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Can't And Won't: Stories (2014)

by Lydia Davis(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0374118582 (ISBN13: 9780374118587)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: As she ages, Lydia Davis writes more and more like Lydia Davis, and though that makes "Can't and Won't" just a little bit less unpredictable than her previous collections, I doubt any of her fans (I definitely count myself as one, now) will mind. The short pieces are even shorter here (I'd say 75% of the collection is a page or less); the long pieces even less frequent than before (there are maybe four, tops, depending how much significance you give line breaks); the topics even more maddeningly minute. The weird fables of the previous collections are reprised here in the form of "Dreams"; the more life-like tales all seem to have been derived from the letters of Flaubert (who must count as a Davis influence AT LEAST as much as Kafka, if these translations correspond at ... moreall to their source material). Oh, and there are plenty of Letters to make you laugh hysterically. Altogether, it's utterly delightful stuff.
review 2: I suppose my biggest problem with this book is that I can't seem to get past seeing Davis' approach as a novelty. At her best, she is insightful, deft, surprising, but I'm wanting to experience that far more than continually noticing that there is one micro-story after another. It feels like eating hors d'oeuvres for the main course, which leaves me unsatisfied, even if some of them are delicious. less

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