wouldn’t that be plagiaristic?
She thought of introducing the review with a section about as long as this median story. Would that seem simple-minded? Would her editor approve? But she had no editor. And, she thought, she wasn’t a she anyway. But the writer being reviewed was. Or rather is.
Stories she made special marks beside: Boring Friends, A Mown Lawn, Jury Duty, A Double Negative, Information From the North Concerning the Ice:, Away From Home, Two Sisters (II).
Stories she wrote cryptic comments for:
City People - sad tale
Betrayal - somewhat dark
The White Tribe - disturbing
Priority - trials of a wife & mother
The Meeting - very unusual style for her
Blind Date - curious
Old Mother and the Grouch - Unhappiness on the home front
New Year’s Resolution - more quandaries
Interesting - not much is interesting
Happiest Moment - mind-bogglingly curious story in a sentence
Happy Memories - sad/ominous/hopeful
Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman - Astounding. Very moving.
Mir the Hessian - Quite a one-pager
Alvin the Typesetter - ominous ending
Special - made me laugh out loud
Selfish - liked on second read
My Husband and I - yew
Spring Spleen - downer? or amusing?
Her Damage - a woman & her forgiving husband
Workingmen - them & us
In a Northern Country - horrifying
Company - quite good - and something I relate to.
The transformation - many adjectives can apply
The Furnace - Strange. True?
The Silence of Mrs. Iln - strangely upbeat
Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms - my eyes leaked
Other comments, most longer, that she wrote:
Happiest Moment – a story she has written is a story she read about what a Chinese student said, to his English teacher, was the happiest moment of his life being a trip his wife made on which she ate duck and of which she often spoke to him about.
Jury Duty – This one-sided narrative composed entirely of Answers with the Questions missing has a curious feel to it. The Answers express an ambivalence about the whole experience. The comparison with lady bugs is perhaps telling, and perhaps not. The ‘Yes!’ at the end utterly enigmatic.
Right and Wrong – one of her old types of narrative.
Alvin the Typesetter – what do you think of? my reader, you must read it to know!
My Husband and I – very weird
Two Sisters (II) – see the other Two Sisters (in Break It Down). 5x2 = 10 sisters, and 10 women with sisters – all different. How many women all together?
There were six stories more than ten pages long. She noticed that she had done a lot of underlining in three of these, some underling in a fourth. In one she had done much underlining at first, then hardly any. Had she lost interest? Had she forgot to read the last few pages? But in the longest one, the fictional biography of Marie Curie, which she had found very moving, there were no underlines at all.
She wondered what this all meant. There were many possibilities … but
she decided to quote more stories.
A Double Negative
At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.
Information from the North Concerning the Ice:
Each seal uses many blowholes and each blowhole is used by many seals.
Special
We know we are very special. Yet we keep trying to find out in what way: not this way, not that way, then what way?
Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms
They have moved into separate bedrooms now.
That night she dreams she is holding him in her arms. He dreams he is having dinner with Ben Johnson.
She decided that was good enough.
December 16, 2010
I think plot can be an overrated thing. I suspect Lydia Davis might share this sentiment.
Looking through some of the reviews for the book from people I know on goodreads.com the major criticism seems to be the super short stories. For example this one:
SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT:
that Scotland has so few trees.
I don't know exactly what this story 'means' but I love that she thinks it's a self-contained piece. yeah it's only a sentence but I get more of a kick out of it than a lot of literary stories about middle-age marital ennui.
Like Kafka I think that Davis works best in brevity. Yeah, I love The Trial and really like The Castle, but where Kafka really shines for me is in stories like "The Hunger Artist" and "The Judgement", and in his Biblical parables and paradoxes. In Kafka these are the short-ish pieces that revolve around a 'punch-line'. Possibly one doesn't find the punch-line of "The Judgement" too funny, dad rising out of bed to tell his adult son that he's been a shitty son, an even worse human being so go kill yourself and the son goes off dutifully to do it, but to me there is something darkly funny about the story. Never mind the hilarity of "The Hunger Artist". Lydia Davis operates in a similar way when she is at her best in this book, the story is a joke of sorts. As in her story "Letter to a Funeral Parlor" where the point of the story is the letter-writers disgust at the bastardized word 'cremains'.
The lengthier pieces in this book are where I think she falls flat, they are in my opinion like "The Hunter Gracchus" or "The Metamorphosis" to me, kind of interesting but a little too played out in their delivery, kind of like an SNL sketch that just doesn't know when to end.
I wouldn't say that her dozen or so uber-short-stories are her best in this collection, but I love that they are there. And maybe it's just because they force me to do what I should be doing when I'm reading; reading to make every single word count. Wondering why each one was chosen and what they 'mean', why Davis thought this particular sentence should stand on it's own, what are the different ways it can be read and really pull apart the one sentence for it's 'essence' or something like that. It's what can be done in Kafka's super short pieces too, and maybe for both writers (for me) they work their best when they are in the happy medium between not too short and not too long.
Looking through some of the reviews for the book from people I know on goodreads.com the major criticism seems to be the super short stories. For example this one:
SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT:
that Scotland has so few trees.
I don't know exactly what this story 'means' but I love that she thinks it's a self-contained piece. yeah it's only a sentence but I get more of a kick out of it than a lot of literary stories about middle-age marital ennui.
Like Kafka I think that Davis works best in brevity. Yeah, I love The Trial and really like The Castle, but where Kafka really shines for me is in stories like "The Hunger Artist" and "The Judgement", and in his Biblical parables and paradoxes. In Kafka these are the short-ish pieces that revolve around a 'punch-line'. Possibly one doesn't find the punch-line of "The Judgement" too funny, dad rising out of bed to tell his adult son that he's been a shitty son, an even worse human being so go kill yourself and the son goes off dutifully to do it, but to me there is something darkly funny about the story. Never mind the hilarity of "The Hunger Artist". Lydia Davis operates in a similar way when she is at her best in this book, the story is a joke of sorts. As in her story "Letter to a Funeral Parlor" where the point of the story is the letter-writers disgust at the bastardized word 'cremains'.
The lengthier pieces in this book are where I think she falls flat, they are in my opinion like "The Hunter Gracchus" or "The Metamorphosis" to me, kind of interesting but a little too played out in their delivery, kind of like an SNL sketch that just doesn't know when to end.
I wouldn't say that her dozen or so uber-short-stories are her best in this collection, but I love that they are there. And maybe it's just because they force me to do what I should be doing when I'm reading; reading to make every single word count. Wondering why each one was chosen and what they 'mean', why Davis thought this particular sentence should stand on it's own, what are the different ways it can be read and really pull apart the one sentence for it's 'essence' or something like that. It's what can be done in Kafka's super short pieces too, and maybe for both writers (for me) they work their best when they are in the happy medium between not too short and not too long.
April 24, 2023
#abrilcontosmil
Especiais
Sabemos que somos muito especiais. Mas continuamos a tentar descobrir em quê: não nisto, nem naquilo – mas em quê, então?
“Samuel Johnson Está Indignado “ (2001) é o terceiro livro de contos que leio de Lydia Davis, aquela que escreve micro-contos como nenhum/a outro/a. Já nos contos mais longos, como afirmei anteriormente, divaga e a sua argúcia dissipa-se. Neste volume é particularmente inventiva na forma e no jogo de palavras.
Dupla Negação
Num certo momento da sua vida, compreende que não se trata tanto de querer ter um filho, como de não querer não ter um filho, ou não ter tido um filho.
Recorrentes e excelentes são os seus contos sobre maternidade, onde não receia a controvérsia.
Egoísta
A utilidade de seres egoísta é que, quando os teus filhos se magoam, não te preocupas muito, porque, pelo teu lado, tu continuas bem. Mas nada te serve seres só um pouco egoísta. Tens de ser muito egoísta. (...) Por isso, se queres ser egoísta, tens de ser muito mais egoísta, tão egoísta que até mesmo se eles tiverem algum problema sério, e o lamentes profunda e sinceramente, como dirás aos teus amigos e conhecidos e a toda a família, acabarás, no fundo, por te sentires aliviada, satisfeita e até mesmo feliz por não seres tu a ter o problema.
E a sua frontalidade revela-se em muitas outras situações.
A Nossa Viagem
A minha mãe pergunta-me que tal foi a nossa viagem de regresso, e eu digo: “Óptima” – o que não é verdade, mas uma ficção. Não podemos dizer o tempo todo a verdade a toda a gente, e decerto não podemos nunca dizer a ninguém toda a verdade, porque seria necessário demasiado tempo para o fazermos.
Esta colectânea inclui vários contos que conduzem à interrogação, contando-se entre eles uma das mais profundas e descoraçoantes meditações sobre as recordações que já li.
Boas Recordações
Imagino que, quando for velha, estarei só, com dores e com os olhos demasiado fracos para poder ler. Tenho medo desses dias muito longos. Gosto dos dias felizes. Tento pensar numa maneira feliz de passar esses dias difíceis. Talvez a rádio baste para preencher esses dias. Uma pessoa, quando envelhece, sempre tem o seu aparelho de rádio – é o que ouço dizer. E ouvi dizer que, além da rádio, tem as boas recordações. Se não sofrer de dores terríveis, poderá recorrer às boas recordações e sentir-se-á reconfortada. Mas tem de ter boas recordações. O que me aborrece é que não estou segura de quantas boas recordações terei. Não estou sequer segura do que faz com que uma recordação seja boa – boa, de maneira que me dê conforto e prazer, quando me tornar incapaz de mais do que isso.
Especiais
Sabemos que somos muito especiais. Mas continuamos a tentar descobrir em quê: não nisto, nem naquilo – mas em quê, então?
“Samuel Johnson Está Indignado “ (2001) é o terceiro livro de contos que leio de Lydia Davis, aquela que escreve micro-contos como nenhum/a outro/a. Já nos contos mais longos, como afirmei anteriormente, divaga e a sua argúcia dissipa-se. Neste volume é particularmente inventiva na forma e no jogo de palavras.
Dupla Negação
Num certo momento da sua vida, compreende que não se trata tanto de querer ter um filho, como de não querer não ter um filho, ou não ter tido um filho.
Recorrentes e excelentes são os seus contos sobre maternidade, onde não receia a controvérsia.
Egoísta
A utilidade de seres egoísta é que, quando os teus filhos se magoam, não te preocupas muito, porque, pelo teu lado, tu continuas bem. Mas nada te serve seres só um pouco egoísta. Tens de ser muito egoísta. (...) Por isso, se queres ser egoísta, tens de ser muito mais egoísta, tão egoísta que até mesmo se eles tiverem algum problema sério, e o lamentes profunda e sinceramente, como dirás aos teus amigos e conhecidos e a toda a família, acabarás, no fundo, por te sentires aliviada, satisfeita e até mesmo feliz por não seres tu a ter o problema.
E a sua frontalidade revela-se em muitas outras situações.
A Nossa Viagem
A minha mãe pergunta-me que tal foi a nossa viagem de regresso, e eu digo: “Óptima” – o que não é verdade, mas uma ficção. Não podemos dizer o tempo todo a verdade a toda a gente, e decerto não podemos nunca dizer a ninguém toda a verdade, porque seria necessário demasiado tempo para o fazermos.
Esta colectânea inclui vários contos que conduzem à interrogação, contando-se entre eles uma das mais profundas e descoraçoantes meditações sobre as recordações que já li.
Boas Recordações
Imagino que, quando for velha, estarei só, com dores e com os olhos demasiado fracos para poder ler. Tenho medo desses dias muito longos. Gosto dos dias felizes. Tento pensar numa maneira feliz de passar esses dias difíceis. Talvez a rádio baste para preencher esses dias. Uma pessoa, quando envelhece, sempre tem o seu aparelho de rádio – é o que ouço dizer. E ouvi dizer que, além da rádio, tem as boas recordações. Se não sofrer de dores terríveis, poderá recorrer às boas recordações e sentir-se-á reconfortada. Mas tem de ter boas recordações. O que me aborrece é que não estou segura de quantas boas recordações terei. Não estou sequer segura do que faz com que uma recordação seja boa – boa, de maneira que me dê conforto e prazer, quando me tornar incapaz de mais do que isso.
did-not-finish
May 8, 2023If you’re interested in more about this book, please see Ted's’s review. Before I’d read his review, I’d figured Lydia Davis was not for me, but based on Ted’s comments, I checked out this book from the library to read “Jury Duty” and "Marie Curie, So Honorable a Woman." The former didn't do anything for me, but I did like the latter. I was reminded of the title story in Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness, which is about a late-19th-century Russian female mathematician (and novelist).
I read the two stories on either side of the two aforementioned, because they were short and because they were there. Of those four, I liked “Mir the Hessian.” I’m now wondering if I liked the two I did, as opposed to the others, because they felt to me as if they went ‘outside’ of the writer's self into a different self.
I read the two stories on either side of the two aforementioned, because they were short and because they were there. Of those four, I liked “Mir the Hessian.” I’m now wondering if I liked the two I did, as opposed to the others, because they felt to me as if they went ‘outside’ of the writer's self into a different self.
May 3, 2014
The stories of Lydia Davis differ from most modern short stories in that each short or longish tale is distinct and memorable, taps into several emotions at once, and lends itself to an enlightened or enlightening re- or re-reread. Flitting between profound seriousness and intellectual impishness, Davis has that unique tone all writers of the short form seek and spend far too long attempting to cultivate (looking at thou, George Saunders). Whether indulging in language games or light whimsy, as in ‘A Mown Lawn’ or ‘Honoring the Subjunctive,’ or probing into human relationships with astonishing insight using a series of scalpels and unspecified sharp implements, as in ‘Old Mother and The Grouch’ or ‘The Furnace’ (to select two random favourites), this collection and all her others deliver a blissful reading experience and celebrate that special blend of striking universality and tireless playfulness that only enviously skilled masters with Genius grants can deliver with aplomb. Alongside 2007’s Varieties of Disturbance, this is my favourite of her collections.
July 28, 2019
Here's Lydia Davis at the height of her formal inventiveness. The stories are confident, playful, and more distressing than ever.
To say every word matters is an understatement; even the titles provide key information (vide First Grade: Handwriting Practice).
This book made me realise Davis is essentially always rewriting the same book, honing and honing her technique to approximate the ideal of perfection she must harbour in her mind. And I believe in this collection she often attains it.
Her sushi-sized stories pack so much it feels unfair that they revolve in your mind for so long after the second it took to read them. The titular Samuel Johnson Is Indignant is a little stroke of genius:
That's a story. How can something so small feel so large? It has all the basic ingredients of a story, if not stated explicitly, then loudly implied. Hell, Samuel Johnson has more of a personality than many YA heroes.
Davis’ stories continue to shed light on tiny, unnoticed quirks of human behaviour. Only her stories don’t so much illuminate as aim flickering lamps at unseemly Dutch angles that suddenly make the grotesque apparent in the quotidian (vide Alvin the Typesetter).
Blind Date is unassumingly meta, Letter to a Funeral Parlor is funny, sad and beautiful, and In a Northern Country is haunting, inebriating, atmospheric. The list goes on.
If I had to recommend a single Lydia Davis short story collection, this would be the one.
To say every word matters is an understatement; even the titles provide key information (vide First Grade: Handwriting Practice).
This book made me realise Davis is essentially always rewriting the same book, honing and honing her technique to approximate the ideal of perfection she must harbour in her mind. And I believe in this collection she often attains it.
Her sushi-sized stories pack so much it feels unfair that they revolve in your mind for so long after the second it took to read them. The titular Samuel Johnson Is Indignant is a little stroke of genius:
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant:
that Scotland has so few trees.
That's a story. How can something so small feel so large? It has all the basic ingredients of a story, if not stated explicitly, then loudly implied. Hell, Samuel Johnson has more of a personality than many YA heroes.
Davis’ stories continue to shed light on tiny, unnoticed quirks of human behaviour. Only her stories don’t so much illuminate as aim flickering lamps at unseemly Dutch angles that suddenly make the grotesque apparent in the quotidian (vide Alvin the Typesetter).
Blind Date is unassumingly meta, Letter to a Funeral Parlor is funny, sad and beautiful, and In a Northern Country is haunting, inebriating, atmospheric. The list goes on.
If I had to recommend a single Lydia Davis short story collection, this would be the one.
July 17, 2023
Not for the first time, I've forgotten that I owned this, let alone read it, bought another copy, started reading it and evidently either the book or I have changed since my last shot at it.
2023:
A short interview with the reader.
Q:
A: My shelves tell the story.
Q:
A: If you insist. Because it seemed self-indulgent.
Q:
A: Some authors do what they want and it's what I want.
Q:
A: Unfair. I've tried hard to want what she wants.
Q:
A: Well, I don't think I have to, just because everybody else does.
Q:
A: - - - - - -
Q:
A: - - - - -
Q:
A: - - - -
Q:
A: - - -
Q:
A: - -
Q:
A: - Yes. I am indignant.
--------------------
2014:
Ensconced, as I am right now, in short stories, one could scarcely imagine a greater contrast with Alice Munro. This is not just because Davis does rather stretch – or should I say shrink – the boundaries of what a short story is. Take this, for example:
Certain Knowledge from Herodotus
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
That’s it, the entire enchilada. It made me google Herodotus, fish and Nile, which sent me to this rather wonderful quotation:
Handy advice when I’m back in Australia next.
Rest here:
http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
2023:
A short interview with the reader.
Q:
A: My shelves tell the story.
Q:
A: If you insist. Because it seemed self-indulgent.
Q:
A: Some authors do what they want and it's what I want.
Q:
A: Unfair. I've tried hard to want what she wants.
Q:
A: Well, I don't think I have to, just because everybody else does.
Q:
A: - - - - - -
Q:
A: - - - - -
Q:
A: - - - -
Q:
A: - - -
Q:
A: - -
Q:
A: - Yes. I am indignant.
--------------------
2014:
Ensconced, as I am right now, in short stories, one could scarcely imagine a greater contrast with Alice Munro. This is not just because Davis does rather stretch – or should I say shrink – the boundaries of what a short story is. Take this, for example:
Certain Knowledge from Herodotus
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
That’s it, the entire enchilada. It made me google Herodotus, fish and Nile, which sent me to this rather wonderful quotation:
There are many ways how to hunt crocodiles; I shall describe the way I think is most worth mentioning. The hunter baits a hook with a pig’s back, and lets it float in the river. He remains on the bank with a live piglet and beats it. The crocodile hears the squeals of the pig, follows the sound, and finds the bait, which it swallows; then the hunter hauls in the line. When the crocodile is ashore, he covers its eyes with mud; then the quarry is very easily overcome, but without that it would be very difficult.
Herodotus, Histories 2,70
Handy advice when I’m back in Australia next.
Rest here:
http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
December 11, 2009
I started reading this as if I had found my muse, a writer's voice who said the things I'd always been urged to say, but couldn't say all that well. Isn't that a sign of great writing -- when someone else is saying what you wish you could? Short, tight, brilliant constellations of words. I was mesmerized, and, at the same time, thought maybe the moment had come to finally pick up my own pen. Driving home from the library I was forming my first Davis-inspired lines. But something must have happened between reading some in the library and picking it up again at home. I think it happened at "Marie Curie", an interesting story, but not the same movement that the previous stories had. And then "Mir the Hessian" set the bar too low for the rest of the collection. Each one disappointed me more as I approached the end. What happened? Did I grow jaded to her style, or did she add a bunch of lesser work to the end to make her pub date?
Davis's greatest strength is in recognizing the absurd in the hopelessly normal. She misses the mark when she attempts the opposite, to describe the absurd as completely normal. The best reason to pick up this book is to read her "Old Mother and the Grouch". And then close the book and savor it.
Davis's greatest strength is in recognizing the absurd in the hopelessly normal. She misses the mark when she attempts the opposite, to describe the absurd as completely normal. The best reason to pick up this book is to read her "Old Mother and the Grouch". And then close the book and savor it.
August 5, 2014
I'll save you another review about how Lydia Davis is good when she's writing really short stories that break the rules/writing standard short stories that are really emotionally affecting, and bad when she's writing standard short stories that are really emotionally affecting/writing really short stories that break the rules. Suffice it to say, she does both of these things fairly well.
That aside, I have no idea what all the hype is about. Having read all of one book by Davis and two by Knausgaard, I'd put them in the same basket: formally adventurous, more or less devoid of content, unless you count what I (and probably you) do every day to be interesting content, which I do not. I've already done it. I barely care about my own little incidences of domestic unhappiness (to be fair, they are very rare and very minor, because my wife is a wondrous human being); I sure as shit don't care about someone else's; and that goes double for invented versions of the same.
So yes, there is some formal inventiveness here, and I don't mean the one line stories, which are neither cute nor interesting. Davis at the very least varies her means of delivering domestic unhappiness, and sometimes even branches out into some slightly more imaginative territory. But I honestly have no idea what people would get out of this if they weren't obsessed with literary form. In that sense, Davis is in pretty good company. I feel the same way about James Joyce, for instance. She's also in pretty bad company, e.g., James Joyce.
I am a philistine. I care that people write about something worth writing about. I'll read more of Davis's work, because hey, it's easy to turn the pages and her sentences are okay and really, it's no small thing to be constantly futzing with form. But I lash back at the critics on this one. "A clear eyed and surgical inquiry"? Well yes, Dave Eggers, I agree. "into the nature of existence itself". Er... no.
That aside, I have no idea what all the hype is about. Having read all of one book by Davis and two by Knausgaard, I'd put them in the same basket: formally adventurous, more or less devoid of content, unless you count what I (and probably you) do every day to be interesting content, which I do not. I've already done it. I barely care about my own little incidences of domestic unhappiness (to be fair, they are very rare and very minor, because my wife is a wondrous human being); I sure as shit don't care about someone else's; and that goes double for invented versions of the same.
So yes, there is some formal inventiveness here, and I don't mean the one line stories, which are neither cute nor interesting. Davis at the very least varies her means of delivering domestic unhappiness, and sometimes even branches out into some slightly more imaginative territory. But I honestly have no idea what people would get out of this if they weren't obsessed with literary form. In that sense, Davis is in pretty good company. I feel the same way about James Joyce, for instance. She's also in pretty bad company, e.g., James Joyce.
I am a philistine. I care that people write about something worth writing about. I'll read more of Davis's work, because hey, it's easy to turn the pages and her sentences are okay and really, it's no small thing to be constantly futzing with form. But I lash back at the critics on this one. "A clear eyed and surgical inquiry"? Well yes, Dave Eggers, I agree. "into the nature of existence itself". Er... no.
September 28, 2008
I first learned about Lydia Davis from Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm radio show (podcasts available online here: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw, changed my life here in lonely Japan with no books to read and no one to talk to about books), and he said that she ought to be read at the rate she appears in the little mags, one short piece per every few weeks, and I agree. This is a writer to be savoured. That hasn't stopped me from gorging myself on her writing for the last couple of months though. Her hyper-rational tone, all the while veering wildly towards the irrational, the unsayable, I recognize from my inner voice, the one that talks to me, soothingly, when I am in a panic, the one that knows about devastation and how to dish it out in bite-sized pieces. But I get to hear this voice of comfort, and of irony, on all subjects when I hear Lydia Davis do it, not just on what is about to push me over the edge, but on what is about to push others over the edge, or towards the edge, in infinitesimal little moves.
April 15, 2009
Oh Lydia, you lured me. You teased me with the two or three short story gems that I happened to read first. That bar was set high and I had only high hopes for the future. My heart was won over but alas, big plans for our reader/writer love affair were dashed and destroyed as I read on and the stories went dooooownhill.
Fear not dear Ms. Davis, I will not give up on you. Our affair is not over yet Lyds, I have Varieties of Disturbances and will give you another chance. Be warned dear one, no more play on word stories or your odd little forays into new languages, please. Let's just stick to what you know, quirky life observations and our love can continue on.
Fear not dear Ms. Davis, I will not give up on you. Our affair is not over yet Lyds, I have Varieties of Disturbances and will give you another chance. Be warned dear one, no more play on word stories or your odd little forays into new languages, please. Let's just stick to what you know, quirky life observations and our love can continue on.
February 17, 2022
Adorei! É o meu tipo de livro.
"We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring."
"We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring."
July 17, 2022
I'd only recommend this one to you if you're human. If not, you probably won’t get it
July 13, 2009
My overall rating comes in at 2.5 stars. Here's why:
Begin with the not completely irrelevant observation that I plunked down $17 to buy my copy of this book, having been seduced at least in part by McSweeney's hype. Seventeen dollars.
Next, observe that here are some of the book's contents: (Note that each page is quoted in its entirety.)*
Page 14: CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE FROM HERODOTUS
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
page 44: SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT:
that Scotland has so few trees.
page 71: HONORING THE SUBJUNCTIVE
It invariably precedes, even if it does not altogether supercede, the determination of what is absolutely desirable and just.
page 73: LOSING MEMORY
You ask me about Edith Wharton.
Well, the name is very familiar.
page 167: AWAY FROM HOME
It has been so long since she used a metaphor!
Well, har-de-har-har, Ms Davis. Words are indeed the precious coins of our linguistic currency, and not to be squandered foolishly. But, given the allegedly beleaguered state of literary fiction these days, with readers scampering away in droves, is it really a wise strategy to adopt such a 'pearls before swine' approach in your writing? God forbid that one should apply as coarse a metric as 'words per dollar' to anyone's literary output, but the Swiss cheese nature of this particular collection left me - how shall I put it? - more than a little peckish at the end.
* These are not the only instances: pages 28, 66, 92, 98, 137, 141, 193, 199, and 200 are characterized by a similar paucity of text.
BUT , I cannot remain upset with you, dearest Lydia. How could I be vexed when, upon turning the almost contentless page 73, I find the completely disarming essay "Letter to a Funeral Parlor" with its devastatingly on-point opening sentence -
I am writing to you to object to the word cremains , which was used by your representative when he met with my mother and me two days after my father's death.
Oh, Lydia! Why do you tease us so? Next time, give us more of the good stuff, of which you are so obviously capable. More cheese. Fewer holes.
Begin with the not completely irrelevant observation that I plunked down $17 to buy my copy of this book, having been seduced at least in part by McSweeney's hype. Seventeen dollars.
Next, observe that here are some of the book's contents: (Note that each page is quoted in its entirety.)*
Page 14: CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE FROM HERODOTUS
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
page 44: SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT:
that Scotland has so few trees.
page 71: HONORING THE SUBJUNCTIVE
It invariably precedes, even if it does not altogether supercede, the determination of what is absolutely desirable and just.
page 73: LOSING MEMORY
You ask me about Edith Wharton.
Well, the name is very familiar.
page 167: AWAY FROM HOME
It has been so long since she used a metaphor!
Well, har-de-har-har, Ms Davis. Words are indeed the precious coins of our linguistic currency, and not to be squandered foolishly. But, given the allegedly beleaguered state of literary fiction these days, with readers scampering away in droves, is it really a wise strategy to adopt such a 'pearls before swine' approach in your writing? God forbid that one should apply as coarse a metric as 'words per dollar' to anyone's literary output, but the Swiss cheese nature of this particular collection left me - how shall I put it? - more than a little peckish at the end.
* These are not the only instances: pages 28, 66, 92, 98, 137, 141, 193, 199, and 200 are characterized by a similar paucity of text.
BUT , I cannot remain upset with you, dearest Lydia. How could I be vexed when, upon turning the almost contentless page 73, I find the completely disarming essay "Letter to a Funeral Parlor" with its devastatingly on-point opening sentence -
I am writing to you to object to the word cremains , which was used by your representative when he met with my mother and me two days after my father's death.
Oh, Lydia! Why do you tease us so? Next time, give us more of the good stuff, of which you are so obviously capable. More cheese. Fewer holes.
Read
September 30, 2021Lydia Davis has a gift for observation. I enjoy the moments in this book when I read about something familiar, but it looks different —I understand it better—because she has seen it clearly and is now helping me to do the same.
She is also very precise in her writing. Every word has clearly been placed with purpose.
There is a mean streak in some of these stories. While some authors would insert hope or moments of connection, Davis inserts self-sufficient commitment or even cruelty. I'm not sure that is a bad thing, but it is something I noticed as the collection continued.
She is also very precise in her writing. Every word has clearly been placed with purpose.
There is a mean streak in some of these stories. While some authors would insert hope or moments of connection, Davis inserts self-sufficient commitment or even cruelty. I'm not sure that is a bad thing, but it is something I noticed as the collection continued.
Read
November 11, 2025i am no longer a flash fiction hater
January 3, 2016
A return to form for Davis after the disappointing (to me, at least) Almost No Memory. I always end up skipping the longest story in Davis's collections because they're almost never as good as any of the other ones; in this case I skipped "In A Northern Country". I'll probably buy her Collected Stories anyway, so I can always go back and reread it. This is probably a good place to start if you've never read Davis before, also.
October 3, 2007
A joy to read. Sweet like dried fruit, not candy. No, really. While many authors process reality so it's delectable and you want to suck on the words all day, Lydia Davis has a way of preserving the texture of a single moment or entire relationship so it's nummy, chewy, and yet immediately recognizable for what it was while fresh, alive, or being lived.
Read
September 29, 2021Lydia Davis paces her short story collections better than I know how to pace a novel, I think. Very intentional, sometimes so funny, sometimes a bit sad, always thoughtful—so much interiority and thoughts. Woolf's "moments of being and non-being" come to mind. One of my favorite stories in the collection is titled "Companion" and here is it: "We are sitting here together, my digestion and I. I am reading a book and it is working away at the lunch I ate a little while ago."
January 17, 2021
Van de drie bundels die ik nu van haar gelezen heb, beviel me deze het minste. Ik werd minder vaak gegrepen. De langere verhalen, die ik in de eerdere bundels vaak het best vond, waren hier de minpunten. Nog wel 3.5 sterren. Davis' gedachtegangen zijn fascinerend, de manier waarop ze kan inzoomen op details jaloersmakend.
January 16, 2018
I loved this book. It is so weird and mad. Her writing voice is exactly like my train of thought. I felt like my craziness was expressed in a book.
June 16, 2022
I have already read her collected stories, so this was a reread for me. Immensely pleasurable
November 12, 2024
This book is sick.
January 16, 2025
making her language WORK for her
February 7, 2025
"Furnace" is fantastic
March 10, 2025
very strange, gremo napisat seminarsko
March 3, 2013
"Not long after Gus Van Sant got the bright idea of doing a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock’s "Psycho" in color, I ran into him at the Calcutta Film Festival and asked him why in the hell he’d come up with that bright idea. "So that no one else would have to," he replied serenely. With his new film, "Gerry," he has removed another project from the future of the cinema and stored it prudently in the past. He is like an adult removing dangerous toys from the reach of reckless kids." - Roger Ebert
I'm reminded of this over and over again as I go through the short stories and flash fictions that make up this collection. For every brilliant flash of insight ("Happiest Moment"), image-dense paragraph-long epic ("Murder in Bohemia"), or clever-as-fuck one-liner ("Certain Knowledge About Herodotus") there are a lot of experiments that don't seem to go anywhere, pieces that aren't engaging in their own right and seem like they might be attempting to test the patience of the reader on purpose. Davis' writing isn't about narrative movement so much as it is about turning on single ideas, and when a specific musing goes on for more than a page, it tends to lose a lot of steam. The shorter pieces, however, are incredible. She's like the Ramones, the Mitch Hedberg, of short fiction.
The second half of the book really picks up steam from the first. Even "The Furnace," clocking at a whopping 17 page, still works -- anything longer than that and the trouble starts. This reminds me of when I used to listen to Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie double album back in the late 90's, lamenting to myself that there was a really good single album in there somewhere, simply in need more judicious song choice. I feel the same about this book -- the shorter stories are so bracingly potent that longer stories have trouble with momentum and focus by comparison.
But that one can write a sentence like nobody's business.
I'm reminded of this over and over again as I go through the short stories and flash fictions that make up this collection. For every brilliant flash of insight ("Happiest Moment"), image-dense paragraph-long epic ("Murder in Bohemia"), or clever-as-fuck one-liner ("Certain Knowledge About Herodotus") there are a lot of experiments that don't seem to go anywhere, pieces that aren't engaging in their own right and seem like they might be attempting to test the patience of the reader on purpose. Davis' writing isn't about narrative movement so much as it is about turning on single ideas, and when a specific musing goes on for more than a page, it tends to lose a lot of steam. The shorter pieces, however, are incredible. She's like the Ramones, the Mitch Hedberg, of short fiction.
The second half of the book really picks up steam from the first. Even "The Furnace," clocking at a whopping 17 page, still works -- anything longer than that and the trouble starts. This reminds me of when I used to listen to Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie double album back in the late 90's, lamenting to myself that there was a really good single album in there somewhere, simply in need more judicious song choice. I feel the same about this book -- the shorter stories are so bracingly potent that longer stories have trouble with momentum and focus by comparison.
But that one can write a sentence like nobody's business.
May 24, 2010
Ain't nobody writes short stories like Ms. Davis. See those five stars? That's right, five. And because she's a genius, she breaks rules, and will twist your cranium at times, but most of all she will move you. I'm a big fan of McSweeney's, who first showed me the Light (of Lydia). I didn't figure out the title out until many years after I read this (probably because my historical knowledge is patchy at best). Who is Samuel Johnson? And why is he indignant? Read Davis, do a Wiki search on Johnson, and you'll figure it out.
January 20, 2022
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant is a testament to Davis's range, and the range of her influence. Indeed, Davis is a writer's writer; she is well read and knows how to apply the styles and techniques utilized by writers such as Russell Edson, Gertrude Stein, Jorge Luis Borges, Donald Barthelme, etc...
Among the most interest of Davis's stories (which is saying a lot, because I find all of her stories very interesting) are the stories that implement a form of wordplay, or a technique that I haven't encountered before. In "Jury Duty", a story unfolds from the answers given during a Q&A, while the questions themselves remain blank, leaving to the reader's imagination the content of the questions the speaker is answering...
The stories that are most indicative of Davis's style are those that in which the author plays word games or logic games or both, stories such as "" and "Right and Wrong", in which the story is not grounded by the conventions of character and plot, but is a free expression and/or exploration of the playful nature of words (at times reminiscent of Samuel Beckett)...
Many of the stories of Samuel Johnson Is Indignant are less than a page in length. And many of those stories are one, maybe two sentences. Here they are, in their entirety...
We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us the most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle, with whom there is reciprocal interest, we distrust: at any moment, we feel, they may become too interesting for us, or we too interesting for them.
- Boring Friends, pg. 1
(see also: "My Husband and I", pg. 140 and "The Transformation", pg. 171)
Among the most interest of Davis's stories (which is saying a lot, because I find all of her stories very interesting) are the stories that implement a form of wordplay, or a technique that I haven't encountered before. In "Jury Duty", a story unfolds from the answers given during a Q&A, while the questions themselves remain blank, leaving to the reader's imagination the content of the questions the speaker is answering...
Q.
A. Jury Duty.
Q.
A. The night before, we had been quarreling.
Q.
A. The family.
Q.
A. Four of us. Well, one doesn't live at home anymore. But he was home that night. He was leaving the next morning - the same morning I had to go in to the courtroom.
- Jury Duty, pg. 51
The stories that are most indicative of Davis's style are those that in which the author plays word games or logic games or both, stories such as "" and "Right and Wrong", in which the story is not grounded by the conventions of character and plot, but is a free expression and/or exploration of the playful nature of words (at times reminiscent of Samuel Beckett)...
She knows she is right, but to say she is right is wrong, in this case. To be correct and say so is wrong, in certain cases.
She may be correct, and she may say so, in certain cases. But if she insists too much, she becomes wrong, so wrong that even her correctness becomes wrong, by association.
It is right to believe in what she thinks is right, but to say what she thinks is right is wrong, in certain cases.
She is right to act on her behalf, in her life. But she is wrong to report her right actions, in most cases. Then even her right actions become wrong, by association.
If she praises herself, she may be correct in what she says, but her saying it is wrong, in most cases, and thus cancels it, or reverses it, so that although she was for a particular act deserving of praise, she is no longer in general deserving of praise.
- Right and Wrong, pg. 129
Many of the stories of Samuel Johnson Is Indignant are less than a page in length. And many of those stories are one, maybe two sentences. Here they are, in their entirety...
These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:
- Certain Knowledge from Herodotus, pg. 14
We are sitting here together, my digestion and I. I am reading a book and it is working away at the lunch I ate a little while ago.
- Companion, pg. 21
Remember that thou are bu dust.
I shall try to bear it in mind.
- Examples of Remember, pg. 28
that Scotland has so few trees.
- Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, pg.44
At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.
- A Double Negative, pg. 66
It invariably precedes, even if it do not altogether supercede, the determination of what is absolutely desirable and just.
- Honoring the Subjunctive, pg. 71
You ask me about Edith Wharton.
Well, the name is very familiar.
- Losing Memory, pg. 73
Each seal uses many blowholes and each blowhole is used by many seals.
- Information from the North Concerning the Ice, pg. 92
"It's extraordinary," says one woman.
"It is extraordinary," says the other.
- They Take Turns Using a Word They Like, pg. 98
We know we are very special. Yet we keep trying to find out in what way: not this way, not that way, then what way?
- Special, pg. 137
I am happy the leaves are growing large so quickly.
Soon they will hide the neighbor and her screaming child.
- Spring Spleen, pg. 141
It has been so long since she used a metaphor!
- Away from Home, pg. 167
They have moved into separate bedrooms now.
That night she dreams she is holding him in her arms. He dreams he is having dinner with Ben Johnson.
- Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms, pg. 199
I don't want any more gifts, cards, phone calls, prizes, clothes, friends, letters, books, souvenirs, pets, magazines, land, machines, houses, entertainments, honors, good news, dinners, jewels, vacations, flowers, or telegrams. I just want money.
- Money, pg. 200
I have only to add
that the plates in the present volume
have been carefully re-etched
by Mr. Cuff
- Acknowledgement, pg. 201
May 23, 2008
i really enjoyed this book. it made me feel that i was reading an answer key to a creative writing class. these stories feel like exercises. the point is rarely plot driven, but more as if there is something specific to be achieved. i thought that this would become really tiresome, but davis is very intelligent, and funny and sad and a very good writer.
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