READING...

I have been reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis It's like drinking a fine wine. There's a taste of Kafka, a hint of Richard Brautigan, definitely a flavor of Borges... Russell Edson lurking in there somewhere, too. And a couple of others I have not yet been able to identify. Not that Davis in any way derivative, that's not what I mean. It's a distinct pleasure to read her and make all these associations. Her stories are a fine blend of the absurd and the lyrical, the emotionally disturbing and the outright comic. Her "characters", such as they are, are defined sidewise, somehow, by their quirks and neuroses, by their insecurities and their never-quite satisfying relationships with other human beings like themselves. Mostly unnamed, they resonate with simple, difficult humanity. They are us.

Here's the thing: I'm discovering that if I try to read this book "as a book", that is, from cover to cover, it's like drinking too much of the delicious red stuff. It goes to the head and leaves me with a lingering hangover. What's frothy and funny and enlightening and sad can easily become heavy and depressing. So if you're curious and have not yet come across Lydia Davis, my advice is: read her. She's terrific. But do it in small doses. Keep the book by the bedside and check in once in a while, read a couple of her (often very short) short stories, and you'll smile. Read too many and you might need a double dose of aspirin.

(And by the way, thanks to Jean at Tasting Rhubarb for the recommendation...)