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Esa gente que no conocemos
Sé que no es nada muy fascinante, pero es nuestra vida, escribe una madre a sus hijos en una carta en la que les cuenta sus últimos hallazgos: la mayoría de los alimentos que consume vienen de lugares tan remotos que le resulta vergonzoso seguir comprándolos y decide cambiar radicalmente su vínculo con la alimentación, y además empezó a sentarse en otra silla de la mesa de la cocina porque desde allí ahora puede ver los árboles por la ventana. Quizás sean hechos nada fascinantes, pero a través de la mirada de Lydia Davis se resignifican y adquieren una belleza particular por la manera en que los articula a partir de un lenguaje tan despojado como perturbador. En este libro, Davis construye una colección de relatos breves en los que la cotidianidad se vuelve un mundo otro para observar y así aparecen desde registros de conversaciones matrimoniales fallidas, escenas de pequeñas alianzas temporales entre vecinos que comparten un ascensor, hasta cartas a instituciones a las que siempre hay algo para reclamarles, listas sorprendentes y sueños hilarantes. Esa gente que no conocemos confirma la potencia del estilo de Lydia Davis, una escritora brillante que se ha vuelto un referente ineludible de la literatura contemporánea.
328 pages, Paperback
First published October 5, 2023
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3146 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."
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October 4, 2023
Lydia Davis can fold entire lifetimes worth of meaning and nuance into a single sentence, making even a mundane moment into a momentous diving board into an ocean of ideas. While a few story in the writer and translator’s newest collection, Our Strangers, last several pages, the vast majority are confined to a single page and many contain only a few brief lines. Such is the case of ‘Late Afternoon’, which reads in its entirety ’How long the shadow is, / coming across the counter, / from this grain of salt.’ This succinctly captures the magic of these micro-fictions: a tiny grain of salt casting what appears to be, comparatively, a long shadow that stretches deep into our thoughts. She is amazing, and what is equally amazing is that Our Strangers is the flagship publication from Bookshop Editions who have a mission to only sell through indie bookstores and will uphold Davis’ pledge to not sell her books on Amazon. It is a new expansion from Bookshop.org, who offer the infrastructure for indie bookstores to have a digital storefront and deliver books anywhere by mail, an important aspect to be competitive with Amazon to ensure those with barriers such as mobility or lack of a nearby bookstore are accommodated. A charmingly quirky, humorous and rather ponderous collection of stories, Our Strangers yet again shows Lydia Davis is a master of her own game as an expert wordsmith.
Davis has incredible insight into how the slightest changes of words can open up whole avenues of thought, something likely perfected during her work as a translator (notably Swann's Way and Madame Bovary) as well as a writer. Perception plays a big part of this collection with many stories nudging how the interplay of words can affect that. A couple in one story are confused when, upon entering a restaurant on a Sunday, are told ‘the restaurant only serves breakfast on Sundays.’ Do they serve only breakfast that day or is it only on Sundays that they serve breakfast? Similarly, in a series of stories about a man’s deceased father, he questions ‘Do I have a father, or did I have a father?’ and how the words we choose shape how we think about a situation. This sort of thing is like catnip for me, I can’t get enough.
I’ve long loved Davis’ work, though sometimes I would wonder if the stories are particularly deep in miniature or if I’m choosing to see them this way differently than others because I’m going in with the Davis-expectations and do I give more space to explore the sentences because I expect them to unfold in ways I wouldn’t with other writers? Sort of how in one story here she questions if a lamp is actually ugly or if it is because the rest of the store is ugly it would be assumed the lamp is too. I thought about that a lot here and have concluded, yes, they do unfold in miraculous ways but so much of that is by the way she crafts everything to specifically entice you to investigate further. For starters, they are short so it doesn’t feel daunting but also the interplay of words and how they affect perception bait us into further analysis. Some stories, for example, are printed with short lines like a poetry format, inviting your mind to slow down and interpret it like a poem. Davis has such an excellent handle on phrasing and formatting that psychologically encourages the reader to look further without us even realizing it and it all feels so warm and inviting that readers' natural rhythm slows down to look at the sentence level the way you’d slowly walk through a field of flowers taking them all in. Beauty in the miniature.
Speaking of proximity, I was charmed by the series of stories all titled Claim to Fame that poke fun at the way we brag proximity to celebrities as if that makes us more noteworthy by proxy. ‘Karl Marx and my father both had daughters,’ she writes in the second one, ‘both daughters grew up to become translators. Both translated Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary’ (Marx’s daughter, Eleanor Marx translated numerous works by Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen and was a writer and social activist herself). I feel series stories work better for me in this one than the dream series in her previous book, Can’t and Won’t, and I enjoyed the thread of themes through this whole collection on subjects like marriage, aging, death and, fun enough: bugs.
I also really enjoy the effort to be competitive with Amazon and creating a press to do so. ‘We all have to have a stake in our community and an investment in our community,’ Davis says, ‘and I don’t feel that Amazon has a stake in anything except its own profit..and it made me furious that bookstores were being outsold or undercut by this bully, Amazon.’ This reminds me of the Indie Vault that Ingram has recently set up to ensure indie bookstores would have access to print runs that Amazon was previously purchasing in their entirety to ensure no other outlets would access to a new title for a month or so. Good luck to Davis and bookshop.org.
Our Strangers is a lovely little collection that brought all my love for Lydia Davis right back in full. A joy of a read and a true treat for those who love wordplay or appreciating a story on a molecular sentence level, Our Strangers reminds us that the concept of a “story” is rather pliable and so much more than just a plot.
4.5/5
Davis has incredible insight into how the slightest changes of words can open up whole avenues of thought, something likely perfected during her work as a translator (notably Swann's Way and Madame Bovary) as well as a writer. Perception plays a big part of this collection with many stories nudging how the interplay of words can affect that. A couple in one story are confused when, upon entering a restaurant on a Sunday, are told ‘the restaurant only serves breakfast on Sundays.’ Do they serve only breakfast that day or is it only on Sundays that they serve breakfast? Similarly, in a series of stories about a man’s deceased father, he questions ‘Do I have a father, or did I have a father?’ and how the words we choose shape how we think about a situation. This sort of thing is like catnip for me, I can’t get enough.
I’ve long loved Davis’ work, though sometimes I would wonder if the stories are particularly deep in miniature or if I’m choosing to see them this way differently than others because I’m going in with the Davis-expectations and do I give more space to explore the sentences because I expect them to unfold in ways I wouldn’t with other writers? Sort of how in one story here she questions if a lamp is actually ugly or if it is because the rest of the store is ugly it would be assumed the lamp is too. I thought about that a lot here and have concluded, yes, they do unfold in miraculous ways but so much of that is by the way she crafts everything to specifically entice you to investigate further. For starters, they are short so it doesn’t feel daunting but also the interplay of words and how they affect perception bait us into further analysis. Some stories, for example, are printed with short lines like a poetry format, inviting your mind to slow down and interpret it like a poem. Davis has such an excellent handle on phrasing and formatting that psychologically encourages the reader to look further without us even realizing it and it all feels so warm and inviting that readers' natural rhythm slows down to look at the sentence level the way you’d slowly walk through a field of flowers taking them all in. Beauty in the miniature.
Speaking of proximity, I was charmed by the series of stories all titled Claim to Fame that poke fun at the way we brag proximity to celebrities as if that makes us more noteworthy by proxy. ‘Karl Marx and my father both had daughters,’ she writes in the second one, ‘both daughters grew up to become translators. Both translated Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary’ (Marx’s daughter, Eleanor Marx translated numerous works by Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen and was a writer and social activist herself). I feel series stories work better for me in this one than the dream series in her previous book, Can’t and Won’t, and I enjoyed the thread of themes through this whole collection on subjects like marriage, aging, death and, fun enough: bugs.
I also really enjoy the effort to be competitive with Amazon and creating a press to do so. ‘We all have to have a stake in our community and an investment in our community,’ Davis says, ‘and I don’t feel that Amazon has a stake in anything except its own profit..and it made me furious that bookstores were being outsold or undercut by this bully, Amazon.’ This reminds me of the Indie Vault that Ingram has recently set up to ensure indie bookstores would have access to print runs that Amazon was previously purchasing in their entirety to ensure no other outlets would access to a new title for a month or so. Good luck to Davis and bookshop.org.
Our Strangers is a lovely little collection that brought all my love for Lydia Davis right back in full. A joy of a read and a true treat for those who love wordplay or appreciating a story on a molecular sentence level, Our Strangers reminds us that the concept of a “story” is rather pliable and so much more than just a plot.
4.5/5
October 2, 2023
A collection of short fiction by activist, translator, and award-winning writer Lydia Davis. There are well over a hundred entries here which may sound like a lot but Davis excels in pieces brief enough to qualify as flash fiction, often pithy or aphoristic, sometimes almost wilfully eccentric. Davis is fascinated by the out of the ordinary but equally by the overlooked and the everyday, moments that make up a life from conversations overheard in cafes or on trains to brief interactions between friends or lovers to seemingly random thoughts that speak volumes about relationships: one of the few, longer entries “Addie and the Chili” is a wonderful recreation of the kind of encounter that can suddenly end a friendship; while “On Sufferance” revolves around a funny, brilliantly absurdist conversation between a worldly cat and a clueless dog; and the title story “Our Strangers” is composed of a series of poignant reflections on community and interactions between neighbours. In many ways Davis is one of a kind, although her attention to detail, her agile use of language and striking perspectives on her world sometimes reminded me of writers like Mary Ruefle. Davis’s work can be enigmatic and elliptical but she’s equally adept at exposing deeper issues around parenting, aging and generally pondering the sheer weight of existence. There are a few stories that didn't work for me - not surprising in such an extensive collection - but these are mostly, memorably marvellous.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate for an ARC
Rating: 4 to 4.5
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Canongate for an ARC
Rating: 4 to 4.5
September 4, 2023
"[Mumble, mumble]."
"I can't hear you."
"Do you want to hear me?"
"No."
Lydia Davis is a genius! No-one else has this ability to skewer life in tiny pieces and to do it with such smartness, intelligence and wit. Whether we're inside the mind of a feuding dog and cat, watching a woman up at night, hearing a story of one of the shortest marriages in history, this is just brilliant in Davis' unique way. Some continuous threads are the 'marriage moments', train journeys and the absurdly hilarious 'Claim to Fame #'
Utterly compulsive, delightful, astringent - this would make a brilliant present for friends who haven't yet discovered Davis. I read this slowly on my commute and, not kidding, had a grin on my face almost constantly!
Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC via NetGalley
"I can't hear you."
"Do you want to hear me?"
"No."
Lydia Davis is a genius! No-one else has this ability to skewer life in tiny pieces and to do it with such smartness, intelligence and wit. Whether we're inside the mind of a feuding dog and cat, watching a woman up at night, hearing a story of one of the shortest marriages in history, this is just brilliant in Davis' unique way. Some continuous threads are the 'marriage moments', train journeys and the absurdly hilarious 'Claim to Fame #'
Utterly compulsive, delightful, astringent - this would make a brilliant present for friends who haven't yet discovered Davis. I read this slowly on my commute and, not kidding, had a grin on my face almost constantly!
Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC via NetGalley
July 25, 2024
The word for egg in Dutch is ei. In German it is Ei in Yiddish ey in Old English ey. The word for egg in Norwegian is egg in Icelandic it is egg in Faroese egg in Swedish ägg in Danish æg. In Old Norse the word is egg in Middle English egge. (In French it is oeuf.) (In Scots Gaelic it is ugh.)
Poetry or prose? Prose written with poetry in mind, perhaps? I don’t know, but I’d love some more (thank you for letting me read this one so soon). I don’t know if Lydia Davis is one of my favourites? Calling a writer one’s favourite almost means close to nothing (I feel) — but even if she’s a favourite of mine, I think she is even more than that. I didn’t used to read as much as I do now. That is to say I was never so ‘obsessed’ with ‘books’, but Davis’ stories were one of those things that got me properly started. When I first read these (new ones), I found it strange. And then it felt familiar; and what was ‘strange’ to me grew to become something that I can only call madly brilliant, and also brilliantly mad.
‘Her selfishness kept reappearing in so many different forms. She would recognize it in one form attack it think she knew her enemy. Then as she was occupied with struggling against it it would reappear in another form or rather she would recognize it in the form of something that had been so familiar to her so constantly there that she had never suspected that it too was a form of selfishness. Oh she would then say so that is also selfishness.
Was it like a cancer?—just like! Because as she was fighting it in one spot with all her weapons she would recognize it in another spot. And as she was fighting it in that spot she would see it in another. It was everywhere. But it was not like cancer after all because it had always been there. And she would probably not die of it.’
Reading Davis for the first time (many years ago) then as a reader who was so used to reading stories with very ‘strict’ structures (Chekhov, Maupassant for starters) was a little bizarre in the beginning. But when (excuse the horrible phrase) I finally warmed up to Davis’ ‘style’ that (I would argue) deliberately and (seemingly) effortlessly betray literary expectations, it changed the way I read/appreciate reading and writing. (I read from an interview that I can’t recall which/where) A writer I like (that I don’t remember which but probably Labatut or Fosse; probably the former (because I like him a lot more?) but don’t quote me on this!) said that ‘betrayal’ is one of the most interesting things to explore in writing (now that I think about it, maybe it’s Fosse? I wish I knew). But Betrayal is also a Harold Pinter play, so make of that what you will. I’ll probably never read that because ‘love triangles’ are so clichéd (and usually boring), and I probably won’t be moved by it.
‘—In any case I would rather suffer a slight discomfort than be complicit in the felling of old-growth trees in Canadian boreal forests merely in order to enjoy virgin toilet paper that is softer and tears more neatly.’
Davis is a bit of an ‘acquired taste’ (and I mean this in the most affectionate and weak-with-admiration kind of way). Years ago when I was reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (the one with the pastel-ey, peachy-pink cover) I would bring it everywhere. Literally everywhere. And I remember being a bit unsure reading it at first, and then I find it quite ‘addictive’, and then afterwards even when I’d finished the entire thing, I would go back to the pages that I’ve made notes/dog-eared, or even bookmarked with train tickets.
‘He had at one time spoken French fluently and took pleasure in conversing with the French. He was able also to read German, Latin and Greek. But as he read less and less and ceased to welcome foreign visitors into his house he began to forget these languages. And as he forgot them he also came to feel that to be so very well educated was the privilege of only a few not the many and he preferred to be one of the many or to see himself as one of the many—.’
I particularly like this ‘story’ below. I know I’ve said many times that I don’t like reading anything related to 'romance' (or more precisely, marketed as 'romance'), but what I truly meant is that I don’t like clichés or something that (for instance) feels like a Hallmark film. I am fascinated by that that are deliciously fucked up (in an absurdly satisfying way, not in a conventionally/predictably fucked up way) and at its core — probably not even about ‘romance’ (in a conventional sense), or if it’s about ‘romance’ or ‘love’ then it has to have complicated layers, and to be even more than that. One of the few films that I watched and properly enjoyed (enough) recently was Park Chan Wook’s ‘Decision to Leave’. I like it so much that if I were to watch it again, I think I would want to watch it alone. Also, it was ‘extra’ fun for me personally because I am able to ‘understand’ the multiple languages used in the film (if you watch it then you know what I mean; it’s like BJH fucked with the subtitles in ‘Okja’, but taken even further (but ironically despite ‘understanding’ those languages, I don’t even really ‘get’ the film (which is ‘poetic’ in its own way, or rather — in my own way), I just think it’s fucking beautiful). In the same sense, I also like how Davis used multiple languages in this collection. I love seeing literary translators (or even just a writer who lives and breathes in multiple languages) be so unapologetically themselves and to be carefully careless like that. Anyway I think Davis’ ‘story’ below conveys/carries a similar sentiment (to all that I’ve just said in this concluding paragraph).
Betrayal (Tired Version)
Sometimes in fact what I want most is to be left alone. Is this because I am so extremely tired? Then my fantasy of a relationship with another man, a man other than my husband simply involves being left alone. My lover who is sometimes faceless if I haven't yet decided who he is comes to my door and I tell him to leave. Go away. I do not even have to be polite. Leave. Then I can remain alone. I can rest. But of course it is an important part of the fantasy for him to want to be with me and come looking for me. I ask myself after all How can I dream of anything more active if I'm so very tired? When I am so tired I can't even manage a fantasy about having any company at all even sitting side by side on a sofa. So I say:
Sometimes in fact my dearest wish is to be left entirely alone. A lover will come to the door and I will turn him away. Go. I do not even have to be polite.
But because it still seems wrong to have in my fantasy a relationship with another man that is concealed from my husband even if the fantasy is about telling the lover to go away the fantasy itself still feels like a betrayal.
October 7, 2024
"As pessoas são como desconhecidos para mim. As pessoas que não conheço têm hábitos que em nada se parecem com os meus. (...) Estas pessoas não são como eu, nem sequer se parecem umas com as outras, embora as ache mais parecidas umas com as outras do que comigo, simplesmente por terem em comum o facto de todas serem como desconhecidos para mim." 💭
"Os nossos desconhecidos" é um livro de contos (estou muito forte nos contos este ano 🤓) e foi o primeiro livro que li de Lydia Davis.
Alguns contos têm apenas 2/3 frases, outros têm umas 8/9 páginas (acho que não há nenhum muito mais longo do que isto), por isso o meu conselho se forem ler este livro é que não o leiam como uma história, mas mais como observações da natureza e comportamento humanos.
Adoro este título e adoro a premissa do livro: conversas ouvidas por acaso, comentários murmurados, observações do dia-a-dia que acabam por virar literatura. Gosto desta forma de observação e consequente escrita, era algo que eu gostava de saber fazer também porque acho que é mesmo interessante. Reparar em pormenores que parecem não ter qualquer significado, mas que no fim de contas são o mais importante, já que formam o nosso dia, o nosso dia-a-dia, a nossa vida.
Algumas histórias fizeram-me pensar na importância de estarmos presentes no momento. Eu gosto muito de observar pessoas (é um dos meus passatempos favoritos, mas odeio sair de casa, por isso já vêem a mente complicada que sou 🤣), mas quando estou num local público, tenho sempre tendência a pegar num livro (ando sempre com um livro na mala) ou, pior ainda, no telemóvel e entrar assim num mundo paralelo. Gostava de me lembrar de fazer este exercício de observar as pessoas à minha volta e gostava, acima de tudo, de conseguir escrever sobre isso.
"Sei que isto não é lá muito fascinante, mas é a nossa vida." é uma frase dita num dos contos, e pode resumir muito bem o que é o livro. Não é nada de fascinante, mas são pormenores que compõem o nosso dia-a-dia.
"Os nossos desconhecidos" é um livro de contos (estou muito forte nos contos este ano 🤓) e foi o primeiro livro que li de Lydia Davis.
Alguns contos têm apenas 2/3 frases, outros têm umas 8/9 páginas (acho que não há nenhum muito mais longo do que isto), por isso o meu conselho se forem ler este livro é que não o leiam como uma história, mas mais como observações da natureza e comportamento humanos.
Adoro este título e adoro a premissa do livro: conversas ouvidas por acaso, comentários murmurados, observações do dia-a-dia que acabam por virar literatura. Gosto desta forma de observação e consequente escrita, era algo que eu gostava de saber fazer também porque acho que é mesmo interessante. Reparar em pormenores que parecem não ter qualquer significado, mas que no fim de contas são o mais importante, já que formam o nosso dia, o nosso dia-a-dia, a nossa vida.
Algumas histórias fizeram-me pensar na importância de estarmos presentes no momento. Eu gosto muito de observar pessoas (é um dos meus passatempos favoritos, mas odeio sair de casa, por isso já vêem a mente complicada que sou 🤣), mas quando estou num local público, tenho sempre tendência a pegar num livro (ando sempre com um livro na mala) ou, pior ainda, no telemóvel e entrar assim num mundo paralelo. Gostava de me lembrar de fazer este exercício de observar as pessoas à minha volta e gostava, acima de tudo, de conseguir escrever sobre isso.
"Sei que isto não é lá muito fascinante, mas é a nossa vida." é uma frase dita num dos contos, e pode resumir muito bem o que é o livro. Não é nada de fascinante, mas são pormenores que compõem o nosso dia-a-dia.
September 8, 2023
In one of the stories in Lydia Davis’s new collection, the narrator observes, resonantly for me:
I opened it and looked at the beginning and saw there was a “cast of characters” that went on for three pages! Right away I knew I’d never read that novel.
But no such issue with Davis’s own wonderful collection although you do get a contents list of the “very short and sometimes boldly absurd” stories that goes on for three pages - something like 150 stories in a book of 250 pages.
The quote in the preceding paragraph is actually Davis’s own words on Russell Edson, who she acknowledges as an influence and another story pays tribute to the Swiss writer Peter Bischel (who Davis has translated e.g. in The White Review) and again in words that also apply to her own work;
He then goes on to tell a lovely, quiet, modest story, a story that glows with human kindness, or love, or some combination of compassion, understanding, and honesty.
This final comparison is mine but I am always reminded of The Far Side cartoon by Davis’s rooted, compassionate but often offbeat work.
One of my favourites was the following, one of a number of odd Marriage Moments of Annoyance, and which reminds me why the insurer for whom I’m an executive ensure our literature and website receives the Plain English campaign’s crystal mark for clarity:
Marriage Moment of Annoyance—Insurance
She was trying to explain something to him. What she said was confusing, contradictory, and a little incoherent.
“You’re like that insurance document!” he said to her.
Another is a running series of rather obscure claims to fame, and which reminds the reader that Davis is an equally accomplished translator as author:
Claim to Fame #2: Karl Marx and My Father
Karl Marx and my father both had daughters. Both daughters grew up to become translators. Both translated Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary!
And The Investigation, which hints at how dream (or fever) logic is perhaps more logical than it seems:
My fever grew worse, and I was unable to continue my investigation. But I was sure I had reached some understanding of time and history. Yet when I later read the notes I had made, I found them incoherent, marred by gaps and inconsistencies. What had seemed a revelation to me then, now seemed either obvious or not true. I was sure I had learned a few things and gained some understanding, but I was not sure if the investigation had been worthwhile. On the other hand, it was also possible that I had learned something valuable in my fever that I was not yet prepared to face in the full clarity of my recovered health.
Another wonderful feature is that, at Davis's request, Our Strangers is available for sale only at physical bookshops, Bookshop.org, and selected online independent retailers.
So why not 5 stars? Well, rather like the Far Side cartoons, some stories work and some don't (at least for this reader) and, perhaps more significantly, while there are connections, running themes and stories that comment on other stories, I think they would work better consumed syndicated cartoon, or advent calendar, style i.e. one or two a day, rather than read, as I did, back to back.
But nevertheless a wonderful change from novels with lengthy casts of characters and too many hundreds of pages.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
I opened it and looked at the beginning and saw there was a “cast of characters” that went on for three pages! Right away I knew I’d never read that novel.
But no such issue with Davis’s own wonderful collection although you do get a contents list of the “very short and sometimes boldly absurd” stories that goes on for three pages - something like 150 stories in a book of 250 pages.
The quote in the preceding paragraph is actually Davis’s own words on Russell Edson, who she acknowledges as an influence and another story pays tribute to the Swiss writer Peter Bischel (who Davis has translated e.g. in The White Review) and again in words that also apply to her own work;
He then goes on to tell a lovely, quiet, modest story, a story that glows with human kindness, or love, or some combination of compassion, understanding, and honesty.
This final comparison is mine but I am always reminded of The Far Side cartoon by Davis’s rooted, compassionate but often offbeat work.
One of my favourites was the following, one of a number of odd Marriage Moments of Annoyance, and which reminds me why the insurer for whom I’m an executive ensure our literature and website receives the Plain English campaign’s crystal mark for clarity:
Marriage Moment of Annoyance—Insurance
She was trying to explain something to him. What she said was confusing, contradictory, and a little incoherent.
“You’re like that insurance document!” he said to her.
Another is a running series of rather obscure claims to fame, and which reminds the reader that Davis is an equally accomplished translator as author:
Claim to Fame #2: Karl Marx and My Father
Karl Marx and my father both had daughters. Both daughters grew up to become translators. Both translated Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary!
And The Investigation, which hints at how dream (or fever) logic is perhaps more logical than it seems:
My fever grew worse, and I was unable to continue my investigation. But I was sure I had reached some understanding of time and history. Yet when I later read the notes I had made, I found them incoherent, marred by gaps and inconsistencies. What had seemed a revelation to me then, now seemed either obvious or not true. I was sure I had learned a few things and gained some understanding, but I was not sure if the investigation had been worthwhile. On the other hand, it was also possible that I had learned something valuable in my fever that I was not yet prepared to face in the full clarity of my recovered health.
Another wonderful feature is that, at Davis's request, Our Strangers is available for sale only at physical bookshops, Bookshop.org, and selected online independent retailers.
Davis is deeply concerned about monopolistic bookselling, and hopes this decision will both stand as a sign of her solidarity with independent booksellers and encourage further conversation about the vital importance of a diverse publishing ecosystem.
So why not 5 stars? Well, rather like the Far Side cartoons, some stories work and some don't (at least for this reader) and, perhaps more significantly, while there are connections, running themes and stories that comment on other stories, I think they would work better consumed syndicated cartoon, or advent calendar, style i.e. one or two a day, rather than read, as I did, back to back.
But nevertheless a wonderful change from novels with lengthy casts of characters and too many hundreds of pages.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
November 22, 2023
These stories that range from very short (a couple of sentences) to 5 pages or so, don’t read like stories more like crafted observations on human nature, relationships, behaviour, language, spelling and more. I found it really enjoyable to dip into and read a few at a time. They quickly got boring if I tried to read more of it at once. Clever and interesting in small doses for me.
October 17, 2023
It’s funny, if you asked me before I started ‘Our Strangers’, I would have quickly identified myself a fan of Lydia Davies, and I certainly rated the collection I read of hers previously pretty highly. However, as I begun reading this latest book of hers, and not hugely enjoying it, I realised I couldn’t really recall anything specific I had read of her before. I’m not too sure now if maybe I’m not as big a fan of Davies as I was when I was younger, or if I simply just wasn’t a big fan of ‘Our Strangers’ specifically.
I just think I didn’t gel with Davies’ vibe here. Too many of the stories were too inconsequential for me and didn’t elicit almost any reaction from me at all. I know a lot of people consider Davies the master of the small detail, and this is definitely what she hones in on here, but none of it struck me as particularly insightful, or unique, or interesting in this case. The most I found any of the stories I particularly liked were kind of fun, a little silly, a nice little idea, but nothing much more than that. Though again, none of them went much further than this and so the humour still didn’t quite strike me right as much as I’d have liked and unfortunately wasn’t to my taste more often than it was. Though I consistently felt like Davies was crafting and executing exactly as she intended, none of these stories broached higher territory for me and I found the majority of the stories to be unmemorable and kind of dull. Similarly, with some of the longer stories, while I appreciated what they were doing (and building with their length) were simply too tedious for me to enjoy and I found myself skipping pages towards the end. And I suppose herein lay the rub for me of the entire collection really, while on the majority of occasions I appreciated what Davies was trying to do and understood her vision, I just didn’t enjoy my time reading.
I don’t know, I’m in the minority again over here where I tend to find myself all too often. Part of me thinks this is not that strong a collection from Davies and the praise of it comes from people’s generally longstanding high opinion of Davies and her previous work. It may also simply be that I just personally didn’t connect with her stories here vs. in the last collection of hers I read. Either way, I was excited for this collection and so definitely disappointed when it didn’t go my way. I’ll definitely try and re-read her collected stories I enjoyed previously at some point soon, I’ll be really interested to see if I really did find this collection specifically weak, or if my literary tastes have simply changed over time. Either way, ‘Our Strangers’ is a definite file under: not for me.
I just think I didn’t gel with Davies’ vibe here. Too many of the stories were too inconsequential for me and didn’t elicit almost any reaction from me at all. I know a lot of people consider Davies the master of the small detail, and this is definitely what she hones in on here, but none of it struck me as particularly insightful, or unique, or interesting in this case. The most I found any of the stories I particularly liked were kind of fun, a little silly, a nice little idea, but nothing much more than that. Though again, none of them went much further than this and so the humour still didn’t quite strike me right as much as I’d have liked and unfortunately wasn’t to my taste more often than it was. Though I consistently felt like Davies was crafting and executing exactly as she intended, none of these stories broached higher territory for me and I found the majority of the stories to be unmemorable and kind of dull. Similarly, with some of the longer stories, while I appreciated what they were doing (and building with their length) were simply too tedious for me to enjoy and I found myself skipping pages towards the end. And I suppose herein lay the rub for me of the entire collection really, while on the majority of occasions I appreciated what Davies was trying to do and understood her vision, I just didn’t enjoy my time reading.
I don’t know, I’m in the minority again over here where I tend to find myself all too often. Part of me thinks this is not that strong a collection from Davies and the praise of it comes from people’s generally longstanding high opinion of Davies and her previous work. It may also simply be that I just personally didn’t connect with her stories here vs. in the last collection of hers I read. Either way, I was excited for this collection and so definitely disappointed when it didn’t go my way. I’ll definitely try and re-read her collected stories I enjoyed previously at some point soon, I’ll be really interested to see if I really did find this collection specifically weak, or if my literary tastes have simply changed over time. Either way, ‘Our Strangers’ is a definite file under: not for me.
September 21, 2023
quirky, fun, haunting, A PERFECT BOOK.
catch yours truly (me) reading the audiobook of this, out soon!
catch yours truly (me) reading the audiobook of this, out soon!
to-read-fiction
April 19, 2023Coming October 2023: "Only available at independent bookstores and libraries, by request of the author." Yeah!
January 2, 2024
Davis takes pleasure in words, in their sounds, connotations, histories, usages, and the way contexts shape their meanings and effects.
Her stories are as much about the symmetry and rhythm of her sentences and words, as they are about the comic nature of small daily moments, or the strangeness of life as distilled in one community, or single circumstance, interaction, or thought. She has a particular thing for misunderstandings, and quirks of personality.
Her deceptively simple prose is pristine, and it’s a joy to read. And because the stories are so short, I often read them out loud. My antennae is always up super high when I read her because I know every word is carefully, and specifically, chosen. I have this trust in her because I know how scrupulous and precise she is, how learned and interested she is in language, and her interest becomes my interest.
I love Lydia Davis because of her attitude, and the things she singles out as worthy of attention. Her stories are one of a kind, full of delicious irony and wit.
Her stories are as much about the symmetry and rhythm of her sentences and words, as they are about the comic nature of small daily moments, or the strangeness of life as distilled in one community, or single circumstance, interaction, or thought. She has a particular thing for misunderstandings, and quirks of personality.
Her deceptively simple prose is pristine, and it’s a joy to read. And because the stories are so short, I often read them out loud. My antennae is always up super high when I read her because I know every word is carefully, and specifically, chosen. I have this trust in her because I know how scrupulous and precise she is, how learned and interested she is in language, and her interest becomes my interest.
I love Lydia Davis because of her attitude, and the things she singles out as worthy of attention. Her stories are one of a kind, full of delicious irony and wit.
October 10, 2025
Representative of Lydia Davis’s extensive ouvre of short fictions. Writing about daily events that we sometimes daydream through or fail to notice, she takes the time to be both amused and startled by their very essences.
The entries vary in interest and engagement. Many of them are observations about her neighbors and friends or books and pets and plants as she makes her way through life as a literary figure.
The entries vary in interest and engagement. Many of them are observations about her neighbors and friends or books and pets and plants as she makes her way through life as a literary figure.
September 27, 2024
Todo lo que escriba Lydia Davis, lo voy a leer, subrayar y atesorar
June 28, 2025
Es la primera vez que leo a Lydia David, me llevo tiempo acostumbrarme a la brevedad de sus relatos, quizá por eso me tomó tanto tiempo terminar el libro, sentía que había que hacer descansos porque cada Micro historia contenía un universo propio, aunque fuera pocas palabras.
Me gustó el tono, el sarcasmo, la ironía que contenían muchos de ellos, me recordó por momentos a Lorrie Moore o a estructuras que ha usado Leila Guerriero.
Me gustó el tono, el sarcasmo, la ironía que contenían muchos de ellos, me recordó por momentos a Lorrie Moore o a estructuras que ha usado Leila Guerriero.
February 7, 2025
La diferencia entre un cuento y una anécdota es que el primero tiene inicio, desarrollo, clímax y cierre. Lo segundo es una fotografía que individualmente nos parece fascinante, y puede serlo, pero la construcción anecdótica se derrumba ante el más pequeño sismo.
Durante páginas me pregunté si yo era una lectora tonta, adicta al wow factor, pero caí en cuenta de que no todo es material a ser utilizado. Se desperdicia el formato y se reúnen historias febles en las que, mayormente, Lydia Davis se encumbra como famosa o relevante. Un mundo centrípeto agotador.
Prefiero un mundo centrífugo agitador.
Durante páginas me pregunté si yo era una lectora tonta, adicta al wow factor, pero caí en cuenta de que no todo es material a ser utilizado. Se desperdicia el formato y se reúnen historias febles en las que, mayormente, Lydia Davis se encumbra como famosa o relevante. Un mundo centrípeto agotador.
Prefiero un mundo centrífugo agitador.
December 11, 2023
You know how people on the internet says “I love XX author so much that I’d read their grocery list”? Well, I felt I just read 300-page worth of a grocery list. While some stories were quirky (children discovering the word Egg, and the quarrel between left hand and right hand), others felt pointless (a 30 page long list of what seemed like Craigslist postings without the awesome weirdness of the internet??).
December 28, 2023
As Davis gets older I sense the edge of her stories getting a bit bleaker, the joys a bit more difficult to capture… within these stories is a snug kind of isolation where the world feels a little too known… so Davis concentrates on keeping it ‘stranger’ as a means of surviving it.
November 4, 2023
Lydia is, probably more than any other artist, the greatest antidote to our attention deficit digital world.
March 17, 2024
Simply not for me. Some sparks of genius but most of it went over my head.
Want to read
October 6, 2023Short-shorts, mostly. A nice review: https://www.npr.org/2023/10/03/120016...
Excerpt:
"Lydia Davis is a sly miniaturist whose distinct blend of personal reflection, flash fiction, and poetic concision serve up little epiphanies in shot glass-sized portions."
Excerpt:
"Lydia Davis is a sly miniaturist whose distinct blend of personal reflection, flash fiction, and poetic concision serve up little epiphanies in shot glass-sized portions."
Read
May 4, 2025Okay, I know this is fiction. But it somehow doesn't feel like fiction - it feels like a mad diary, vignette after vignette. And as a result, I *feel* as though I know her.
It's wonderful. Mostly the short stories are SHORT - like less than a page. A few are longer, but the short ones are the best. Here's one:
Late Afternoon
How long the shadow is,
coming across the counter,
from this grain of salt.
It's wonderful. Mostly the short stories are SHORT - like less than a page. A few are longer, but the short ones are the best. Here's one:
Late Afternoon
How long the shadow is,
coming across the counter,
from this grain of salt.
Read
December 9, 2025I love the fact that this is only available in independent bookshops.
A miscellany of short pieces, some extremely short, and those were the ones I most enjoyed, fragments, observations, tokens. About people, strangers, spouses.
Will add some when I remember.
A miscellany of short pieces, some extremely short, and those were the ones I most enjoyed, fragments, observations, tokens. About people, strangers, spouses.
Will add some when I remember.
September 10, 2025
Of the hundreds of short stories I have read in this book, I can probably recall less than ten. Of those that I can recall, the number that I found funny, thought hit on an interesting idea, or elicited anything more than a shrug in me I can count on a single hand.
The implication from these short stories is that the author spends her life trying to mine and pull out a short story from every interaction/conversation/everything and anything that happens. It must be exhausting to be the author. It must be even more exhausting to be someone who knows the author.
A trite conversation with your husband does not warrant a story. Receiving an email from a friend with an idea for a short story does not warrant publishing the email itself as a story. The fact that your stepfather's fourth cousin's tennis coach's stepbrother was a z-list celeb does warrant writing up this fact as a short story. Just stop. Please.
I am left asking if any kind of quality filter was applied in choosing these stories, or have we been subjected to the author's every tedious musing?
I'm afraid that I am left with no choice but to conclude that the author is guilty of sniffing their own farts.
The implication from these short stories is that the author spends her life trying to mine and pull out a short story from every interaction/conversation/everything and anything that happens. It must be exhausting to be the author. It must be even more exhausting to be someone who knows the author.
A trite conversation with your husband does not warrant a story. Receiving an email from a friend with an idea for a short story does not warrant publishing the email itself as a story. The fact that your stepfather's fourth cousin's tennis coach's stepbrother was a z-list celeb does warrant writing up this fact as a short story. Just stop. Please.
I am left asking if any kind of quality filter was applied in choosing these stories, or have we been subjected to the author's every tedious musing?
I'm afraid that I am left with no choice but to conclude that the author is guilty of sniffing their own farts.
February 13, 2024
Lydia Davis captures the beauty of small things in life that could so easily be passed over. Her reflections,whether they are five lines of five pages are so extraordinary, so engaging that she has created their meaning. Dining in a restaurant, reading on a train. It’s all there and pulls you up as to why you’ve never noticed it. Such a find.
Read
May 26, 2024Collection of short stories is IDEAL for my attention span
Read
February 3, 2024You shouldn’t read Lydia Davis from the library — the return date puts too much pressure on the stories
October 6, 2024
I liked Lydia Davis' earlier work, but she's gone far too up her own ass here, as she had started to in Can't and Won't. She simply isn't as funny as she has been told she is. I like the format, but I'd prefer to read a writer that actually uses the format to its advantage. Dropped after 100 pages. Is it weird to be a little sour on Davis in general now? I see her earlier works as a stepping stone, remarkable for what they allow rather than their value in itself. This really is embarrassingly dull.
November 26, 2023
The chance to inhabit Lydia Davis’s psyche is a perpetual gift. In much the same vein as her typical short stories, many of these are especially “micro” and invite curious contemplation. Perhaps because of my location, I found her thinly veiled story about the aging Thomas Jefferson especially memorable.
January 2, 2024
For someone who likes short stories a lot, you’d probably love this! For someone who has found out she doesn’t, it was not for me. It got very boring to read story after story with little meaning I could take away and overall I just like narratives more. So sad, for me 2/5 ⭐️⭐️
December 21, 2023
All hail the queen of the micro-story. A major inspiration forever & always.
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