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De Taal Van Dingen In Huis (2014)

by Lydia Davis(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

9025442307 (ISBN13: 9789025442309)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Atlas Contact

review 1: I am a big fan of Lydia Davis: she is precise, sharply observant and often very wryly funny, able to accomplish a lot in very few words in ER stories and poems. I loved Collected Stories and Varieties of Disturbance, both of which were revelatory for me. So I'm not sure why I didn't warm to this collection as much as her other books. There are some knockouts here -- the one about waiting for takeoff, for example, grapples with mortality and vulnerability while observing the absurdity of ordinary modern situations, and I loved many of the stories on dreams. But I think Lydia Davis beginners would be better off starting elsewhere. I'm willing to give this a re-read in a few months, but I do feel a little disappointed.
review 2: Simply put, the writing is just not... more good, and the pieces individually and collectively are dull, bland, and without taste. This book is like a burnt biscuit for me. No amount of jam sweetened it up; in fact the more fluff, the more I felt burned. Obviously, I really hated this book. I found it wordy and tiresome. I rarely say I hate a book. However, I read A LOT so it has to happen sometimes I guess. Being a pretty fast reader, I see no reason after I buy a book to not finish it- I kind of made this a rule for myself years ago. Meaning, I buy it- I must then finish it. Usually, I thank myself for this rule because I get something (albeit sometimes a very small something) affective (or affecting) out of it. This time, I'm not so happy about my rule. Even the shorter pieces lacked beauty and originality in my opinion. So, so, so many of the longer stories were either irrelevant or should have been small vignettes or a poem. I found myself picking out two or three sentences on several pages of the longer pieces that could have stood alone without the other paragraphs. And I do not even mind a little wordiness or stream of consciousness if it is at least intriguing, but this was not. The imagery fell flat over and over again, and the diction was pathetic. I found the beginning better than the end. I just became sad though as the book progressed because her voice was somewhat witty and fun in the beginning, and then it just got heavy, but without depth. Just like wordiness, I don't mind heavy. However, heavy, long, and over-written is a hard combination, and I would NOT recommend wasting your time reading this book. So there is my opinion of Can't and Won't. Take it or leave it, fellow Goodreaders. (Sad face and a wave.) less

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