{"id":1564,"date":"2025-12-23T09:32:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/mountaindevil\/?p=1564"},"modified":"2025-12-23T09:34:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:34:51","slug":"cant-and-wont-lydia-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/?p=1564","title":{"rendered":"can’t and won’t – Lydia Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recommend: No<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lydia Davis writes in the form of ‘flash fiction’. There are more than 100 tiny little stories in the collection can’t and won’t.<\/em> Approximately 100, I didn’t actually count them.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some stories are as small as one sentence. Declan particularly liked Bloomington<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have to agree, many of the tiniest of the chapters held a curious appeal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are some chapters that are repeated in theme. Many have the subtitle dream<\/em>. Separately, there’s more than ten chapters labelled story from Flaubert<\/em>. These are literal categorisations. Davis is taking her inspiration from dreams (her own, and her friends) and Flaubert’s diaries, respectively. These fell flat and dragged down the average quality of Davis’ stories. If you’ve ever had your partner explain how he was running from zombies and then flying a plane and then fighting in a war and then crashing your RAV4, all in the space of one dream, you’ll probably agree the recounting of dreams rarely gets the pacing right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some stories are more interestingly experimental. The Cows<\/em> went too long (incredible that can be the case when there are 100+ stories crammed into less than 300 pages) but was really very successful. In plodding, methodically spaced out paragraphs Davis recreates the unassuming peacefulness a trio of cows in a neighbouring field. The evenly paced repetition of phrases and imagery as seasons unfold slows the story down, making us feel as though there is little else in the world other than grass, air and sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other stories that are equally as creative that do not land. The Language of Things in the House<\/em> is a painfully drawn out series of associations of words with household objects. This goes on for seven pages..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My favourite stories in this collection were the realist accounts. Eating Fish Alone<\/em> sees Davis order a plate of fish at a country restaurant. It is so beautiful and poignant and relatable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I thought of the waste, and the care with which the chef prepared, over and over again, the vegetables that no one ate. At least I had eaten his vegetables, and he would know that I had liked them. But I was sorry I had not eaten all of his marlin. I could have done that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There’s some excellent writing in can’t and won’t<\/em>. Davis has a brilliant voice. She is clear with her imagery, her dialogue is controlled and stories usually sustain a wonderfully complete tone throughout their duration. There’s just sadly too much filler in the collection to recommend it. Many of the stories are so carefully ridded of any excess that it is surprising some of the crap she leaves in (see: dreams<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This critique of mine reminds me of one of her shortest stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are other things I should be doing instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews_books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1564"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountaindevil.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}