This is the first time I've read anything by Lydia Davis so I confess I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I added it to my hold list after seeing the title on NPR's year-end book concierge for 2014.I enjoyed this collection of short stories, but I'm not sure I really "got" it. (I'm sorry, I hate when people say that, but here we are.) A lot of these stories were very short, 1-2 pages tops, and I enjoyed their brevity, especially the ones described as dreams and the translations/adaptations of Flaubert. This short form made the longer stories feel like they dragged, even when I was enjoying the story, like the one about the cows moving around the field and the one about visiting home for a funeral. Another aspect of having these stories be so short meant that I never felt like I understood their narrators as distinct; I found myself imagining the same person living out each of these dreams and stories to build a more relatable character. Davis could have sold these as nonfiction essays and I would have had no problem assuming they were all aspects of her personality. It was fun, and I do want to read more short-form and flash fiction, but I don't know that I'll seek out Davis again. Some wonderful pieces - "Men," among the shortest, and "The Snails," among the longest - but I didn't enjoy this one as much as Break It Down. Even as a writer who writes sometimes about writing and writers, I find writers in fiction to often be quite unlike real people. Davis, perhaps, is an exception, as half the time it seems the narrator is really her and not a created character, but on the other hand, many of the shorts didn't seem to go anywhere, but just to be little observations lacking the serious resonance she's capable of. The best stories in this collection show the author retaining her knack for tracing a character's thoughts through every microcosmic detail, every twist and turn - a route that often ends up so fraught as to produce a laugh - but for me it was hard to read about the burden of having won a major national grant, as in "The Letter to the Foundation," or about being denied a major prize, as in the title story... it seemed indulgent. Also, her stories translated from Flaubert's correspondence and her short accounts of dreams - the latter being a topic I'm actually interested in - fell repeatedly flat. But when Davis is good, she's incredible, and in "Writing" and two stories called "Revision" ("1" and "2"), she shows us that she does know what she's doing - the stories themselves are better craft lessons than most craft lessons. I read every flash piece in the book twice, maybe three times, but based on her best pieces, who knows? Maybe that still wasn't often enough.
What do You think about Yapamam Ve Yapmayacağım (2014)?
This is a very fine book, though it has not nearly enough Rocketships in it.
—auntjj
My favorite story collection in 2014 so far.
—Kirsty
