3.5
Break It Down
ByPublisher Description
The thirty-four stories in this seminal collection powerfully display what have become Lydia Davis's trademarks—dexterity, brevity, understatement, and surprise.
Although the certainty of her prose suggests a world of almost clinical reason and clarity, her characters show us that life, thought, and language are full of disorder.
is Davis at her best. In the words of Jonathan Franzen, she is "a magician of self-consciousness."
"Davis is one of the most precise and economical writers we have." —Dave Eggers,
"An American virtuoso of the short story form." —
"The best prose stylist in America." —Rick Moody
"[Davis has] a capacity to make language unleash entire states of existence." —Siddhartha Deb,
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3.5
gregisdead121
Created 9 months agoShare
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“Whether it be falling in love or sinking into despair, the characters of Lydia Davis's renowned short stories are on the brink of all encompassing emotions that keep them rooted in their discovery. Attempting, at most times without hope, to break it down and be free of life's bedeviled verisimilitudes.
Her particular style varies in potency but is rightfully revered for the moments in which her short stories take their time with the reader. In these instances where her short stories are given room to stretch she becomes powerful, approaching the human conditions from angles that demystify it. Stripped of their defenses, her subjects are vulnerable live wires that crackle and spark uncomfortable discussions with oneself. It would on the 10th page and second short story, I would witness a shameful truth about my own relationship with paranoia: I am always afraid. Of the future , the present, failure and loss. But not in the natural muted way in which is expected of all of us born human, but as this ever present anxiety that suggests a twig breaking could be someone trying to hurt me again. That a friends silence a restrained contempt and a helpful stranger is a knife held behind ones back. The gift of fear remains the most recognizable present in my stocking.
This is the power of Lydia Davis, given you words in which to find yourself. You cannot hide from the self loathing of ''the housemaid'' which reeks of raucous rage piqued by a poisonous self regard. It finds you chopping onions realizing suddenly the tears in your eyes aren't a biological reaction propanethial S-oxide but the way you talk to your self returning not as an echo but a screamed reprimand. Read the brilliant ''The Mouse'' and try to not feel the injury of the mouse ,surviving its violent trap only to bleed out slowly in the snow, as your own in the corollary grief of abrupt ends to important relationships.
Even if you read this in a crowded room bustling conversation and persistent noise pollution you'd feel as if you're at the bottom of marianas trench just due to the sheer poignancy of the loneliness evoked within these 177 pages. It absorbs all sound like a distressing sensory deprivation tank.
That is ''Break It Down'' at its best, revelatory. But it has more than its fair share of toughs. Low points that disrupt the momentum of otherwise compelling tales. Often these disappointments would arrive in the form of humor that fails to translate or short paragraphs that are too brief to hold any water. Such as the randomness of ''what she knew'' that never goes anywhere. ''Mildred and the Oboe'' off-putting vulgarity befuddles rather than amuse(which you can painfully tell it is trying to do). Or ''Brother in laws'' emptiness that feels lacking rather emotionally hollow. Unfortunately ,due to the fact it is a collection, it holds more of these types of vignettes which underwhelm at a greater volume then the brilliant pieces I previously lauded. Meaning my overall experience was lesser than the sum of its.
Sorry Isaac, didn't want to give another one of my best friends 4+ stars a low rating(especially after desecrating Adams holy canon- ''A Little Life'')but anything higher than a 3 feels false from my reading, yes it could move and shock but more often than not it would pass over me with nothing gained.
break it down by Lydia Davis essays ranking:
1. Story : 5/5
2. The Fears of Mrs. Orlando:4.5/5
3.Liminal: The Little Man: 3/5
4.Break It Down:3.5/5
5.Mr. Burdoff’s Visit to Germany:3.5/5
6.What She Knew:????????/5
7.The Fish:3.5/5
8.Mildred and the Oboe:9-1-1/5
9.The Mouse:5/5
10.The Letter: 3/5
11.Extracts from a Life:3/5
12.The House Plans:3/5
13.The Brother-in-Law:2.5/5
14.How W. H. Auden Spends the Night in a Friend’s House:3/5
15.Mothers:3/5
16.In a House Besieged:2/5
17.Visit to Her Husband:3/5
18.Cockroaches in Autumn:2/5
19.The Bone:3/5
20.A Few Things Wrong with Me:3.5/5
21.Sketches for a Life of Wassily: 3.5/5
22.City Employment:2/5
23.Two Sisters:3.5/5
24.The Mother:3/5
25.Therapy:3.5/5
26.French Lesson I: Le Meurthe:5/5
27.Once a Very Stupid Man:3.5/5
28.The Housemaid:3/5
29.The Cottages:3/5
30.Safe Love: 2/5
31.Problem:2/5
32.What an Old Woman Will Wear:3/5
33.The Sock:4.5/5
34.Five Signs of Disturbance:3/5”
stevies-readies
Created 10 months agoShare
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“The debut collection of stories from one of the greats shows a keen, striking, and often uncomfortable confrontation of humankind. The nameless protagonists across the 33 stories of Break It Down do just that; we get women navigating the possibilities of an insecure relationship ("Story"), a narrator considering the best options for their house ("The House Plans"), a man trying to little avail to better himself ("Sketches for a life of Wassilly"), and even an algebraic breakdown of a dysfunctional family situation ("Problem").
Davis' later style of flash fiction, which takes the style to the extreme (e.g. Our Strangers), several of these stories are on the longer side, but the subjects of these stories are treated with her singularly microscope-close eye for detail. Looming over the entire collection is a strange ominous hum, and this is felt especially at the conclusion of the final story, as if to say, no matter how much you might brak a problem down, you're still at square one, even more lost than when you started.
(Read as part of The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis)”
Ethan BtB
Created about 1 year agoShare
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“My introduction to Lydia Davis was remarkable. Her prose is exacting, if occasionally too academic in some stories. (The ones with inside jokes to writers I haven’t read were weaker as far as I’m concerned.) But I absolutely LOVED 97% of this collection. What it lacks in dialogue it makes up for in voice and inferiority.”Aidan Beck
Created over 1 year agoShare
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