Almost No Memory

Rating:
Summary: the surprising weight of a simple act
Review: After having stumbled upon Lydia Davis three years ago, I read every one of her books, and fell quite in love with them. I proceed, as though I am reading a list. Every detail is a full bite. There are no flowers; it is not sentimental. Her prose is simple and clear. When I am finished, there is such incredible meaning that I am surprised by what I have found, and how easy it was to get there. That is a true pleasure.

This short story collection is my favorite of them all. It includes "The Mice" and "The Professor," two of her absolute best. Lydia Davis is a master of the everyday. She places her finger on the spot where our actions speak of our emotions, and reading her creates such a resonation, gives such weight to the simplest act, because when I read it, I know it. I recognize the act, and the paranoia, or the hurt, or the confused love that is behind it. I know the subtle emotions that are drawn on the line of the moment. She writes as though she knows the excuses we make, the way we cover our weaknesses.

Some people find her short forms troubling. But I find them very comforting. That she can bring an idea to completion in a few sentences is incredible to me. There is a weight in each of them, and they feel to be very carefully considered and broad, rather than accidental and finite.

These are brave and unusual stories. I find it easier to approach her with suspicion, to question whether in fact, she is writing about a mouse, or a house, or a fish in a tank. She is brilliant and, all at once, like everyone and no one I know.

Rating:
Summary: Goodnes Gracious!
Review: All of the stories in this book have an awe inspiring precision and simplicity that hides some of the real work that I'm sure went into these pieces. Check out End of The Story if you want to see her talents put into the novel form...a sadly under appreciated book if ever there was one...I think Lydia Davis is one of the best contemporary writers and translators in the U.S. I can't wait to read her translation of Proust which is due out in the next year or so...

Rating:
Summary: A terrific, giant leap up from "Break it Down"
Review: Far superior to "Break it Down." The stories are clearer, more enjoyable, the lengths are perfect, the language is wonderful. Read "break it down" as well -- to see how dramatically better "Memory" is.

Rating:
Summary: critics may praise, but....
Review: I have heard such good things about Lydia's short stories that I almost feel the need to apologize for writing this, as it seems that I am the dissenting voice.
Plain and simply, I could not get into this book. After each story I expected the next to get better, I looked for a saving grace, but I found none. Her voice is a departure away from the usual and that is refreshing, but I could'nt get over the feeling that anyone might sit down and write something much like this. There are some books I have not enjoyed at first reading, only to go back to them at another time, in another mood and found that my feelings had changed. I am sorry to say this was the case with Almost No Memory. I even found it difficult to finish, but I wanted to give this book the benefit of the doubt, a last chance to redeem itself.
I would not say it was a waste of time, but I can say that it was worth my time , either.

Rating:
Summary: Rheotoric and Irony
Review: Lydia Davis' Almost No Memory is a collection of stories which deal with irony. Davis' ability to explore and realize the ultimate irony of postmodern living is amazing; "Go Away" and "Trying to Learn" investigate this contradiction of the postmodern self by looking at the irony of love/hate relationships. This book is a must have for all postmodernists!

Rating:
Summary: The Best Short Story Writer of the 90's
Review: Since the short story renaissance of the late 1970's and early 80's, Lydia Davis and Mary Robison are my favorite short story writers (along with Mary Robison). Almost No Memory is her best collection. After I read it, I went back and read Break It Down, and found that disapointing. It was a worthwhile read, but Almost No Memory is the one to get. The story, "The Professor" is brilliant. It has a way of sticking in your mind, I think because it combines stark angularity with unexpected lyricism. And funny - I love the quip about the porfessor sharpening pencils and asking everyone to be quiet. "Glenn Gould" "Foucault and Pencil" "Mr. Knockly" and "The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall" are also great. Paul Auster marries great short story writers. Siri Hustvedt's Iris stories in The Blindfold are also worth checking out. They are less experimental, but you can see the influence of Kafka (and also Jean Rhys, I think). With Davis I suspect that Beckett is very important. This book, and her novel, The End of the Story, are the Davis books you should pick up first.

Rating:
Summary: A Master of the Short Short
Review: This collection of 51 short stories, little fictions, and prose poems by Lydia Davis intrigues and rewards. The pieces come in every length. There's the 46-word "Odd Behavior," and at the center of the book, Davis gives us a forty page story, "Lord Royston's Tour," an extraordinary period travelog, written perfectly in the syntax and idioms of early nineteenth century Britain: "...a good deal tossed and beaten about off the Skaw, before sailing up the river." We learn in after-credits that the tale was adapted from a memoir Davis found, written in 1838.
She employs many styles, tones, and voices. The pieces come variously comic, peculiar, tragic, surreal, mysterious, whimsical, quirky, lyrical, cerebral, and earthy. Some are faintly Kafakaesque, Borgesian, Beckett-echoing, and most have plenty of Davis's originality. Some are very ambitious, others narrow in intent. Each defines its own terms as a fiction. If the reader finds one piece less than compelling, he eagerly continues, if only to see what she will come up with next. And is soon again enthralled. There are meta-fictions, such as "The Center of the Story," and a number of the pieces seem to be written for an audience of writers and sophisticated readers. Other pieces aim more broadly.
In "This Condition" the narrator conveys a state of generalized erotic feeling. It's lovely, sexy writing, a prose poem, with no single object of desire-- sexuality finding its echo in the universe of animals, minerals, vegetables; ideas, maps, texts. A sort of erotica for the lover of life.
In "The Professor," Davis's narrator, teaching English out West, reveals a fantasy of marrying a cowboy.
"...I started listening to country Western music on the car radio, though I knew it wasn't written for me."
She fastens on someone in her class who, though he'll have to do, doesn't quite fill the cowboy bill:
"The facts weren't right. He didn't work as a cowboy but at some kind of job where he glued the bones of chimpanzees together. He played jazz trombone..."
They have one odd date together, but nothing comes of it, and now years later, our professor, married and living back East, still finds herself subject to the cowboy daydream. Davis ends on a delightful goofy/comic note:
"I'm so used to the companionship of my husband by now that if I were to marry a cowboy I would want to take him with me, though he would object strongly to any move in the direction of the West, which he dislikes...."
"It would end, or begin, with my husband and me standing awkwardly there in front of the ranch house, waiting while the cowboy prepared our rooms."

This collection exemplifies the wild and wonderful possibilities in very short fiction where the only real rule is: Make it good. Davis knows how.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting collection
Review: This is an interesting collection of short-short stories. Many are little more than vignettes and sketches, but they all seek to make the reader think about something. A truly unusual writer. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: I feel very lucky to have discovered Lydia Davis.
Review: This will sound snobbish, but there's no avoiding it: Lydia Davis' work is not for everybody, because most people aren't bright enough, complicated enough maybe, to understand her humor. But for those who can, this is the stuff. To name just one, "Lord Royston's Tour" is the funniest and best story in the English language. I made a fool of myself giggling at it in a laundromat. . .

Rating:
Summary: Some stories resonate, others don't
Review: While Lydia Davis can crystallize so much in a short short, her metafictional style begins to cloy. It may be the first person point of view, or the use of present tense, or the constant references to what the character is writing at that moment, but so many of these stories sound like they flow from the author's journal, rather than from a planned fictional arc. Frequently they are mere moments, rather than stories in which something happens, and leave this reader--who picked up the book looking for something more daring--longing for the traditional. Overall, this was disappointing.