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Varieties of Disturbance
Lydia Davis has been called "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times), "an American virtuoso of the short story form" (Salon), an innovator who attempts "to remake the model of the modern short story" (The New York Times Book Review). Her admirers include Grace Paley, Jonathan Franzen, and Zadie Smith; as Time magazine observed, her stories are "moving . . . and somehow inevitable, as if she has written what we were all on the verge of thinking."
In Varieties of Disturbance, her fourth collection, Davis extends her reach as never before in stories that take every form from sociological studies to concise poems. Her subjects include the five senses, fourth-graders, good taste, and tropical storms. She offers a reinterpretation of insomnia and re-creates the ordeals of Kafka in the kitchen. She questions the lengths to which one should go to save the life of a caterpillar, proposes a clear account of the sexual act, rides the bus, probes the limits of marital fidelity, and unlocks the secret to a long and happy life.
No two of these fictions are alike. And yet in each, Davis rearranges our view of the world by looking beyond our preconceptions to a bizarre truth, a source of delight and surprise.
Varieties of Disturbance is a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
In Varieties of Disturbance, her fourth collection, Davis extends her reach as never before in stories that take every form from sociological studies to concise poems. Her subjects include the five senses, fourth-graders, good taste, and tropical storms. She offers a reinterpretation of insomnia and re-creates the ordeals of Kafka in the kitchen. She questions the lengths to which one should go to save the life of a caterpillar, proposes a clear account of the sexual act, rides the bus, probes the limits of marital fidelity, and unlocks the secret to a long and happy life.
No two of these fictions are alike. And yet in each, Davis rearranges our view of the world by looking beyond our preconceptions to a bizarre truth, a source of delight and surprise.
Varieties of Disturbance is a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
219 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2007
152 people are currently reading
3360 people want to read
About the author
Lydia Davis
350 books1,459 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."
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June 19, 2020In February, during my last trip beyond my country's borders, and my last trip to a real bookshop, I bought this book.
I'd been meaning to buy it for a while, but I didn't want to order it online. Instead I wanted to pick it physically from the shelf of a real bookshop because the reading of it was to be a ceremony of sorts: my way of paying tribute to a Goodreads friend who died last year. I chose this particular book because he'd recommended it to me, and when I read it, I realised that I couldn't have chosen a better book. Ted and Lydia Davis had more than a few things in common.
When I first came across Ted's reviews way back in 2012, I noticed that he had a genuine love for numbers and lists, and for breaking things down into statistics. Now that I've sampled Lydia Davis's writing, it's clear why he had so many of her books on his shelves. She seems to like lists and statistics just as much as Ted did, using them frequently in her stories. One of her collections is called Break It Down, and in his review of that book, Ted played her at her own game by breaking down certain aspects of the stories:
First person narrator: 9 (7 female, 2 male)
No narrator: 2
Third person narrator: 22
[from Ted's review of Lydia Davis's Break it Down]
He analysed the stories in Varieties of Disturbance in a similar way:
There are 57 pieces in this collection, ranging in length from the four word "Index Entry" (Christian, I'm not a) and the next five shortest (49 more words) [usually it's moot whether we count the title when speaking of the "length" of fiction, but not so here. The six short pieces expand from 53 words to 82, 50% "longer", if we labor through the titles too. (hide spoiler)] — to the six longest stories, ranging from 11 to 48 pages. These behemoths make up 60% of the total pages.
[From Ted's review of
Varieties of Disturbances]
But it's not only the breaking down of things into statistics that Ted and Lydia Davis had in common. In his review of Davis's Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, he writes as if he were Lydia Davis, only surfacing as himself in the review text once or twice. While that review has a fair amount of statistics, it also reveals Ted's creative side brilliantly:
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.
…[certain stories] 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…
She thought of introducing the review with a section about as long as the 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...
[From Ted's review of Samuel Johnson is Indignant]
And here's a one-line story Ted wrote when he first acquired The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis but hadn't yet read them:
A Man Questions His Future.
Will he ever read this? He doesn't know. And if he does, will it make any difference?
That was in 2014. He did read it, and reviewed each collection separately, and it did make a difference. This reader bought a Lydia Davis book because of his reviews, and this reader has now read Lydia Davis.
Ted was 'last online' in June 2019. He died a month later.
…………………………………………………
A mutual friend had the great idea that Ted's goodreads family might help to read some of the books still parked on his 'to-read' shelf since he didn't get to read them himself. I've had one of those books on my own pile for years so when I finally pull out Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, and turn over the first page, Ted will keep me company on that book too.
This virtual world where readers's profiles stay alive long after they've left the physical world has its advantages...
I'd been meaning to buy it for a while, but I didn't want to order it online. Instead I wanted to pick it physically from the shelf of a real bookshop because the reading of it was to be a ceremony of sorts: my way of paying tribute to a Goodreads friend who died last year. I chose this particular book because he'd recommended it to me, and when I read it, I realised that I couldn't have chosen a better book. Ted and Lydia Davis had more than a few things in common.
When I first came across Ted's reviews way back in 2012, I noticed that he had a genuine love for numbers and lists, and for breaking things down into statistics. Now that I've sampled Lydia Davis's writing, it's clear why he had so many of her books on his shelves. She seems to like lists and statistics just as much as Ted did, using them frequently in her stories. One of her collections is called Break It Down, and in his review of that book, Ted played her at her own game by breaking down certain aspects of the stories:
First person narrator: 9 (7 female, 2 male)
No narrator: 2
Third person narrator: 22
[from Ted's review of Lydia Davis's Break it Down]
He analysed the stories in Varieties of Disturbance in a similar way:
There are 57 pieces in this collection, ranging in length from the four word "Index Entry" (Christian, I'm not a) and the next five shortest (49 more words) [usually it's moot whether we count the title when speaking of the "length" of fiction, but not so here. The six short pieces expand from 53 words to 82, 50% "longer", if we labor through the titles too. (hide spoiler)] — to the six longest stories, ranging from 11 to 48 pages. These behemoths make up 60% of the total pages.
[From Ted's review of
Varieties of Disturbances]
But it's not only the breaking down of things into statistics that Ted and Lydia Davis had in common. In his review of Davis's Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, he writes as if he were Lydia Davis, only surfacing as himself in the review text once or twice. While that review has a fair amount of statistics, it also reveals Ted's creative side brilliantly:
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.
…[certain stories] 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…
She thought of introducing the review with a section about as long as the 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...
[From Ted's review of Samuel Johnson is Indignant]
And here's a one-line story Ted wrote when he first acquired The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis but hadn't yet read them:
A Man Questions His Future.
Will he ever read this? He doesn't know. And if he does, will it make any difference?
That was in 2014. He did read it, and reviewed each collection separately, and it did make a difference. This reader bought a Lydia Davis book because of his reviews, and this reader has now read Lydia Davis.
Ted was 'last online' in June 2019. He died a month later.
…………………………………………………
A mutual friend had the great idea that Ted's goodreads family might help to read some of the books still parked on his 'to-read' shelf since he didn't get to read them himself. I've had one of those books on my own pile for years so when I finally pull out Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, and turn over the first page, Ted will keep me company on that book too.
This virtual world where readers's profiles stay alive long after they've left the physical world has its advantages...
June 27, 2019
في لحظة ما ، توقفت عن القراءة وبنبرة جادة واثقة اخبرت صديقتي برغبتي في التخلي عن مهنة الطب والتفرغ لدراسة النقد الادبي والكتابة الابداعية ..
جاء ردها سريعاً : هل انتِ بخير ؟
اجل لم أكن على خير ما يرام مثل تلك اللحظة 😌
حسناً يمكنك فعل ذلك دونما التخلي عن العمل، هل الكتاب الذي بين يديك منذ ايام هو السبب في اتخاذ هذا القرار 😬
اجل ..هنا أدركت كيف يمكن لكتاب أن يؤثر جذرياً على رؤيتنا لذواتنا ولحياتنا...💚
هذه المجموعة القصصية نصوص مغايرة مختلفة عما عليه القصة القصيرة التقليدية..، تكتب الاستاذة الكاتبة " ليديا ديفيس" عن اي شيء ممكن وبصورة مختلفة ، ببراعة لافتة واستثنائية، كل نص عالم بذاته ولكنه مفتوحاً فى الوقت نفسه للتأويل اللامتناهي من قارئه..
هل تود ان تصل لحل العقدة ؟ أم يدفعك فضولك للمواصلة دون ان تأبه بذلك ، انت تمنح ذاك العالم الفرصة ليمارس عليك سحره ..
جميعها يتشارك بها بطل رئيسي الا وهو العقلانية ومع ذلك ليست نصوص جافة بل تختبىء العاطفة عند حواف الكلمات ومنحنياتها.
تتجلى دلالات الانزعاج فى القصة التى تحمل عنوان الكتاب ، كيف يمكن لأمر بسيط يتسبب فى انزعاج الكثيرين بينما لا يلقي إلا بظل واهن على من افتعل هذا الانزعاج.
تلتقي هنا بسيرة ذاتية، قصيدة شعرية، تقريراً اجتماعياً، خربشات على هامش، لافتة عابرة ، اسئلة عديدة تدعها تذوب قبل ان تتذوقها وسطر وحيد من الكلمات يتحدى ما هو معتاد ..
واخيراً ، هنا عالم لا يوجد فيه مكان للخيال، بل يُحاكي الواقع ويتفجر بالحقيقة ....
جاء ردها سريعاً : هل انتِ بخير ؟
اجل لم أكن على خير ما يرام مثل تلك اللحظة 😌
حسناً يمكنك فعل ذلك دونما التخلي عن العمل، هل الكتاب الذي بين يديك منذ ايام هو السبب في اتخاذ هذا القرار 😬
اجل ..هنا أدركت كيف يمكن لكتاب أن يؤثر جذرياً على رؤيتنا لذواتنا ولحياتنا...💚
هذه المجموعة القصصية نصوص مغايرة مختلفة عما عليه القصة القصيرة التقليدية..، تكتب الاستاذة الكاتبة " ليديا ديفيس" عن اي شيء ممكن وبصورة مختلفة ، ببراعة لافتة واستثنائية، كل نص عالم بذاته ولكنه مفتوحاً فى الوقت نفسه للتأويل اللامتناهي من قارئه..
هل تود ان تصل لحل العقدة ؟ أم يدفعك فضولك للمواصلة دون ان تأبه بذلك ، انت تمنح ذاك العالم الفرصة ليمارس عليك سحره ..
جميعها يتشارك بها بطل رئيسي الا وهو العقلانية ومع ذلك ليست نصوص جافة بل تختبىء العاطفة عند حواف الكلمات ومنحنياتها.
تتجلى دلالات الانزعاج فى القصة التى تحمل عنوان الكتاب ، كيف يمكن لأمر بسيط يتسبب فى انزعاج الكثيرين بينما لا يلقي إلا بظل واهن على من افتعل هذا الانزعاج.
تلتقي هنا بسيرة ذاتية، قصيدة شعرية، تقريراً اجتماعياً، خربشات على هامش، لافتة عابرة ، اسئلة عديدة تدعها تذوب قبل ان تتذوقها وسطر وحيد من الكلمات يتحدى ما هو معتاد ..
واخيراً ، هنا عالم لا يوجد فيه مكان للخيال، بل يُحاكي الواقع ويتفجر بالحقيقة ....
July 14, 2020
اليوم , كنت أقرأ الصفحات الأخيرة من كتاب تنويعات الانزعاج
دخل علي صديقي , الذي لم يقرأ كتاب في حياته , وسألني ماذا تقرأ؟
قلت له .... أقرأك ............
ليست فقط الاحداث الكبرى و المأاسي و الاحزان ما تستهلك حياتنا , هناك الاشياء الصغيرة واليومية التي تسبب لنا الازعاج البسيط احيانا والمركب احيانا أخرى , والتي تلتهم قسطا معقولا من حياتنا , بداية من مخلوق صغير وتافه كذبابة كرست عمرها الصغير جدا لتحطيم أعصاب انسان ما , وصولا لشممسنا العزيزة التى أحسب كل يوم موقعها بدقة حتى أختار كرسي في الحافلة يجنبني أشعتها , ولكن مهما كان الكرسي الذي أخترته أجدها دوما بجانبي
لقد قررت أن أفعل مثل الكاتبة واكتب عن اشيائي الخاصة المزعجة , لعلي اصل لسلام معقول مع حياتي و انقذ ايام و لحظات ثمينة جدا , وعذرا لصديقي الذي سألني ماذا تقرأ ....
دخل علي صديقي , الذي لم يقرأ كتاب في حياته , وسألني ماذا تقرأ؟
قلت له .... أقرأك ............
ليست فقط الاحداث الكبرى و المأاسي و الاحزان ما تستهلك حياتنا , هناك الاشياء الصغيرة واليومية التي تسبب لنا الازعاج البسيط احيانا والمركب احيانا أخرى , والتي تلتهم قسطا معقولا من حياتنا , بداية من مخلوق صغير وتافه كذبابة كرست عمرها الصغير جدا لتحطيم أعصاب انسان ما , وصولا لشممسنا العزيزة التى أحسب كل يوم موقعها بدقة حتى أختار كرسي في الحافلة يجنبني أشعتها , ولكن مهما كان الكرسي الذي أخترته أجدها دوما بجانبي
لقد قررت أن أفعل مثل الكاتبة واكتب عن اشيائي الخاصة المزعجة , لعلي اصل لسلام معقول مع حياتي و انقذ ايام و لحظات ثمينة جدا , وعذرا لصديقي الذي سألني ماذا تقرأ ....
March 4, 2012
Remember one of those moments when a friend utters a single word or phrase and it makes you both burst into side-splitting laughter, leaving others around you perplexed. That is kind of how some of Davis's very short stories work, except there is not so much laughter.
Many of her stories are about quirks and absurdities of our daily lives, little moments, our common experiences and absent-minded musings. These may be some little experiences which we vaguely recognize, but can't quite put our finger on. Or those experiences which we consider too trivial to give a thought to. She does not need any words to describe the setting. She does not need any words to describe the characters. Her stories can be so relatable that we can often draw the setting from what is around us, and we can substitute ourselves as the characters. Using only a few words, Davis puts a mirror in front of us and brings out an "I know, right?" kind of response.
“[her stories are] moving . . . and somehow inevitable, as if she has written what we were all on the verge of thinking.” - Time Magazine
There is good deal of variety in the stories, both stylistically and content-wise. Some stories are written like academic reports, some play around with language, some deal with imperfect familial ties, some are absurd and funny. There is an undercurrent of loneliness in many of the stories, while some others speak of an unbearable sadness:
"...Soon everything returned to normal: the incident had been no more than a moment of madness during which the people could not bear the frustration of their lives and had given way to a strange impulse."
"I would like to disappear into the earth like that mole. I would like to stuff myself into the drawer of the laundry chest, and open the drawer from time to time to see if I have suffocated yet. It's so much more surprising that one gets up every morning at all."
Despite, the range of emotions Davis's writing deals with, it is never overly-sentimental. She uses a calm, detached voice. She manages to condense the essence to a few innocuous sentences which hit you in just the right place.
_______
The Good Times
“What was happening to them was that every bad time produced a bad feeling that in turn produced several more bad times and several more bad feelings, so that their life together became crowded with bad times and bad feelings, so crowded that almost nothing else could grow in that dark field. But then she had a feeling of peace one morning that lingered from the evening before spent sewing while he sat reading in the next room. And a day or two later, she had a feeling of contentment that lingered in the morning from the evening before when he kept her company in the kitchen while she washed the dinner dishes. If the good times increased, she thought, each good time might produce a good feeling that would in turn produce several more good times that would produce several more good feelings. What she meant was that the good times might multiply perhaps as rapidly as the square of the square, or perhaps more rapidly, like mice, or like mushrooms springing up overnight from the scattered spore of a parent mushroom which in turn had sprung up overnight with a crowd of others from the scattered spore of a parent, until her life with him with be so crowded with good times that the good times might crowd out the bad as the bad times had by now almost crowded out the good.”
July 12, 2022
3,5*
TEMPESTADE TROPICAL
Como uma tempestade tropical,
Também eu, um dia poderei tornar-me “mais bem organizada”.
“Variedades de Perturbação”(2007) é o segundo livro de contos que leio de Lydia Davis, como parte dos “Contos Completos” editados pela Relógio D’Água.
ORDEM
Durante todo o dia a velha luta com a casa e os objectos que lá há: as portas que não fecham; as tábuas do soalho que se afastam e as juntas que se soltam; o estuque que fica húmido com a chuva; os morcegos que descem a voar do sótão e invadem o guarda-vestidos; os ratos que lhe fazem ninho nos sapatos; os vestidos frágeis que caem em farrapos só do peso no cabide: insectos mortos que encontra por todo o lado. Em desespero, cansa-se a varrer, espanar, consertar, calafetar, colar, e à noite deixa-se cair na cama apertando as mãos contra os ouvidos para não ouvir a casa continuar a desfazer-se em ruínas em seu redor.
Lydia Davis é decididamente a rainha do micro-conto, mas perde qualidades quando sai deste formato minimalista, perdendo o rumo em histórias que parecem quase tratados de sociologia.
DE REPENTE TEVE MEDO
porque não conseguia escrever o nome do que era: uma mu mul umamu mulhr
Contudo, quanto mais sintético é o seu texto, maior é a surpresa.
ENTRADA DE ÍNDICE REMISSIVO
Cristã, não sou
TEMPESTADE TROPICAL
Como uma tempestade tropical,
Também eu, um dia poderei tornar-me “mais bem organizada”.
“Variedades de Perturbação”(2007) é o segundo livro de contos que leio de Lydia Davis, como parte dos “Contos Completos” editados pela Relógio D’Água.
ORDEM
Durante todo o dia a velha luta com a casa e os objectos que lá há: as portas que não fecham; as tábuas do soalho que se afastam e as juntas que se soltam; o estuque que fica húmido com a chuva; os morcegos que descem a voar do sótão e invadem o guarda-vestidos; os ratos que lhe fazem ninho nos sapatos; os vestidos frágeis que caem em farrapos só do peso no cabide: insectos mortos que encontra por todo o lado. Em desespero, cansa-se a varrer, espanar, consertar, calafetar, colar, e à noite deixa-se cair na cama apertando as mãos contra os ouvidos para não ouvir a casa continuar a desfazer-se em ruínas em seu redor.
Lydia Davis é decididamente a rainha do micro-conto, mas perde qualidades quando sai deste formato minimalista, perdendo o rumo em histórias que parecem quase tratados de sociologia.
DE REPENTE TEVE MEDO
porque não conseguia escrever o nome do que era: uma mu mul umamu mulhr
Contudo, quanto mais sintético é o seu texto, maior é a surpresa.
ENTRADA DE ÍNDICE REMISSIVO
Cristã, não sou
January 3, 2013
When Davis isn’t off winning MacArthur fellowships and whipping up essential translations of Proust and Flaubert she also writes almost-award-winning story collections of pulsating sharpness. To spend time in Varieties of Disturbance is to nestle down inside a superhuman mind in a continual state of ecstatic whirr and recline divinely on dark and comforting truths about the human condition. Like Ali Smith (who is better at novels) Davis favours micro-portraits, throwaway whimsies, vacation snapshots in favour of the throbbing gristle of the long form. The longer stories in this beatific collection are superior to those in Almost No Memory, where space squeezed out substance (the exception here, perhaps, being the near tedious ‘Helen and Vi’), but the stars are the thumbnails. If anyone can compress epics into the space of two charming sentences, it is Davis, whose daringly antithetical translation of The Way by Swann’s illustrates the mangled contrarian logic at play in her literary project, and especially this sumptuous selection. Essential.
Read
March 3, 2012Hm. Stars. I don't know what to do about those pesky little stars...
I related to the stories on an intellectual level, that I can say for certain. They were well written and thoughtful. Problem is, I didn't relate to the stories emotionally at all. At all. And that, for me, is the most important part. I like stories that make me feel SOMETHING. Stories do not have to make me feel good, in fact, the best ones leave me feeling very unsettled.
These stories, unfortunately, left me feeling... nothing. I walked away thinking "eh, well THAT happened. Moving on..." I don't mean to take anything away from Ms. Davis's writing. It's innovative and certainly unique and I'm sure there is an audience out there who will love her work. I wanted to love her work. But I didn't. I am a little bummed by that.
I related to the stories on an intellectual level, that I can say for certain. They were well written and thoughtful. Problem is, I didn't relate to the stories emotionally at all. At all. And that, for me, is the most important part. I like stories that make me feel SOMETHING. Stories do not have to make me feel good, in fact, the best ones leave me feeling very unsettled.
These stories, unfortunately, left me feeling... nothing. I walked away thinking "eh, well THAT happened. Moving on..." I don't mean to take anything away from Ms. Davis's writing. It's innovative and certainly unique and I'm sure there is an audience out there who will love her work. I wanted to love her work. But I didn't. I am a little bummed by that.
September 22, 2018
Index Entry
Christian, I'm not a
Published in 2007, this is the last volume of Davis' short fiction in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Varieties of Disturbance was a Natural Book Award finalist.
Following Collected Stories came two more collections ...
The Cows, 2011
Can't and Won't: Stories, 2015
Davis has produced two published translations in this century: Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, 2004; and Madame Bovary, 2011; both available in Penguin Classics Deluxe editions
Varieties of disturbances.
There are 57 pieces in this collection, ranging in length from the four word "Index Entry" above and the next five shortest (49 more words) ; - to the six longest stories, ranging from 11 to 48 pages. These behemoths make up 60% of the total pages.
misleading/enigmatic titles, Davis is a master of same.
"A Strange Impulse"
I looked down on the street from my window. The sun shone and the shopkeepers had come out to stand in the warmth and watch the people go by. But why were the shopkeepers covering their ears? And why were the people in the street running as if pursued by a terrible specter? Soon everything returned to normal: the incident had been no more than a moment of madness during which the people could not bear the frustration of their lives and had given way to a strange impulse.
"Almost Over: What's the Word?"
He says,
"When I first met you
I didn’t think you would turn out to be so
… strange."
"Getting to Know Your Body"
If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking.
If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.
Easily quotable, the five other shortest.
"Mother's Reaction to My Travel Plans"
Gainesville! It's too bad your cousin is dead!
"Collaboration With Fly"
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
"Tropical Storm"
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become "better organized."
"Idea for a Short Documentary Film"
Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging.
"Example of the Continuing Past Tense in a Hotel Room"
Your housekeeper has been Shelly.
a few words about many words …,
the many words of one of the three longest stories, seemingly dry and uninteresting from the opening line, but not so …
"We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders"
No doubt written by a grad student in Sociology (Psychology?).
"The following is a study of twenty-seven get-well letters written by a class of fourth-graders to their classmate Steven, when he was in the hospital recovering from a serious case of osteomyelitis."
Includes statistical and analytical summaries of topics such as General Appearance and Form of the letters (Length, Overall Coherence, Sentence Structures [Compound Sentences, Complex Sentences, Compound-Complex Sentences, Verbs, Imperatives, Style, Content], and analyses of the types and variety of "Expressions of Sympathy" and "News"[including the topics Weather, Eating/Food, School/Schoolwork, Shopping With Parents, Playing in Snow, Movies, Christmas/Christmas Presents]. The 27 letters consist of 150 handwritten lines made up of 114 sentences – ironically dissected and analyzed over 27 pages. The "150 lines", if simply quoted, would occupy just over four pages.
Examples of LOL pieces of the fictional study:
(1) "IMPERATIVES. The only instances of use of the imperative (4, one softened by "Please") are found in the letters of girls. This may imply a greater inclination to "command" or "boss" on the part of the girls than the boys, but may also be statistically insignificant, given the small number of letters in the sample."
(2) [One of the letters is written by Van.] "Some of Van's letters sit nicely on the line, some float up above it, and some sink below it. It is possible, in his case – as in others in which the child betrays some anxiety – that the letters do not sit on the line because the child is overcompensating: for fear of letting his letters sink below the line, he keeps them up off the line; for fear of letting them float up off the line, he forces them down below it…"
(3) [from Joan] "Joan is more specific, and thus more poignant, immediately evoking the classroom: "I miss you in our row in school." She conveys, in addition, a sense of solidarity among the children in that particular row – 'our row'."
(4) [Sally's short letter] "The content, along with the brevity of the letter and Sally's small handwriting, would seem to indicate either an innate pessimism or a low self-esteem, despite the quite exceptional exuberance and panache of her capital H."
(5) [Billy J.'s letter. In between "I hope you are feeling well." and "I hope you will be back soon, lies only "We are not doing much." This elicits the following …] "The words not doing much are smaller and more compact than the rest, perhaps reflecting the content of the remark. Billy's letters also tend to sink below the line, according well in spirit with his only news – that not much is being accomplished."
(6) [Susan B. expresses the common sentiments …] "then adds the wistful secondhand report: "Jonathan A. told me that he send [sic] you a big box of candy." Her handwriting changes noticeably in the latter part of this sentence: dark, upright, and confidant at the start of her letter, the words becoming increasingly faint and slant more and more to the right until the word candy, thin and delicate, is lying almost on its side."
Davis can make fiction out of just about any type of writing, any amalgamation of words – fiction always interesting, frequently funny, sometimes ominous, disturbing, even horrifying.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Prometheus Bound
Next review: In the Lake of the Woods
Older review: The Red Badge of Courage
Previous library review: Samuel Johnson is Indignant
Next library review: Pafko at the Wall
Christian, I'm not a
Published in 2007, this is the last volume of Davis' short fiction in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Varieties of Disturbance was a Natural Book Award finalist.
Following Collected Stories came two more collections ...
The Cows, 2011
Can't and Won't: Stories, 2015
Davis has produced two published translations in this century: Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, 2004; and Madame Bovary, 2011; both available in Penguin Classics Deluxe editions
Varieties of disturbances.
There are 57 pieces in this collection, ranging in length from the four word "Index Entry" above and the next five shortest (49 more words) ; - to the six longest stories, ranging from 11 to 48 pages. These behemoths make up 60% of the total pages.
misleading/enigmatic titles, Davis is a master of same.
"A Strange Impulse"
I looked down on the street from my window. The sun shone and the shopkeepers had come out to stand in the warmth and watch the people go by. But why were the shopkeepers covering their ears? And why were the people in the street running as if pursued by a terrible specter? Soon everything returned to normal: the incident had been no more than a moment of madness during which the people could not bear the frustration of their lives and had given way to a strange impulse.
"Almost Over: What's the Word?"
He says,
"When I first met you
I didn’t think you would turn out to be so
… strange."
"Getting to Know Your Body"
If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking.
If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.
Easily quotable, the five other shortest.
"Mother's Reaction to My Travel Plans"
Gainesville! It's too bad your cousin is dead!
"Collaboration With Fly"
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
"Tropical Storm"
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become "better organized."
"Idea for a Short Documentary Film"
Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging.
"Example of the Continuing Past Tense in a Hotel Room"
Your housekeeper has been Shelly.
a few words about many words …,
the many words of one of the three longest stories, seemingly dry and uninteresting from the opening line, but not so …
"We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders"
No doubt written by a grad student in Sociology (Psychology?).
"The following is a study of twenty-seven get-well letters written by a class of fourth-graders to their classmate Steven, when he was in the hospital recovering from a serious case of osteomyelitis."
Includes statistical and analytical summaries of topics such as General Appearance and Form of the letters (Length, Overall Coherence, Sentence Structures [Compound Sentences, Complex Sentences, Compound-Complex Sentences, Verbs, Imperatives, Style, Content], and analyses of the types and variety of "Expressions of Sympathy" and "News"[including the topics Weather, Eating/Food, School/Schoolwork, Shopping With Parents, Playing in Snow, Movies, Christmas/Christmas Presents]. The 27 letters consist of 150 handwritten lines made up of 114 sentences – ironically dissected and analyzed over 27 pages. The "150 lines", if simply quoted, would occupy just over four pages.
Examples of LOL pieces of the fictional study:
(1) "IMPERATIVES. The only instances of use of the imperative (4, one softened by "Please") are found in the letters of girls. This may imply a greater inclination to "command" or "boss" on the part of the girls than the boys, but may also be statistically insignificant, given the small number of letters in the sample."
(2) [One of the letters is written by Van.] "Some of Van's letters sit nicely on the line, some float up above it, and some sink below it. It is possible, in his case – as in others in which the child betrays some anxiety – that the letters do not sit on the line because the child is overcompensating: for fear of letting his letters sink below the line, he keeps them up off the line; for fear of letting them float up off the line, he forces them down below it…"
(3) [from Joan] "Joan is more specific, and thus more poignant, immediately evoking the classroom: "I miss you in our row in school." She conveys, in addition, a sense of solidarity among the children in that particular row – 'our row'."
(4) [Sally's short letter] "The content, along with the brevity of the letter and Sally's small handwriting, would seem to indicate either an innate pessimism or a low self-esteem, despite the quite exceptional exuberance and panache of her capital H."
(5) [Billy J.'s letter. In between "I hope you are feeling well." and "I hope you will be back soon, lies only "We are not doing much." This elicits the following …] "The words not doing much are smaller and more compact than the rest, perhaps reflecting the content of the remark. Billy's letters also tend to sink below the line, according well in spirit with his only news – that not much is being accomplished."
(6) [Susan B. expresses the common sentiments …] "then adds the wistful secondhand report: "Jonathan A. told me that he send [sic] you a big box of candy." Her handwriting changes noticeably in the latter part of this sentence: dark, upright, and confidant at the start of her letter, the words becoming increasingly faint and slant more and more to the right until the word candy, thin and delicate, is lying almost on its side."
Davis can make fiction out of just about any type of writing, any amalgamation of words – fiction always interesting, frequently funny, sometimes ominous, disturbing, even horrifying.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Prometheus Bound
Next review: In the Lake of the Woods
Older review: The Red Badge of Courage
Previous library review: Samuel Johnson is Indignant
Next library review: Pafko at the Wall
August 7, 2019
I wasn’t all that impressed by this collection, despite it containing a handful of gems (Kafka Cooks Dinner, Varieties of Disturbance, What You Learn About the Baby…) and what is easily my all-time favourite Lydia Davis story: We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders. Seriously, read it. It’s funny, clever and delightfully post-modern.
As for the rest of the book, it’s not bad (after all, this is Lydia Let-Me-Break-Your-Heart-And-Mind-Using-Only-A-Couple-Of-Words Davis we’re talking about), but to me Davis peaked at Samuel Johnson Is Indignant and in this subsequent book, unable to turn the screw any further, she continued to churn out more of the same.
I can’t seem to appreciate much development of her style at this point. In fact, I dare say at times she feels downright cocky (vide Cape Cod Diary, i.e., I’m going to make you read a month of my diary during which nothing much happened and you’re going to like it).
Also, and this is a first for me, some of the longer ones were slogs to get through. Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality... I just couldn’t bring myself to care, not after four collections of putting up with Davis’s eccentricities. So yeah, this is a case of it's not you, it's me. G-d forbid this review should put you off reading Davis. Even at her most boring, she's brilliant.
Long story short (ha, there’s a good title for a Lydia Davis anthology), read We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders. It’d make me happy.
As for the rest of the book, it’s not bad (after all, this is Lydia Let-Me-Break-Your-Heart-And-Mind-Using-Only-A-Couple-Of-Words Davis we’re talking about), but to me Davis peaked at Samuel Johnson Is Indignant and in this subsequent book, unable to turn the screw any further, she continued to churn out more of the same.
I can’t seem to appreciate much development of her style at this point. In fact, I dare say at times she feels downright cocky (vide Cape Cod Diary, i.e., I’m going to make you read a month of my diary during which nothing much happened and you’re going to like it).
Also, and this is a first for me, some of the longer ones were slogs to get through. Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality... I just couldn’t bring myself to care, not after four collections of putting up with Davis’s eccentricities. So yeah, this is a case of it's not you, it's me. G-d forbid this review should put you off reading Davis. Even at her most boring, she's brilliant.
Long story short (ha, there’s a good title for a Lydia Davis anthology), read We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders. It’d make me happy.
February 9, 2015
When I first heard about Lydia Davis, I felt like I should have already known of her. This is my first attempt to remedy that absence.
I'm not surprised that the friend who recommended her comes from my book club that read Infinite Jest, as there is one story in this set that makes me think of David Foster Wallace (where the footnote is longer than the story.)
And most stories in here are short. Short is an understatement. Tiny. I believe the word is micro fiction. Many are more like poetry. And actually I preferred the shorties over the longer stories. The longer stories tended to take on faux sociological studies like "We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders" and "Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality." Not my favorite, but clever.
I preferred stories that managed to make a thoughtful observation or statement, or made me laugh. Favorites included "Kafka Cooks Dinner" (you can read it online on Fence) and "Head, Heart" (which is available online as well, so go read it, it's quick.)
This was also discussed on Episode 009 of the Reading Envy Podcast.
I'm not surprised that the friend who recommended her comes from my book club that read Infinite Jest, as there is one story in this set that makes me think of David Foster Wallace (where the footnote is longer than the story.)
And most stories in here are short. Short is an understatement. Tiny. I believe the word is micro fiction. Many are more like poetry. And actually I preferred the shorties over the longer stories. The longer stories tended to take on faux sociological studies like "We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders" and "Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality." Not my favorite, but clever.
I preferred stories that managed to make a thoughtful observation or statement, or made me laugh. Favorites included "Kafka Cooks Dinner" (you can read it online on Fence) and "Head, Heart" (which is available online as well, so go read it, it's quick.)
This was also discussed on Episode 009 of the Reading Envy Podcast.
March 22, 2017
تقول ليديا ديفيس في أحد حواراتها إنها تميل إلى كتابك القصص القصيرة جدًا وبخاصة حين كانت تعمل على ترجمة عمل مارسيل بروست البحث عن الزمن المفقود، فقد كانت تترجم جمله الطويلة المعقدة وانتابتها رغبة في مقاومة بنية الجمل بقصص قصيرة جدًا جدًا تتألف من العنوان وسطرين أو ثلاثة. لم تكن القصص القصيرة جدًا جدًا كثيرة في هذه المجموعة، بل طغى عليها القصص الطويلة التي تتجازو بعضها الأربعين صفحة (هيلين وفاي: دراسة في الصحة والحيوية، يوميات كيب كود، مدام د. وخادماتها، دراسة على خطابات بتمني الشفاء العاجل ...) تكتب ديفيس عن التفاصيل الصغيرة جدًا التي تمنح للحياة نكهتها، إن كان ثمة واحدة! وتطعّمها بروح الدعابة (والسخرية المرة أحيانًا) كأنها علاج للخيبة المتربصة بنا ليكون الضحك آخر الليل هو الحل...
أسلوب ليديا بسيط وسلس، يشبه حوار أي منا مع نفسه حين ينشغل ذهنه بأمر ما، ويحاول تعداد الخيارات، أو بالأحرى يلعب مع نفسه لعبة "ماذا لو" لعبة ستانديش (بطل قمر اليرقات) المفضلة.
كثير من القصص كان مكتوبًا على نحو يشبه لغز catch-22 -وهو نوع من الألغاز المتناقضة التي لا حل لها-الذي يجعلك تنتهي للجواب نفسه في كل مرة ولا تصل إلى حل أبدًا.
أسلوب ليديا بسيط وسلس، يشبه حوار أي منا مع نفسه حين ينشغل ذهنه بأمر ما، ويحاول تعداد الخيارات، أو بالأحرى يلعب مع نفسه لعبة "ماذا لو" لعبة ستانديش (بطل قمر اليرقات) المفضلة.
كثير من القصص كان مكتوبًا على نحو يشبه لغز catch-22 -وهو نوع من الألغاز المتناقضة التي لا حل لها-الذي يجعلك تنتهي للجواب نفسه في كل مرة ولا تصل إلى حل أبدًا.
July 26, 2016
Subtle and remarkable. I understand the misgivings some have regarding "micro-fiction" in general, but I would offer this as an argument for the form.
Will post a link to my extended review, when I write it.
Will post a link to my extended review, when I write it.
July 21, 2009
I admit that when I received this book in the mail nearly a year ago, I read the shortest stories first and these two-line stories made me feel (with a trace of shame) like Lydia Davis was cheating. Afraid that she would not live up to all the Lydia Davis hype, I tucked the book away in my shelves.
Last night, this book seemed to want attention so I said okay and started reading from the beginning. Few stories are more than a page. The three long-ish stories in the book are all set up like lab reports; all are studies: Of get-well letters to a sick child from a 4th grade class, of the maids of a particular family, of the health of two elderly women. And then the whole book started to feel like an obsessive data collection; an attempt at an objective record of minutiae, of dailiness, of all the stuff that on the surface doesn't seem worth writing about. Reading the book in order and having my head firmly in LydiaDavisWorld, the same two-line stories that had made me shrug earlier, made me imagine entire situations and characters surrounding them and made me feel all kinds of ways.
After reading the first 60 pages or so, I fell asleep. I had the kind of nightmares where you know they're nightmares but you don't want to wake up because you're afraid of discovering they're still true in your waking life. Eventually I woke up, finished Varieties of Disturbance, and decided that reading this book in bed was probably the nightmare-inducing thing.
Final verdict: Lydia Davis - Not overrated.
Last night, this book seemed to want attention so I said okay and started reading from the beginning. Few stories are more than a page. The three long-ish stories in the book are all set up like lab reports; all are studies: Of get-well letters to a sick child from a 4th grade class, of the maids of a particular family, of the health of two elderly women. And then the whole book started to feel like an obsessive data collection; an attempt at an objective record of minutiae, of dailiness, of all the stuff that on the surface doesn't seem worth writing about. Reading the book in order and having my head firmly in LydiaDavisWorld, the same two-line stories that had made me shrug earlier, made me imagine entire situations and characters surrounding them and made me feel all kinds of ways.
After reading the first 60 pages or so, I fell asleep. I had the kind of nightmares where you know they're nightmares but you don't want to wake up because you're afraid of discovering they're still true in your waking life. Eventually I woke up, finished Varieties of Disturbance, and decided that reading this book in bed was probably the nightmare-inducing thing.
Final verdict: Lydia Davis - Not overrated.
January 31, 2019
ماذا فعلت ليديا ديفيس؟
لأنها أولاً مدام، شؤون المنزل، الاهتمام بالطفل الكبير "الزوج" والطفل الصغير "ابنها"، ولأنها مترجمة (المعذبون في هذه الأرض الذي ضاع بصرهم في القواميس والتنقيب عن المفردات والأضداد!) ولأنها تعمل أستاذة بالجامعة، لجأت مضطرة لأسلوب كتابة يتميز بالقصر والاختزال والكثافة. ليديا لا تكتب القصص القصيرة جدًا ولا القصص القصيرة فقط، لا الشذرات. أقول ربما تكتب ليديا القصاصات المقتطفة من الحياة دون تزويق كبير مع الحفاظ على صلابة اللغة وصحتها وقدرتها على التعبير.
•••
تتجه ليديا لملاحظة تفاصيل غريبة، مثلاً هي تحكي عن ذبابة في قصاصة لها:
"في مؤخرة الحافلة،
داخل الحمام،
هذه المسافرة الضئيلة المخالفة للقانون،
في طريقها إلى بوسطن."
•••
نشأت ليديا في عائلة لغوية، كانت من الممكن أن تقضي ساعات في البحث عن أصل كلمة ما وتاريخها في علم الأصول، ولا تجد تضييعا للوقت في ذلك.
ببساطة، ليديا تعيش داخل اللغة، وعندما تكتب، فإنها تتفذلك، على نحو صحيح تمامًا وغر مخالف للقواعد اللغوية، باللغة في قصصها التي تكتبها في النهار بعد عناء. أجل؟ عناء، إنها تحكي في قصة بعنوان: "مدام د وخادماتها" في حوالي أكثر من عشرين صفحة فقط عن تاريخ الخادمات اللاتي مررن على بيتها. كل ما كانت تريده بعضًا من الوقت بالنهار للكتابة والقراءة، ولقد عانت للحصول على ذلك.
•••
ليديا ترجمت رواية بروست: "البحث عن الزمن المفقود" ، وأعتقد أنها لو لم تفعل غير ذلك في حياتها، فإنها سترقد في سلام. وحدهم من يعرفون الرواية، يفهمون معنى ترجمة رواية بروست هذه!
•••
اقتباس:
"أرق
جسمي يوجعني كثيرًا —
لابد أن هذا السرير الثقيل ضاغطًا إلى الأعلى نحوي."
•••
عقل، قلب
القلب ينوح.
العقل يحاول مساندة القلب.
العقل يخبر القلب بالحال ثانية:
ستفقد أحباءك. كلهم سيرحلون. لكن، حتى الأرض سترحل، يومًا ما.
القلب يشعر بتحسن حينئذ.
لكن كلمات العقل لا تبقى طويلاً في أذني القلب.
الحال جديد تمامًا على القلب.
يقول القلب: أريد استعادتهم.
العقل هو كل ما يملكه القلب.
النجدة أيها العقل. فلتنجد القلب.
٢٠٠٧
•••
لأنها أولاً مدام، شؤون المنزل، الاهتمام بالطفل الكبير "الزوج" والطفل الصغير "ابنها"، ولأنها مترجمة (المعذبون في هذه الأرض الذي ضاع بصرهم في القواميس والتنقيب عن المفردات والأضداد!) ولأنها تعمل أستاذة بالجامعة، لجأت مضطرة لأسلوب كتابة يتميز بالقصر والاختزال والكثافة. ليديا لا تكتب القصص القصيرة جدًا ولا القصص القصيرة فقط، لا الشذرات. أقول ربما تكتب ليديا القصاصات المقتطفة من الحياة دون تزويق كبير مع الحفاظ على صلابة اللغة وصحتها وقدرتها على التعبير.
•••
تتجه ليديا لملاحظة تفاصيل غريبة، مثلاً هي تحكي عن ذبابة في قصاصة لها:
"في مؤخرة الحافلة،
داخل الحمام،
هذه المسافرة الضئيلة المخالفة للقانون،
في طريقها إلى بوسطن."
•••
نشأت ليديا في عائلة لغوية، كانت من الممكن أن تقضي ساعات في البحث عن أصل كلمة ما وتاريخها في علم الأصول، ولا تجد تضييعا للوقت في ذلك.
ببساطة، ليديا تعيش داخل اللغة، وعندما تكتب، فإنها تتفذلك، على نحو صحيح تمامًا وغر مخالف للقواعد اللغوية، باللغة في قصصها التي تكتبها في النهار بعد عناء. أجل؟ عناء، إنها تحكي في قصة بعنوان: "مدام د وخادماتها" في حوالي أكثر من عشرين صفحة فقط عن تاريخ الخادمات اللاتي مررن على بيتها. كل ما كانت تريده بعضًا من الوقت بالنهار للكتابة والقراءة، ولقد عانت للحصول على ذلك.
•••
ليديا ترجمت رواية بروست: "البحث عن الزمن المفقود" ، وأعتقد أنها لو لم تفعل غير ذلك في حياتها، فإنها سترقد في سلام. وحدهم من يعرفون الرواية، يفهمون معنى ترجمة رواية بروست هذه!
•••
اقتباس:
"أرق
جسمي يوجعني كثيرًا —
لابد أن هذا السرير الثقيل ضاغطًا إلى الأعلى نحوي."
•••
عقل، قلب
القلب ينوح.
العقل يحاول مساندة القلب.
العقل يخبر القلب بالحال ثانية:
ستفقد أحباءك. كلهم سيرحلون. لكن، حتى الأرض سترحل، يومًا ما.
القلب يشعر بتحسن حينئذ.
لكن كلمات العقل لا تبقى طويلاً في أذني القلب.
الحال جديد تمامًا على القلب.
يقول القلب: أريد استعادتهم.
العقل هو كل ما يملكه القلب.
النجدة أيها العقل. فلتنجد القلب.
٢٠٠٧
•••
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2017
قصص جميلة، بعضها شديدة التكثيف بشكل رائع، الآخر اعتمد على تحليل دقيق لما وراء الكلمات، هنا أيضًا قصص وظفت فيها الكاتبة قلقها وانزعاجها وسخريتها من الروتين بطريقة ملفتة. كتابة مميزة، مختلفة بالمعنى الحرفي، ما إن تقرأ حتى تلمس ذلك بوضوح شديد جدًا.
February 27, 2025
Takich opowiadań jeszcze nie czytaliście. Mają tak oryginalną formę, że trudno mi samej ubrać to w słowa. Jesteśmy przyzwyczajeni do czytania wewnętrznych monologów, strumieni świadomości, pierwszoosobowej lub trzecioosobowej narracji. Natomiast Davis stoi obok swoich bohaterów i opisuje ich bez emocji. Studiuje ich niczym przypadki do analizy i posługuje się precyzyjnym językiem, który odwzorowuje życia bohaterów.
Analizie poddawani są przeróżni ludzie. Davis intryguje formą, ale też tematami. Bierze na warsztat fikcyjne listy napisane przez grupę uczniów do swojego kolegi przebywającego w szpitalu. Przez wiele stron analizuje ich wypowiedzi, pismo i wyciąga z nich obraz dzieciństwa i niepewności. Przygląda się też służącym zatrudnianym przez wymagającą panią. Pod koniec zbioru zerkniemy na Vi i Helen oraz ich analizę porównawczą starzenia się w dobrym zdrowiu.
Lydia Davis świetnie włada językiem, ale najlepiej bawi się…gramatyką. W moich oczach największym atutem „Asortymentu strapień” jest szafowanie formami, konwencjami oraz bohaterami. Davis potrafi rozkładać zdania na czynniki pierwsze i wymieniać w nich słowa, by zdanie igrało z naszą wyobraźnią tak, jak w opowiadaniu „Kwestia gramatyki”. Zdania następują po sobie jak domino, jedno opada na drugie, kolejne goni kolejne.
Davis potrafi napisać powiastkę na trzy linijki, opowieść na jedną stronę, by zaraz zaskoczyć czytelnika dogłębna analizą na kilkadziesiąt stron. Czytając ma się wrażenie, że autorka zdobyła całą wiedzą na temat języka, składnia jest jej muzą, a nam pozostaje zachwycać się tym z jaką lekkością można żonglować językiem. Davis udowadnia, że opowiadania mogą mieć różne formy, a ich tematyka nie musi być jednolita. Miałam wrażenie, że czytam kilka dzieł na raz i nie jest to pod żadnym pozorem zarzut, a jedynie komplement.
Zapewniam Was, że czegoś takiego jeszcze nie czytaliście. Jesteście zaintrygowani?
Analizie poddawani są przeróżni ludzie. Davis intryguje formą, ale też tematami. Bierze na warsztat fikcyjne listy napisane przez grupę uczniów do swojego kolegi przebywającego w szpitalu. Przez wiele stron analizuje ich wypowiedzi, pismo i wyciąga z nich obraz dzieciństwa i niepewności. Przygląda się też służącym zatrudnianym przez wymagającą panią. Pod koniec zbioru zerkniemy na Vi i Helen oraz ich analizę porównawczą starzenia się w dobrym zdrowiu.
Lydia Davis świetnie włada językiem, ale najlepiej bawi się…gramatyką. W moich oczach największym atutem „Asortymentu strapień” jest szafowanie formami, konwencjami oraz bohaterami. Davis potrafi rozkładać zdania na czynniki pierwsze i wymieniać w nich słowa, by zdanie igrało z naszą wyobraźnią tak, jak w opowiadaniu „Kwestia gramatyki”. Zdania następują po sobie jak domino, jedno opada na drugie, kolejne goni kolejne.
Davis potrafi napisać powiastkę na trzy linijki, opowieść na jedną stronę, by zaraz zaskoczyć czytelnika dogłębna analizą na kilkadziesiąt stron. Czytając ma się wrażenie, że autorka zdobyła całą wiedzą na temat języka, składnia jest jej muzą, a nam pozostaje zachwycać się tym z jaką lekkością można żonglować językiem. Davis udowadnia, że opowiadania mogą mieć różne formy, a ich tematyka nie musi być jednolita. Miałam wrażenie, że czytam kilka dzieł na raz i nie jest to pod żadnym pozorem zarzut, a jedynie komplement.
Zapewniam Was, że czegoś takiego jeszcze nie czytaliście. Jesteście zaintrygowani?
May 27, 2020
تأملات ليديا ديفيز القصيرة جداً لطيفة حقيقي، ولكن القصص القصيرة مش بتبقى قصص قصيرة وإنما مجرد تثبيت لمشهد ووصفه تفصيلياً، وده الجزء إللي كلنا بننطه في الفصول الأولى من الروايات. تلات نجوم لليديا ديفيز ونجمة لاختيارات آية نبيه في ترجمة النص.
Read
July 4, 2025Yazarın iki kitabını beraber almıştım. Normalde yapmam böyle şeyler. Fakat o kadar övülüyordu ki. Belki bu tür öykü severler için o övgülere layıktır. Ben bu tür öyküleri okumayı hiç sevmiyorum. Okuduğum diğer kitabını da hiç sevmemiştim. Bunu da mecburen okudum denilebilir. O nedenle puanlamak istemiyorum. Zaten bu uygulamanın en zor yanı bu puanlama işi buçuklu puanlar da yok. En kötü kitaba iki veriyorum nadiren onun dışında sevmesem bile üç veriyorum.
July 1, 2025
I actually finished this book a while ago but I forgot about goodreads bc I never read BUT this book was fantastic and moving and reminded me of my good friend silas
January 3, 2025
me senti relendo matilde campilho, ótima experiência
August 10, 2024
öyküler fazla deneysel ancak meraklısına ilginç gelecektir...
January 19, 2014
There are different kinds of ‘special’ in this world:
1. There is the ‘oh, that’s special’ from a mother or a colleague perhaps, when commenting on a new dress or a new coat of paint in your living room. Make no mistake, it’s not really compliment, it means that they just don’t know what else to say.
2. There is the type of ‘special’ invented by marketeers: a now-or-never advertisement trick that always sounds like a good idea at the time, but rarely is.
3. And, then there is the real special: like Lydia Davis special. Unique. One of a kind. Original. It just stands out.
The first thing that stands out is that she makes her stories about the most everyday things: how many different maids a woman had in her lifetime for instance, or her inability to open packaging:
This collection is a combination of flash fiction with short fiction, sometimes with the feel of poetry, at other times it feels like sociological research. Her stories are regularly made with a linguistic logic that makes your head spin, but is very often just really funny.
One of the stories I liked best was a study of letters a class of fourth-graders wrote to their sick classmate Stephen who spent some time in the hospital recovering. The letters are 5 to 8 sentences long, and what Lydia Davis gives us is a hilarious over-analysis of these letters, culminating in a study of ‘the Daily Lives of Children, their Awareness of Space and Time, and their Characters and States of Mind’.
Brilliant as this story is, I do have to add that a lot of the stories in the collection wouldn’t work for me on their own, but combined together is when they get to shine. What she does feels highly experimental, and one of the consequences of experimental is that not everything will be liked. There are stories I thought were highly original, and great from a structural point of view, but didn’t necessarily work for me as a story. It’s no surprise then that sometimes Lydia Davis might float in between to categories of special. The one you don’t really like, even if you can appreciate the originality.
1. There is the ‘oh, that’s special’ from a mother or a colleague perhaps, when commenting on a new dress or a new coat of paint in your living room. Make no mistake, it’s not really compliment, it means that they just don’t know what else to say.
2. There is the type of ‘special’ invented by marketeers: a now-or-never advertisement trick that always sounds like a good idea at the time, but rarely is.
3. And, then there is the real special: like Lydia Davis special. Unique. One of a kind. Original. It just stands out.
The first thing that stands out is that she makes her stories about the most everyday things: how many different maids a woman had in her lifetime for instance, or her inability to open packaging:
This collection is a combination of flash fiction with short fiction, sometimes with the feel of poetry, at other times it feels like sociological research. Her stories are regularly made with a linguistic logic that makes your head spin, but is very often just really funny.
One of the stories I liked best was a study of letters a class of fourth-graders wrote to their sick classmate Stephen who spent some time in the hospital recovering. The letters are 5 to 8 sentences long, and what Lydia Davis gives us is a hilarious over-analysis of these letters, culminating in a study of ‘the Daily Lives of Children, their Awareness of Space and Time, and their Characters and States of Mind’.
“Two of the children achieve moments of stylistic eloquence. One, Susan A., creates a vivid concrete image that is enhanced by her use of alliteration and forceful rhythm: ‘some trees were bent and broken’. (…)
“It could be argued that Scott too, achieves a certain pleasing balance with his alternation, in the four sentences of his cogent letter, between ‘over there’ and ‘here where we are’, ‘up there’ and ‘back here again,’ in fact creating a seesaw motion and thereby tying Stephen more closely to the class than any of the other children.”
Brilliant as this story is, I do have to add that a lot of the stories in the collection wouldn’t work for me on their own, but combined together is when they get to shine. What she does feels highly experimental, and one of the consequences of experimental is that not everything will be liked. There are stories I thought were highly original, and great from a structural point of view, but didn’t necessarily work for me as a story. It’s no surprise then that sometimes Lydia Davis might float in between to categories of special. The one you don’t really like, even if you can appreciate the originality.
May 25, 2007
'varieties' is accurate in that she has several techniques, vaguely constellated around her interests (of translation and epistemology, of 'deep ideas' of self).
she's a great bridge to the Modernists... she's thinking about them--Kafka, Proust, Beckett, Woolf--throughout, but we hear her thinking in a very contemporary language, one that is constructed and fragmented *from* modernism, a cento of modernism. relatedly: she's a good mimic. beyond this also, she's several of her own styles.
the short shorts that worked best for me were those that point to that one vaguely has experienced but has never been able to articulate--and so come with an a-ha! ...some however were confounding and i wonder that in these absolutely crucibled forms (the FF) if authors are forced to use personal or limited connotations of language that simply don't 'mean' for everyone, and thereby necessarily create (unintentionally?) obtuse texts...
"The walk" is so far my favorite. at first glance seems a very traditional story--about two people, a proust translator and a proust critic, taking a proustian walk--but reveals itself to be self-commenting, creating a neat and mirrored world (which in itself is an act which comments on proust's architecture of the two ways). also a beautiful style, wistful.
other longer ones are exhausting and exhaustive thought experiments, some by their exhausting function are similar in their ambitions to sorrentino's use of the exhaustive list...
by her carefully chosen and paced varieties, she satisfyingly obliterates the dichotomy of show and tell.
"Enlightened," in entirety:
I don’t know if I can remain friends with her. I’ve thought and thought about it - she’ll never know how much. I gave it one last try: I called her, after a year. But I didn’t like the way the conversation went. The problem is that she is not very enlightened. Or I should say, she is not enlightened enough for me. She is nearly fifty years old and no more enlightened, as far as I can see, than when I knew her twenty years ago, when we talked mainly about men. I did not mind how unenlightened she was then, maybe because I was not so enlightened myself. I believe I am more enlightened now, and certainly more enlightened than she is, although I know it’s not very enlightened to say that. But I want to say it, so I am willing to postpone being more enlightened myself so that I can still say a thing like that about a friend.
she's a great bridge to the Modernists... she's thinking about them--Kafka, Proust, Beckett, Woolf--throughout, but we hear her thinking in a very contemporary language, one that is constructed and fragmented *from* modernism, a cento of modernism. relatedly: she's a good mimic. beyond this also, she's several of her own styles.
the short shorts that worked best for me were those that point to that one vaguely has experienced but has never been able to articulate--and so come with an a-ha! ...some however were confounding and i wonder that in these absolutely crucibled forms (the FF) if authors are forced to use personal or limited connotations of language that simply don't 'mean' for everyone, and thereby necessarily create (unintentionally?) obtuse texts...
"The walk" is so far my favorite. at first glance seems a very traditional story--about two people, a proust translator and a proust critic, taking a proustian walk--but reveals itself to be self-commenting, creating a neat and mirrored world (which in itself is an act which comments on proust's architecture of the two ways). also a beautiful style, wistful.
other longer ones are exhausting and exhaustive thought experiments, some by their exhausting function are similar in their ambitions to sorrentino's use of the exhaustive list...
by her carefully chosen and paced varieties, she satisfyingly obliterates the dichotomy of show and tell.
"Enlightened," in entirety:
I don’t know if I can remain friends with her. I’ve thought and thought about it - she’ll never know how much. I gave it one last try: I called her, after a year. But I didn’t like the way the conversation went. The problem is that she is not very enlightened. Or I should say, she is not enlightened enough for me. She is nearly fifty years old and no more enlightened, as far as I can see, than when I knew her twenty years ago, when we talked mainly about men. I did not mind how unenlightened she was then, maybe because I was not so enlightened myself. I believe I am more enlightened now, and certainly more enlightened than she is, although I know it’s not very enlightened to say that. But I want to say it, so I am willing to postpone being more enlightened myself so that I can still say a thing like that about a friend.
May 21, 2010
Lydia Davis’ Varieties of Disturbance is a unique short story collection with stories ranging in length from multiple pages to a single sentence. The stories are often clever with an underlying humor, but some I just fond plain odd. Perhaps I missed the point in a few of them. Quite a few of the shortest stories were more like humorous observations of life rather than stories.
This collection of short stories is very character-driven. With a few of the stories, you aren’t introduced to the characters at all, but rather you see things through their perspective. As a result, I felt detached and unsympathetic toward the characters and the situations they faced which led to me to be a bit bored with a few of the stories. I suppose I found it hard to relate to a character that I knew nothing about outside of how they reacted in one situation. After the first couple stories I read that left me feeling this way, I started skimming through the book looking for a situation or character that I could relate to. Overall, the book just couldn’t hold my attention.
I liked the shorter, one sentence type stories the best. The longer stories seemed to drag on for me. I can, however, appreciate the author’s descriptive ability. She is clearly an intelligent, talented writer. She just doesn’t appeal to me as much as certain other writers. I wouldn't recommend this collection to others unless they were already fans of this author's writing style.
This collection of short stories is very character-driven. With a few of the stories, you aren’t introduced to the characters at all, but rather you see things through their perspective. As a result, I felt detached and unsympathetic toward the characters and the situations they faced which led to me to be a bit bored with a few of the stories. I suppose I found it hard to relate to a character that I knew nothing about outside of how they reacted in one situation. After the first couple stories I read that left me feeling this way, I started skimming through the book looking for a situation or character that I could relate to. Overall, the book just couldn’t hold my attention.
I liked the shorter, one sentence type stories the best. The longer stories seemed to drag on for me. I can, however, appreciate the author’s descriptive ability. She is clearly an intelligent, talented writer. She just doesn’t appeal to me as much as certain other writers. I wouldn't recommend this collection to others unless they were already fans of this author's writing style.
November 10, 2014
Do you remember when you were a teenager, and your friends all really liked this one band, but you just didn't understand the appeal of their music? And you had a sneaking suspicion that at least a few of your friends were pretending to like it to seem cool? And maybe even you pretended to like it to seem cool, too?
That is how I feel about this collection, though I'm old enough now to not bother wasting time pretending to be cool. I just straight up don't get it. Another review I read said although it was very intellectual, the collection had zero emotional resonance for them. I wholeheartedly agree.
I can say that a few of the essays appealed to me ("Enlightened"; "Good Times"; "The Fellowship"), but overall I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a dull, highly repetitive, scientific textbook. I really struggled to get through this text, and felt no connection to it, whatsoever.
Cruelest thoughts about this: pretentious drivel, mind-numbingly boring. Nicer thoughts: acerbic and dry, bare-bones, unique, just not my taste.
That is how I feel about this collection, though I'm old enough now to not bother wasting time pretending to be cool. I just straight up don't get it. Another review I read said although it was very intellectual, the collection had zero emotional resonance for them. I wholeheartedly agree.
I can say that a few of the essays appealed to me ("Enlightened"; "Good Times"; "The Fellowship"), but overall I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a dull, highly repetitive, scientific textbook. I really struggled to get through this text, and felt no connection to it, whatsoever.
Cruelest thoughts about this: pretentious drivel, mind-numbingly boring. Nicer thoughts: acerbic and dry, bare-bones, unique, just not my taste.
January 22, 2022
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
* * *
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become "better organized."
* * *
Representatives of different food products manufacturers
try to open their own packaging.
* * *
Beyond the hand holding this book that I'm reading, I see another hand lying idle and slightly out of focus - my extra hand.
* * *
If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking.
If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeball still.
* * *
I have been hearing what my mother says for over forty years and I have been hearing what my husband says for only about five years, and I have often thought she was right and he was not right, but now more often I think he i right, especially on a day like today when I have just had a long conversation on the phone with my mother about my brother and my father and then a shorter conversation on the phone with my husband about the conversation I had with my mother.
My mother was worried because she hurt my brother's feelings when he told her over the phone that he wanted to take some of his vacation time to come help them since my mother had just gotten out of the hospital. She said, though she was not telling the truth, that he shouldn't come because she couldn't really have anyone in the house since she would feel she had to prepare meals, for instance, though having difficulty enough with her crutches. He argued against that, saying "That wouldn't be the point!" and now he doesn't answer his phone. She's afraid something has happened to him and I tell her I don't believe that. He had probably taken the vacation time he had set aside for them and gone away for a few days by himself. She forgets he is a man of nearly fifty, though I'm sorry they had to hurt his feelings like that. A short time after she hangs up I call my husband and repeat all this to him.
My mother hurt my brother's feelings while protecting certain particular feelings of my father's by claiming certain other feelings of her own, and while it was hard for me to deny my father's particular feelings, which are well-known to me, it was also hard for me not to think there was not a way to do things differently so that my brother's offer of help would not be declined and he would not be hurt.
She hurt my brother's feelings as she was protecting my father from certain feelings of disturbance anticipated by him if my brother were to come, by claiming to my brother certain feelings of disturbance in my mother and father both, feelings that are the same or close to the same in them but different from the feelings of disturbance anticipated by my father an those falsely claimed by my mother to my brother. Now in her disturbance my mother has called to tell me of her and my father's feelings of disturbance over my brother, and in doing this she has caused in me feelings of disturbance also, though fainter and different from the feelings experienced now by her and my father and those anticipated by my father and falsely claimed by my mother.
When I describe this conversation to my husband, I cause in him feelings of disturbance also, stronger than mine and different in kind from those in my mother, in my father, and respectively claimed and anticipated by them. My husband is disturbed by my mother's refusing my brother's help and thus causing disturbance in me greater, he says, than I realize, bu also more generally by the disturbance caused more generally not only in my brother by her but also in me by her greater than I realize, and more often than I realize, and when he points this out, it causes in me yet another disturbance different in kind and in degree from that caused in me by what my mother has told me, for this disturbance is not only for myself and my brother, and not only for my father in his anticipated and his present disturbance, but also and most of all for my mother herself, who has now, and has generally, caused so much disturbance, as my husband rightly says, but is herself disturbed by only a small part of it.
* * *
Oh, poor Dad. I'm sorry I made fun of you.
Now I'm spelling Nietszche wrong, too.
* * *
My body aches so -
It must be this heavy bed pressing up against me.
* * *
1.
It is not that you are not qualified to receive the fellowship, it is that each year your application is not good enough. When at last your application is perfect, then you will receive the fellowship.
2.
It is not that you are not qualified to receive the fellowship, it is that your patience must be tested first. Each year, you are patient, but not patient enough. When you have truly learned what it is to be patient, so much so that you forget all about the fellowship, then you will receive the fellowship.
* * *
I looked down on the street from my window. The sun shone and the shopkeepers had come out to stand in the warmth and watch the people go by. But why were the shopkeepers covering their ears? And why were the peoople in the street running as if pursued by a terrible spectre? Soon everything returned to normal: the incident had been no more than a moment of madness during which the people could not bear the frustration of their lives and had given way to a strange impulse.
* * *
At the back of the bus,
inside the bathroom,
this very small illegal passenger,
on its way to Boston.
but he added the apostrophe.
- Collaboration with Fly, pg. 8
* * *
Like a tropical storm,
I, too, may one day become "better organized."
- Tropical Storm, pg. 19
* * *
Representatives of different food products manufacturers
try to open their own packaging.
- Idea for a Short Documentary Film, pg. 22
* * *
Beyond the hand holding this book that I'm reading, I see another hand lying idle and slightly out of focus - my extra hand.
- Hand, pg. 30
* * *
If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking.
If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeball still.
- Getting to Know Your Body, pg. 66
* * *
I have been hearing what my mother says for over forty years and I have been hearing what my husband says for only about five years, and I have often thought she was right and he was not right, but now more often I think he i right, especially on a day like today when I have just had a long conversation on the phone with my mother about my brother and my father and then a shorter conversation on the phone with my husband about the conversation I had with my mother.
My mother was worried because she hurt my brother's feelings when he told her over the phone that he wanted to take some of his vacation time to come help them since my mother had just gotten out of the hospital. She said, though she was not telling the truth, that he shouldn't come because she couldn't really have anyone in the house since she would feel she had to prepare meals, for instance, though having difficulty enough with her crutches. He argued against that, saying "That wouldn't be the point!" and now he doesn't answer his phone. She's afraid something has happened to him and I tell her I don't believe that. He had probably taken the vacation time he had set aside for them and gone away for a few days by himself. She forgets he is a man of nearly fifty, though I'm sorry they had to hurt his feelings like that. A short time after she hangs up I call my husband and repeat all this to him.
My mother hurt my brother's feelings while protecting certain particular feelings of my father's by claiming certain other feelings of her own, and while it was hard for me to deny my father's particular feelings, which are well-known to me, it was also hard for me not to think there was not a way to do things differently so that my brother's offer of help would not be declined and he would not be hurt.
She hurt my brother's feelings as she was protecting my father from certain feelings of disturbance anticipated by him if my brother were to come, by claiming to my brother certain feelings of disturbance in my mother and father both, feelings that are the same or close to the same in them but different from the feelings of disturbance anticipated by my father an those falsely claimed by my mother to my brother. Now in her disturbance my mother has called to tell me of her and my father's feelings of disturbance over my brother, and in doing this she has caused in me feelings of disturbance also, though fainter and different from the feelings experienced now by her and my father and those anticipated by my father and falsely claimed by my mother.
When I describe this conversation to my husband, I cause in him feelings of disturbance also, stronger than mine and different in kind from those in my mother, in my father, and respectively claimed and anticipated by them. My husband is disturbed by my mother's refusing my brother's help and thus causing disturbance in me greater, he says, than I realize, bu also more generally by the disturbance caused more generally not only in my brother by her but also in me by her greater than I realize, and more often than I realize, and when he points this out, it causes in me yet another disturbance different in kind and in degree from that caused in me by what my mother has told me, for this disturbance is not only for myself and my brother, and not only for my father in his anticipated and his present disturbance, but also and most of all for my mother herself, who has now, and has generally, caused so much disturbance, as my husband rightly says, but is herself disturbed by only a small part of it.
- Varieties of Disturbance, pg. 83-85
* * *
Oh, poor Dad. I'm sorry I made fun of you.
Now I'm spelling Nietszche wrong, too.
- Nietszche, pg. 114
* * *
My body aches so -
It must be this heavy bed pressing up against me.
- Insomnia, pg. 128
* * *
1.
It is not that you are not qualified to receive the fellowship, it is that each year your application is not good enough. When at last your application is perfect, then you will receive the fellowship.
2.
It is not that you are not qualified to receive the fellowship, it is that your patience must be tested first. Each year, you are patient, but not patient enough. When you have truly learned what it is to be patient, so much so that you forget all about the fellowship, then you will receive the fellowship.
- The Fellowship, pg. 136
* * *
I looked down on the street from my window. The sun shone and the shopkeepers had come out to stand in the warmth and watch the people go by. But why were the shopkeepers covering their ears? And why were the peoople in the street running as if pursued by a terrible spectre? Soon everything returned to normal: the incident had been no more than a moment of madness during which the people could not bear the frustration of their lives and had given way to a strange impulse.
- A Strange Impulse, pg. 186
* * *
At the back of the bus,
inside the bathroom,
this very small illegal passenger,
on its way to Boston.
- The Fly, pg. 196
January 26, 2011
Well basically my favorite book. Sean calls it "Proust tweets for Baller," Baller being me. I guess that is accurate. My favorite was the one in which she reads and doesn't read Worstward Ho on the bus.
May 21, 2016
Ones I liked: "Grammar Questions," "What You Learn About The Baby," "Passing Wind," "For Sixty Cents," "Order," "The Strangers," "The Caterpillar," "The Fellowship"
March 29, 2019
نوع الكتابة اللي بتبرع فيه دافيس هو القصة القصيرة جدًا والميكرو بورتريه. ولذلك القصص الطويلة كانت شديدة الإملال.
June 22, 2021
ربما لم تعجبني كل القصص ، ولكن ما يميز تلك المجموعة هو الابتكار والشكل و التناول غير التقليدين
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