Lydia Davis’s Latest Collection: A Masterful Blend of Prose and Poetry
Renowned author Lydia Davis has released her latest collection of stories, showcasing her eminent talent for seamlessly blending prose and poetry. With 144 stories packed into just 368 pages, this collection is a testament to Davis’s exceptional literary skill.
One story in particular, found halfway through the collection, explores the dynamics between a woman and her husband when she shares her work with him. Unfortunately, he criticizes her story, claiming it lacks a beginning, an end, and a plot. This critique raises the question of whether the woman writing the story is, in fact, Davis herself or if she is merely writing about someone else. Davis’s ability to create a distinct voice for each character makes it challenging to discern where fiction ends and her own experiences begin.
Davis’s stories often adopt unconventional forms, resembling poems, lists, or solitary sentences. She refers to them as intergeneric, characterized not only by their themes but also by the formal choices she makes. Those familiar with Davis’s work will recognize the distinct grooves she has settled into over the past five decades. While once experimental, her writing has now become comfortably familiar but still maintains a unique charm.
The collection features recurring motifs, such as letters of complaint, which Davis previously explored in her 2001 collection Samuel Johnson Is Indignant. Additionally, dreams, subtle domestic conflicts, and email spam transformed into poetic prose are interspersed throughout. Davis’s keen observations captivate readers, whether she describes the intricate layers of a hornets’ nest resembling delicate pastry or employs wry humor in verses like he is up there on his ladder, / with greatest care ruining / the oldest house in town. Furthermore, her overheard conversations strike a delicate balance between whimsy and profundity, leaning more towards the whimsical side.
Some of Davis’s stories delve into metanarratives, providing explanations for choices made in previous tales. For example, Our Strangers is followed by Commentary on Interesting Personal Vegetables, and Conversation at Noisy Party on Snowy Winter Afternoon appears in both an original and edited version. Following these narrative threads may require careful unraveling, as references to previous stories are subtly interwoven. For instance, An Explanation Concerning the Rug Story prompted me to search for the rug story itself, which I had apparently forgotten reading. It turns out the rug story can be found in Davis’s earlier collection, Can’t and Won’t, published nearly a decade ago. This clever nuance rewards readers with a long memory or an obsessive attention to detail.
While reading Our Strangers, one cannot help but feel a sense of returning to a beloved vacation spot only to find that its allure has diminished. A compelling point of comparison lies in Davis’s letters of complaint. In previous collections, these letters transformed the mundane into something strange and captivating, such as a dispute over the word cremains in Letter to a Funeral Parlour. However, in the two new letters presented in this collection, these transformations do not occur. As seasoned Davis readers, we eagerly await the language to carry us away into the whimsical and profound but are left yearning for that spark.
Nevertheless, there are stories within this collection that undoubtedly rank among Davis’s finest work. These narratives focus primarily on aging and death, lending a poignant depth to the pages. One narrator confesses, I cannot get used to the disappearance of my mother, or of my father, either, while a poet reflects on the existence of a father who has passed away, questioning, Do I have a father, or did I have a father? By circling these themes with haunting simplicity, Davis’s Father Enters the Water evokes both the memories of a deceased parent and their enduring, absent presence. Old Men Around Town tenderly portrays the narrator’s ailing and departed community members, juxtaposed with descriptions of deaths that occurred two centuries ago. The portrayal of George Weekes, buried in the snow, brought to mind the imagery of Robert Walser, another writer known for his brevity in storytelling, lying dead in a snow-covered field.
Winter takes center stage throughout the collection, defining one of its most exquisite stories. Winter Afternoon paints a tranquil picture of a living room occupied by a couple, two cats, and an atmosphere of profound serenity. As the cat, man, and second cat gradually succumb to sleep, the woman beside them places her pen, notebook, and magazine on the sofa, her head tilting forward in peaceful repose. The only sound is the heating unit in the kitchen, gently infusing warmth into the house. This vignette of tranquil, momentary death serves as a perfect miniature without the need for a beginning, an end, or a plot.
To embrace Lydia Davis’s latest collection, Our Strangers, is to immerse oneself in a masterful blend of prose and poetry. This compilation revels in the author’s linguistic prowess and her ability to create intimate narratives that resonate deeply with readers.
