Review: Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

 by Isabella Tarttelin

Over the Christmas holidays, I read books recommended to me by my subject advisor, including ‘The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis’, and ‘The Song Of the Earth’ by Jonathan Bate. All these books developed such an intellectual curiosity on the subject of literature and how it is presented, and the contrasting styles of writing brought the question of: is there a better form to literature? Do impressive metaphors and language succeed more in creating an impact and allow for powerful imagination, or does the more simplistic style provide more room for interpretation from the reader, giving analytical freedom, therefore resonating with the reader on a deeper level? But the book I will be focusing on is ‘The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis’ since I believe that her works provide evidence that there shouldn’t be boundaries and set forms of writing to succeed in creating impactful literature. 

While first flicking through ‘The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis’, I saw a range of works. When seeing the title said ‘stories’, you assume the typical novel: multiple chapters with lengthy description following characters and setting. Yet this was completely different. Her stories differed between 40 or more pages, to merely a few lines. As I began to read I approached the book with an open mind, since who was I to judge the quality of her writing simply because it didn’t fit my conventional idea of a story. Throughout reading each of her stories, I was fascinated by her writing style. She writes with simplicity, yet the lack of complexity makes way for deeper meanings. In some of stories she describes humans, unnamed and uncharacterised, going through emotion and life. The concept of life and emotion is so hard to explain, with the meaning of life being the most daunting question of all. There is no grandeur to life in her words, yet by doing this she captures moments that describe life perfectly. 

One of her stories that I had tabbed was ‘Extracts from a Life’. She describes snippets of a life of someone unnamed, and there is no inkling of age or growing older, just key moments in this person’s life. I love how she shows a growth of identity, this person exploring themself and learning. How they are affirming their ideas about things: ‘I cannot live without children’ ‘I vowed in my heart never to do such a foolish thing’. This person is learning and growing through life. At first it feels like an utterly ridiculous read: why is Einstein here? What is the setting, who is this person? Yet at the end this person is praised - ‘I was doing what I wanted to do.’ ‘Well done Shinichi!’. You feel confused - this? This deserves praise? They haven’t lived, they’ve barely done anything, this life has no order or result. No mention of achievements, degrees, job promotions. This is a simple, boring life, with no meaning or impact, so it raises the question of why - why has Lydia Davis included these quirky snippets of a life that has such a lack of grandeur? But what if life doesn’t have to have materialistic grandeur. There is a profound sense of innocence in this piece. This human is being led through life, learning, growing, and experiencing. Life doesn’t involve complications. Success of life, praise of life isn’t determined by materialistic qualities. The tone doesn’t change, the innocence and curiosity is kept throughout, implying that life should be lived with that constant inquisitiveness: questioning, feeling and exploring. This person didn't feel when they got a job promotion, they felt when they heard Mozart: ‘Filled with the joy of love, I gave up sadness’. They felt when they read Tolstoy’s Diary, and Einstein’s comment of ‘People are all the same.’. They should be praised. They have explored what life has to offer them, heard and read pieces of beautiful art, made mistakes and learned from them. The quality of a life should not be judged on money and career, but how we have grown from what life has to offer. The innocence behind the simplicity of her writing style emphasises a very important point in life: never lose that childlike innocence towards life, keep that curiosity and you will succeed. 

The simple language leaves a space open for the reader to interpret the story. Sometimes the matter-of-fact tone creates a sense of melancholic silence to the message being conveyed. An excellent example of this is the story called ‘The Mother’. It’s about a constant battle between a mother and daughter, with the daughter doing things such as making gifts to her father, or making a dollhouse, and the mother berating her on how she wishes she could do more. You feel pity for the daughter as you begin to read; the poor child not being able to do anything right or of help to her mother. Finally the daughter acts on her mother’s wishes after asking her daughter to dig a bigger hole: which she does, and sleeps in it. Yet the mother displays no sense of gratitude towards her daughter, but replies with ‘But how much better if you slept forever.’. Then the piece ends. There is a profound sense of silence, this hurtful comment is not discussed, nor is any emotional reaction from the daughter displayed. But the silence that Davis creates almost demands you to react to this piece of writing. It really stuck with me because of how simply Davis wrote this. A mother and daughter bond is meant to be strong, yet this one is malicious and cruel. This poor child, having her own mother imply that she would’ve preferred her dead. The neutral tone at which you read this emphasises silence, which also conveys the daughter’s reaction. It's so pitiful; Davis’ lack of address to the girl’s feelings suggests that nobody cares, she is left alone to suffer with her mother’s words. But it states before that the girl is sleeping whilst her mother says her bitter comment. Maybe the girl didn’t even hear her mother say this, which makes the story even more sad. Perhaps she slept in this bigger hole, happy that at last she had fulfilled her mother’s wishes and her mother might be grateful for her. Yet her mother is not, but because the daughter is asleep, the girl will never know. She will go on to do her duties to try and impress her mother, however it will be a fruitless effort. Her mother will never love her, but will only wish for her death and give her hatred. If we come out of this analysis and take a look at ‘The Mother’, it truly is a very simple piece of writing. Nine lines and around 108 words. Davis doesn’t use a lot of fancy language techniques, such as anaphoras or comparative juxtaposition. Nevertheless, we have taken so much analysis and emotion from it, and personally, left such an impression on me when I first read it. This piece alone proves the unlimited bounds to literature, and that length to works of writing does not stop to evoke debate and analysis on the picture she depicts.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone, since Lydia Davis’ style of writing is so very unique, making the reader release ‘intelligence, philosophy, hilarity’ as the critic Ali Smith writes. It gave me such an open mind, since at first I was sceptical, as her random storylines were different to when I read novels with set plots. But I loved how I was given freedom to analyse her words how I wanted. It wasn't laid out for me to discover, which is what I usually love about reading and analysing works: finding out all the hidden meanings the poets/authors had concealed. Due to her writing things almost ‘as they are’, (seen in ‘The Mother’ and ‘Extracts from a Life’: the story being written almost observational) I had to relate to her writing in my own way, find the emotion and significance myself, which I felt really refreshing, and created a stronger, more personal connection to her works. I loved reading this book; I felt it sparked philosophical debate and made me break down her words into a really insightful analysis.