#407 The Two Davises and the Rug- Lydia Davis

#407 The Two Davises and the Rug- Lydia Davis

This collection by Davis, can’t and won’t, is a different kind of short fiction collection than any of the others so far. Most of the “stories” are simple, one phrase, one sentence, one paragraph pieces, some listed as dreams. I probably wont use many of them here, unless I find one or two that are exceptional. Perhaps, I’ll use a few in one post.

This piece isn’t one of the dreams, but it is rather short. Two Davises, a man and a woman live in the same town, one a man, and one a woman. They are not related and do not know each other, until one day the female Davis decides to sell her rug. It’s a bold colored rug from he son’s room. They both have the same feelings for the rug, they are strongly ambivalent. They like it, then aren’t sure. Being very strong opinioned people, it is odd that they can be so unsure of they feelings about something so trivial.

I started stressing out over the indecision myself.

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#406 Report from the Trenches- Lucia Perillo

#406 Report from the Trenches- Lucia Perillo

We all have our demons, and our bad decisions. Some of us are lucky to see a sign, or get some help that gets us past them.

Jimmy has cheated on her again, and she flips out. She breaks her good set of dishes and drives Jimmy away with a curtain rod. Jill comes in to help calm her down. "Don’t clean this up", she advises, "sometimes you have to wallow in it to remind you how bad it can get."

She doesn’t need to be reminded, she wants to hear about Jill’s bad decisions which sound so much more romantic and wild than just having a philandering husband. Maybe Jill’s bad decisions are just the sign she needs to get past her own.

Rating: 8-6-7-7 Total= 28

#405 Ordinary Sins- Kirsten Valdez Quade

#405 Ordinary Sins- Kirsten Valdez Quade

Crystal works in the parish office. She took the job to pay some bills, and never intended to stay long. But now she is single, and pregnant, and her needs run further than money.

Father Paul is a beloved Priest, seemingly perfect and without sin, minus the former addiction with alcohol. But being sober for the last twenty-eight years, even that seems like a virtue. The New priest assigned to the Parish, Father Leon is traditional, cold, and judgmental.

The sins of the past, and present haunt each one in this story. Where there seems to be the strongest support, may lay the largest weakness.

Notable Passage: “Impressive how efficiently her subconscious tallied, dismantled, and blended together her sins, molding them all into a tidy and disturbing little narrative as persistent and irksome as pine sap.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#404 The North London Book of the Dead- Will Self

#404 The North London Book of the Dead- Will Self

The first few pages feel like a sad, touching story about a son losing his mother to cancer, and perhaps that is what the whole story is, but then it takes a sharp left turn. It turns out that when you die in London you don’t really go anywhere.

“When you die, you move to another part of London.”

“The dead community are self-administering and there are dead people in most of the major enterprises, organizations and institutions. There are some autonomous services for dead people, but on the whole dead services operate alongside live ones. Most dead people have jobs, some work for live companies. Mother for example, was working for a live publishing company.”

Either a work of pure fantasy, or a man unwilling to let go of a loved one. Either way, this is a pretty typical style and quirkiness of Will Self.

Word of the Day: Eschatology- a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind

Rating: 7-7-8-8 Total= 30

#403 Couple of Lovers on Red Background- Rebecca Makkai

#403 Couple of Lovers on Red Background- Rebecca Makkai

She is going through a loss, grief or just a mental crisis, but the narrator is having a delusion, quite a great delusion in fact. She believes that Johan Sebastian Bach has come back to live, came out of her piano and is now living in her apartment.

It’s a charming story, the narrator goes through all the mind experiments you would expect to make the story work. What CD’s would Back listen to? You should probably turn off the TV, that much of a technology and cultural leap would shock him back to death.

Whether this is just a dream she was having after hitting her head, or a mental coping mechanism to get over a tough break-up, the metaphor of her literally living with the music she loves is a strong one.

Rating: 8-9-9-9 Total= 35

#402 White Christmas- Sandip Roy

#402 White Christmas- Sandip Roy

It was Christmas, and this was Amit’s first year away from Calcutta, from home. He was in Binghamton, NY going to school, and couldn’t afford the trip back. He learned a lot this year, mostly about the differences in culture, His school mentor, Satsih, a PhD student gave him advice. “…he was Amit’s authority on all things American, like health insurance, bars, and race.”

It was race that confused him the most, the importance of it, the stereoptypes used by both Satish and his mother. He found that he had his own attractions to race as well. On this Christmas he went looking for something to eat and found himself in a bar alone for the first time. It would be a night of firsts.

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31