LYDIA DAVIS: Essays One & Essays Two
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
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Essays One - amzn.to/3Cq46JA
Hardcover, 528 pages
Published 2019 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374148856
Essays Two - amzn.to/3pPAhwW
Hardcover, 592 pages
Published 2021 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374148864
#leafbyleaf #bookreview #lydiadavis #essays
Great review - you've finally convinced me to pick up her essays! I'm particularly interested in her ideas around translation. Not only do I have three volumes of her translations of Michel Leiris staring at me from my shelf, but I'm also drawn to learning Norwegian by writers like Dag Solstad and Jon Fosse, just as she was (I read about how she wanted to learn Norwegian so she just picked up one of Dag Solstad's longest works and began making her way through it. I took this anecdote in stride and ordered 4 of the volumes of Jernalderdrøm by Steinar Løding, though I'm still waiting for them to arrive!). I also think a lot about translating medieval literature - I'm sure a lot of her ideas could help me sort out my thoughts on that. Thanks for another great discussion!
Yep-these essays definitely sound perfect for you, my friend!
I've got her short stories collection up next once I finish Borges and I can't wait. I've read a few and was blown away. And now I'll be ordering Essays 1 and 2.
Borges is such a treat! I'm certain you won't regret these purchases.
You mentioned Blanchot! "The Space of Literature" and "Infinite Conversation" are his most lucid collections. "The Writing of the Disaster" is his masterpiece.
She even has tried to learn some Dutch and had interesting discussions with the only writer of "ZKV's", "Zeer Korte Verhalen", (Very Short Stories) in the Low Countries, A. L. Snijders. Greetings from Flanders, Belgium.
Greetings! I've visited Belgium 4 times for works, which took me to Brugges and Ghent primarily. What a beautiful country!
Hey Chris, circling back to this video after ordering and reading Essays One upon your recommendation. Sending immense gratitude your way for highlighting Davis's energetic, constructive work. As an aspiring writer, her essays have give me much to chew on.
As one of our resident UA-cam bibliophiles, I wanted to ask if you had any recommendations for dictionaries and/or reference books to purchase. In Davis's essay "Thirty Recommendations For Good Writing Habits," she suggests having a thesaurus, reference book on grammar, dictionary, etc., on hand while writing. She also notes that the older they are, the better. Do you have any that you'd personally recommend or that you've heard good things about?
So glad you enjoyed Davis!
Check out these two videos:
OXFORD AMERICAN WRITER'S THESAURUS (Third Edition)
ua-cam.com/video/-B4tytULE7U/v-deo.html
10 BOOKS FOR GRAZING
ua-cam.com/video/CXFycsw4wJA/v-deo.html
I had never heard of Lydia Davis before your review but based on it I bought vol. 2. I'm in heaven. I was totally entranced by her essay on her efforts to translate/recreate "Bob, Son of Battle". Fortunately my library owns a copy so I was able to read it and compare it to the original I found online. What fun! Her astonishing and hilarious essay on how she taught herself Norwegian by plowing through a book with run-together words, "almost unbroken blocks [of text], no chapters and few paragraph breaks" inspired me (native English speaker) in my own efforts to read Italian texts in the oiriginal.
So thrilled to hear you've been led to the pleasures and wonders of Lydia Davis's writings! When I read her it makes me want to just sit around reading old dictionaries and foreign texts all day. Happy reading!
Wow, I'm sure this is the first time I've come across a discussion of the sublime work of Lydia Davis on BookTube. Enjoyed this enormously as a huge fan of her stories. You've impelled me to read these collections sooner rather than later.
I, too, noticed an absence of material on Davis's sumptuous work. Glad you enjoyed it! Happy reading!
Am also currently reading Lydia Davis essays 2 and very much enjoying her writing.Now on the lookout for her version of Swann's Way.
Glad you’re enjoying her work!
One of the worst embellishments I know of in Scott Moncrieff's translation of Proust's ALRDTP, volume 1 was when he translated "dans un coin, comme un papillon posé" as "in a corner, like a butterfly poised upon a flower" adding, obviously, "upon a flower" where Proust just had "posé"! Lydia Davis is the only translator I know of who does not follow Moncrieff's error: "in a corner, like a poised butterfly." How grateful all English readers of Proust should be to LD. Even in the most recent Moncrieff retranslation, William Carter follows Moncrieff's awful flower error - outrageous!
Yeesh. I truly wish Davis had been commissioned to do all the volumes. I didn't care much for vol. 2 or 3 (I stopped there as far as the Penguin deluxe goes).
@@LeafbyLeaf Me too!
Wow, i wasn't aware that the good-ole Zibaldone was read outside of Italy.
Right now I'm leafing through the letters written by a certain Nabokov to his wife, then I'll have more letters to read (Calvino's), and now this review is making me consider putting off fiction until springtime.
Thanks for the video- by the by, I like the slightly longer form you seem to have adopted.
At least for me, I've been dipping into the Zibaldone for years!
The Nabokov letters sound like a good read.
Thanks for the compliment on the longer form of the video: I'm trying out covering multiple books by the same author for a while.
All my best to you!
Essays One is incredible. That last essay on the nature of memory is worth the price of the book alone. Just finished the one about 'Bob, Son of Battle' in Essays Two - same deal. Love how she gives us permission to delve into projects without a reason or a clear destination. Thanks for introducing me to Lydia Davis, dude. ✌
Such a lovely video. I honestly donno why i dont follow other book reviewers as much as i love leaf by leaf.
And also your voice is so soothing that i should listen to when i dont find sleep.
Very, very kind of you to say.
I bought the collection "Can't and Won't" years ago and had been saving it for a rainy day. I cracked it open today and made it through maybe 60 pages. WOOF! Have you read it? If you haven't, don't waste your time. It's very hard to believe this is the same writer who is responsible for the work in "Collected Stories" and incredible that she wanted any part of this collection of juvenilia to be available for public consumption. I have the 2 volumes of essays. Nothing you've recommended has disappointed me and I am a fan of Ms. Davis, so I will jump in. Just shocked so I thought I'd put in my 2 cents. All the best!
Just wondering, will there by a part 5 to the Q and A, or is the 4th the last?
There will definitely be a part 5! Be sure to follow me on Instagram-that’s where I typically prompt for questions when I’m preparing to make a Q and A. All my best to you!
Great!
Excellent stuff. I have the first collection already. Will have to bump it up my TBR.
Happy reading!
Chris, my brand new copies of Inherent Vice, The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow have just arrived. I'm going to take my time and read around twenty pages a day. I'm tempted to start with Inherent Vice just because I loved City of Quartz so much.
I recently read Franzen's Mr Difficult because you mentioned it. His argument in favour of Recognitions and against the rest of Gaddis' work is quite persuasive, even though I have never read any Gaddis! He has kind of put me off taking up the challenge, to be honest. I would also like someone to challenge his more general points on Realism Vs Modernism Vs Postmodernism. If you have time, could you please do a video on Mr Difficult and why you think Frantzen is wrong?
Thanks for all your content anyway, it's always really interesting, you're doing an absolutely superb job. 👍
That's a great video idea! Thanks!
Fantastic recommendation, Chris. Just bought both volumes! On this note, have you read any of Deborah Levy's autobiographical essays? (Things I Don't Want to Know, The Cost of Living, and Real Estate) They are wonderful and I feel like you would appreciate both the humor and the way Levy interweaves diary observations, personal history, notes on writing and feminist/historical views. Thanks for your videos. This one was of good company to me while feeling a bit under the weather.
Agh, sorry to hear you’re under it a bit. I, too, have been a little off the last couple days-following precisely after my COVID booster, but who knows. Thanks so much for the recommendation! I’ll check those out. Get well soon!
I haven't listened to this yet, but I'm very excited to hear it! Lydia Davis is one of my favorite writers. At first, I saw her name on english translations of Blanchot, Proust, Flaubert. Then the collection of her own work came out and I was blown away. Her work sits comfortably in the tradition of the work she translates. I have a chapbook about cows and translating she made 10 or so years ago. It's super funny and sweet!
Always nice to meet someone with admiration for Davis!
Excellent review! I became familiar with Lydia Davis by way of her collection of short stories Can't and Won't. These (sometimes extremely) short stories about seemingly mundane situations in life were electrifying to me in their extreme brevity and bone-dry wry sense of humor. I come back to these stories every so often for a little chuckle and am always amazed at the level of wordplay she's able to engage with in even her shortest of tales. This review has motivated me to get these sets of essays to read about her writing process and her love of language. Thanks!
She really is a treasure! Amazing that her prowess extends from short stories to essays to translation. Glad you found the video motivating! Happy reading!
As per usual, Chris, you are pressuring my wallet into another book purchase -scratch that, make that 2 purchases. A good problem to have lol, thank you for this great review!
I understand this dilemma all too well. --Although, is it a dilemma if I always find that the choice to, yes, buy the book(s) is all too easy?! :)
Excellent. I read Essays 1 during pandemic year one a great companion that filled my own notebook with endless passages. Also loved the DeWitt shout out, Last Samurai also read about the same time.
PS. In a recent note to you regarding favorite short fiction I failed to mention Zweig’s The Chess Story.
And coincidentally, that's the only Zweig I've read!
This is awesome and inspirational as a musician and someone who is almost always either playing, listening, studying, writing or teaching music. "Curiosity put into action" is a phrase I might borrow (and give proper credit of course) for some of my students. Also, there are probably some very interesting parallels between the act of musical transcription and literary translation. Whenever I try to transcribe something, I like to do it without listening too much ahead as well, it feels more like a genuine look inside the creator's head, their methods and thought processes, and it's interesting to hear the same approach can be applied to translation. Awesome content as always man, will definitely be picking up one or both of these collections.
Feel free to use any phrase at all without citation, my friend! Have you ever read Douglas R. Hofstadter’s
Book about music and translation (I think I mention it in this video)? Music in general is such a deep art. That certain combinations of vibrations and pitch can bring me to tears is a mystery I never tire of. I would think that being a music teacher is very rewarding. Thanks for what you do!
"Determination is curiosity in action." I love that
Thanks! I give credit to Davis as Muse. :)
She is so good ❤️
Hear, hear!
Just borrowed Vol. One and didn't care for it, except for the first essay. I much prefer Harold Bloom.
I, too, am a Bloomian--but I suppose I mentally place Davis and Bloom in two almost totally different categories.