The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Why to read fiction?
I want to read more fiction. Tyler Cowen recommends reading more fiction. Jemima Kelly wrote an article about my need to read more fiction. Even a respected VC investor recommends reading fiction. And I agree with their arguments. So yes, I want to read more fiction.
I used to read a lot of non-fiction. Judging by the books reviewed in previous ACX competitions, it seems I am not alone. Self-improvement or career books, for example. Functional reading for constant improvement or updating. But at some point it gets tiring. There are so many books that should be 30 pages long. A person does not have that many interesting new concepts to explain, especially if it is not their first book. Yes, 30-page books at 20 dollars do not sell well, but still. And so many stories. I am the first person to use stories to achieve my goals at work. Maybe that's why I get so tired of the same archetypes when I'm not working. I had my history phase too, but people become predictable after a while. Always the same human needs, especially with upper-class men.
Fiction, on the other hand, does not have to seem useful or describe a really real reality. Ideas and minds can be explored without the constraints of utility or signalling of empirical support. So there is unlimited space to explore interesting and nuanced ideas and reveal more fundamental truths. So, yes, I am now even more convinced that I have to read more fiction.
(Please do not take the previous two paragraphs as a dig at the other book reviews in this competition. These non-fiction books are fantastic. Or at least some of them, I hope. I guess I just broke my love by using it too much).
I could watch series or films instead. But this kind of fiction is even more functional than functional writing, just in a different way. Audiovisual is probably the format with the highest fixed costs. The higher the fixed costs, the more you need people to give you money. But those people want things like a positive return on their investment. Finding the greatest common divisor across the potential audience is the surest way to get that return. Hence the superhero movies and the Netflix style, all stretched or compressed into standard length formats. I am not against the need to be entertained and to have something to talk about with other people. Even I have that need sometimes. But you can guess that when I planned to read fiction (plan, as in to decide to commit to a project, even if it requires some initial hardship), it was not for that purpose.
Writing, however, requires only time and some basic hardware and software, both human and non-human. Of course, if a writer wants to make a living at it, they have to get good at it, and that is hard. And then they have to play the editorial game[1], and that is hard. But at least there is the possibility of creating something good with low initial fixed costs. So more opportunity for variance in content creation.
Oh, and now we have ChatGPT and Midjourney, with video and music equivalents coming soon. The cost of creating content will continue to fall. And the cost can even be zero if you persuade people on your social media platform to create it for you. The cheaper it is to create content that triggers our limbic system, the more we'll need to get our moments of respite from it. And writing is the highest ROI method of producing that respite.
So yes, I have made up my mind: I need to read more fiction.
But what to read?
With non-fiction, the choice is much easier. Why read a book on Python programming if you are a sales manager? Better read a book on social engineering. But fiction is not functional. Without clear goals, there are no clear paths. If you don't have very good recommendations, you have to do some trial and error. But 300 pages is a big investment, both for me and for the author. And the longer the investment, the lower the risk.
Short stories seem to be the best option. I can explore a writer's different styles, and if some stories fail on the first try, I can move on to others. I can always go back to the failures and understand better what they were trying to do. Also, if one story needs to be one page, let it be one page. If another story needs to be ten pages, let it be ten pages. Then, story by story, the book can reach the required minimum number of pages without stretching.
So, I decided to try Lydia Davis. Why? She writes flash fiction, which sounds even faster than short fiction. I liked her interview with Tyler Cowen. Previous experiments with poetic and postmodern writers have not adapted well to my level of English and my after-work brain capacity. But she seems to have a more direct style, with fewer words per sentence and fewer sentences per story. So I chose her Collected Stories. Why did I do that? Because it was the highest rated option on Goodreads. (That was unfair: compilations of anything are always rated higher than the individual items in them).
I did not regret it.
Why read Lydia Davis?
She is creative but without cheap tricks. Everything about the postmodern debate has been said by David Foster Wallace and many others over the last few decades. It has been useful, it can still be interesting in the right doses and at the right moments, but it is mostly a defensive and/or signalling move.
In contrast, the (apparent) simplicity of her writing is a breath of fresh air. The writing just flows. It even flows too well: at times it was too easy to miss the depth behind her choice of words. Depending on my focus, I could have read stories like the one below by following the lines with my eyes without really reading:
“In a house besieged lived a man and a woman. From where they cowered in the kitchen the man and woman heard small explosions. “The wind,” said the woman. “Hunters,” said the man. “The rain,” said the woman. “The army,” said the man. The woman wanted to go home, but she was already home, there in the middle of the country in a house besieged.”
And then thinking. And then reading again. And then thinking again.
Even in her postmodern interpolations from diaries or bad biographies, you have to read for a while and pay attention before you realise that this must be some kind of experiment that you have to Google, not a stand-alone text. Only in Varieties of Disturbance, the latest book in the collection, are there more obvious linguistic experiments.
She is moral. Read together, many of the stories show the different ways in which we fail to be the people we would like to be. They seem to correlate roughly with the author's different stages: divorces, middle-age crises or the death of parents. At each stage she shows different ways of failing.
A common thread is the mismatch between worldviews (with others, with society's expectations) and some of our sub-optimal responses to them:
- We may create a flawed structure so that it fits better with our worldview. Example: the person who wants to read Foucault, but can't help focusing on the structure of the sentences rather than the ideas in Foucault and Pencil.
- We may attribute false reasons to others rather than accepting the limitations of our worldview. Example: the woman obsessed with fancy cooking, who prefers to think of any reason why her husband might not like her cooking other than the obvious one in Meat, my Husband.
- We may neglect other people's needs if it is hard to first understand them. Example: we might treat dogs, plants or books better than our own son because they are easier to interpret, with a few constant needs and clear limitations (The Old Dictionary).
Other ways of failing in the book include fantasising about an alternative, dumb reality, like the repressed woman who fetishes cowboys in The Professor. Or focusing too much on social structures, like the fear and miscommunication between classes (and between sub-classes of the same class) and the resentment towards those who leave their group in The House Behind. Or the desire to overprotect someone, even when we have been hurt for the same reason (or especially because of it) in Wife One in Country. Pick your favourites to feel reflected.
Some stories are just really good in their own right. Especially in Almost No Memory and Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, the quality of some stories needs no excuse to justify reading them.
A personal favourite is We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth Graders. This (very long by her standards) story shows a compilation of the letters sent to a classmate in hospital. But she doesn’t show the children's relationships, illusions and fears overtly, but as a syntactic and grammatical analysis. (It’s much more wonderful and funny than what my description suggests, really.)
But most of my favourite ones are the philosophical (over)analyses contained in some of the shortest stories, and the truths and doubts they reveal. Our flawed efforts to create effective and safe checklists of memories to consume as we age (Happy Memories). Our conflict with our past selves and our past thoughts, and the unreliable memories of our past thoughts (Almost No Memory). How our affinity with thinkers can take many forms, but always requires some kind of final agreement with the thinker (Affinity). The absurdity of reductive clichés such as “to travel is to write” (To Reiterate). Or our need to conform to social expectations (A Double Negative):
“At a certain point in her life, she realises it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.”
(I assume the risk that the author never wanted some of these over-analyses to be over-analysed in my wrong way, but in a different and correct way).
She was a stepping stone to many other great fiction. When you find something you like, you try to find similar authors or books. Like A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. Perhaps Lydia's foreword played too big a role in the algorithmic recommendation, but it was still successful. Another short story writer, more about her writing flow and her persona than about concepts. But her short bursts of phrase and ability to shock when you least expect it are also a kind of creativity. The title story or Mijito are personal highlights. Or The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. With her, it’s all about the sentences. Any sentence can make you laugh with her wit or break you:
But the body moves toward health. The mind, too, in steps. One step at a time. Ask a mother who has just lost a child, How many children do you have? "Four," she will say, "—three," and years later, "Three," she will say, "—four.
Tonight is a favor to Holly, The Harvest, or Offertory are some personal choices.
Why write reviews?
After reading the previous section, you may feel disappointed. And I don't blame you. I myself am not sure that I have anything new to say about the value of reading this book. What is the point of reviewing books that are not new? Their main ideas have probably already been expressed by many people with much greater domain expertise. You may want to write it anyway to express yourself, but that expression should be best kept private. Yes, you should have looked at reliable sources instead of a review by a hidden random person.
(Again, not a dig at the other contestants. I am sure their reviews are necessary.)
Which reliable sources? Not sure, there are so many. Let’s ask ChatGPT. It should be able to show the wisdom of the crowd. ChatGPT, which reviews should the reader read instead?
There are many reviews of "The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis" available online, and here are some recommendations of reputable magazines/newspapers:
- The New Yorker: The New Yorker is known for its in-depth and thought-provoking book reviews, and they have published multiple reviews of Lydia Davis's work over the years.
- The New York Times: The New York Times has a robust book review section that covers a wide range of genres and authors. They have also published several reviews of Davis's work, including her collected stories.
- The Guardian: The Guardian is a UK-based newspaper that features reviews of books from both established and emerging authors. They have also published a review of Davis's collected stories.
- The Paris Review: The Paris Review is a literary magazine that features reviews, interviews, and essays on contemporary literature. They have also published a review of Davis's collected stories.
- The Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles Times has a dedicated book review section that covers a range of genres and authors. They have published a review of Davis's collected stories as well.
These are just a few examples, but there are many other reputable magazines and newspapers that have reviewed Davis's collected stories. Reading a variety of reviews can help you get a better understanding of the book and whether it's right for you.
I particularly agree with the idea of reading a variety of reviews. In fact, with so many reviews online, ChatGPT can even write a competent summary of them. Boring? Yes. Generalist? Too. But a safe and useful option for anyone who has not read anything about the book or the author? I'd say so:
As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions, but I can provide you with a sample review for "The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis."
Lydia Davis's "The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis" is a stunning work of literary art that showcases the author's unique and distinctive style. Davis is a master of the short story form, and this collection of over 700 pages includes stories spanning more than three decades of her career.
What sets Davis apart from other writers is her ability to take the mundane and make it extraordinary. She has a talent for finding the beauty in the everyday and presenting it to the reader in a way that is both thought-provoking and moving.
The stories in this collection are often short and to the point, but they are never lacking in depth or complexity. Davis has a knack for using precise language to capture the essence of a moment, a feeling, or an experience.
Her stories explore a wide range of themes, from relationships and family dynamics to mortality and the human condition. Some of the stories are funny, while others are poignant or melancholy, but all are beautifully written and full of insight.
Overall, "The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis" is a must-read for anyone who appreciates the art of the short story. Davis's unique style and profound insights into human nature make this collection a true masterpiece of contemporary literature.
Why are you reading my review?
If you are still reading, I assume I have convinced Scott that there is something else in this review that makes it worthwhile. It could be the new context I bring to reading and writing books, the new ideas I bring, or my personal writing style. My book review may have failed in itself, but not in what I was trying to achieve with it (if I had failed in that too, the review would have been rejected and you wouldn't be reading this paragraph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)[2].
And this is what happens with most reviews. Most of the time, what makes a review worth reading is that it uses the book review as an excuse to convey a different view of the world. We're not looking for efficiency. We’re not looking for the wisdom of the crowd. We're looking for the exploration that comes from human complexity.
Funny how this exploration > efficiency could be the summary of the first section about why I want to read more fiction. AI efficiency will do competent rewrites of non-fiction, but not competent rewrites of fiction. And AI efficiency will do competent reviews that satisfy our needs safely, but will not be able to write, like me, odd things that I hope will bring a different perspective to different questions. Why read fiction? But what to read? Why read Lydia Davis? Why write reviews? Why read my review? And now...
…how to decide what to read next?
From the sentences above, you might think that I am trying to sell you human > AI vibes. But not, I am rather trying to sell you human + AI vibes. For example, English is my third language, so this text has been influenced by the recommendations of DeepL Write. I am giving up some of my personal style, whatever that is, to reduce the risk of this review being rejected. Life is about tradeoffs.
Enjoying human complexity can come thanks to AI efficiency. ChatGPT, what books should I read now that I have read Lucia Berlin, Lydia Davis and Amy Hempel?
If you enjoyed the works of Lucia Berlin, Lydia Davis, and Amy Hempel, here are some other books and authors you may want to check out:
"A Manual for Cleaning Women" by Lucia Berlin (if you haven't already read it)
"The Collected Stories of Grace Paley" by Grace Paley
"Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver
"Birds of America" by Lorrie Moore
"Runaway" by Alice Munro
"Black Box" by Jennifer Egan
"CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" by George Saunders
"Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"The Thing Around Your Neck" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
These authors all write in a similar vein as Berlin, Davis, and Hempel, with a focus on the short story form and a gift for capturing the complexities of human emotion and experience in a few short pages.
I can tell you that these recommendations are better than any available on Amazon or Goodreads, for example. For a start, they do not fall into the trap of recommending books by the same author or close collaborators. Also, the ability to add multiple authors/books, rather than just one, helps me to better define what I am looking for.
I chose "The Collected Stories of Grace Paley" and "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline". And in the second case in particular, I did not regret it. Now I wonder what my next options after Lydia Davis would have been if I had used ChatGPT then. They might even have been better. What I am sure of is that if I had asked for non-fiction recommendations based on my fiction preferences, the recommendations would have been worse.
Over the next few years, I'm going to have to weigh the right dose of AI efficiency against human complexity many times a day. When AI efficiency starts to be a cage rather than an enhancement. For example, when deciding whether to read new books. Or when deciding whether to write reviews of them.
Final "?"
Should this review have been disqualified from the contest? Many texts using GPT have already been disqualified from contests, but... would this type of review have been possible without GPT? What was your opinion before you read it? And after reading it?