Varieties of Disturbance

Varieties of Disturbance

by Lydia Davis
Varieties of Disturbance

Varieties of Disturbance

by Lydia Davis

Paperback(First Edition)

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Overview

Lydia Davis has been called "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times), "an American virtuoso of the short story form" (Salon), an innovator who attempts "to remake the model of the modern short story" (The New York Times Book Review). Her admirers include Grace Paley, Jonathan Franzen, and Zadie Smith; as Time magazine observed, her stories are "moving . . . and somehow inevitable, as if she has written what we were all on the verge of thinking."

In Varieties of Disturbance, her fourth collection, Davis extends her reach as never before in stories that take every form from sociological studies to concise poems. Her subjects include the five senses, fourth-graders, good taste, and tropical storms. She offers a reinterpretation of insomnia and re-creates the ordeals of Kafka in the kitchen. She questions the lengths to which one should go to save the life of a caterpillar, proposes a clear account of the sexual act, rides the bus, probes the limits of marital fidelity, and unlocks the secret to a long and happy life.

No two of these fictions are alike. And yet in each, Davis rearranges our view of the world by looking beyond our preconceptions to a bizarre truth, a source of delight and surprise.

Varieties of Disturbance is a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780374281731
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 05/15/2007
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 240
Sales rank: 960,959
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

LYDIA DAVIS is the author of one novel and five story collections, most recently Can't and Won't. She is also the acclaimed translator of Swann's Way and Madame Bovary, both of which were awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis was described by James Wood in The New Yorker as a "grand cumulative achievement." She is the winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize.

Read an Excerpt

Varieties of Disturbance

Stories
By Lydia Davis

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC

Copyright © 2007 Lydia Davis
All right reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-374-28173-1


Chapter One

A Man from Her Past

I think Mother is flirting with a man from her past who is not Father. I say to myself: Mother ought not to have improper relations with this man "Franz"! "Franz" is a European. I say she should not see this man improperly while Father is away! But I am confusing an old reality with a new reality: Father will not be returning home. He will be staying on at Vernon Hall. As for Mother, she is ninety-four years old. How can there be improper relations with a woman of ninety-four? Yet my confusion must be this: though her body is old, her capacity for betrayal is still young and fresh.

Dog and Me

An ant can look up at you, too, and even threaten you with its arms. Of course, my dog does not know I am human, he sees me as dog, though I do not leap up at a fence. I am a strong dog. But I do not leave my mouth hanging open when I walk along. Even on a hot day, I do not leave my tongue hanging out. But I bark at him: "No! No!"

Enlightened

I don't know if I can remain friends with her. I've thought and thought about it-she'll never know how much. I gave it one last try. I called her, after a year. But I didn't like the way the conversation went. The problem is that she is not very enlightened. Or I should say, she is not enlightened enough for me. She is nearly fifty years old and no more enlightened, as far as I can see, than when I first knew her twenty years ago, when we talked mainly about men. I did not mind how unenlightened she was then, maybe because I was not so enlightened myself. I believe I am more enlightened now, and certainly more enlightened than she is, although I know it's not very enlightened to say that. But I want to say it, so I am willing to postpone being more enlightened myself so that I can still say a thing like that about a friend.

The Good Taste Contest

The husband and wife were competing in a Good Taste Contest judged by a jury of their peers, men and women of good taste, including a fabric designer, a rare-book dealer, a pastry cook, and a librarian. The wife was judged to have better taste in furniture, especially antique furniture. The husband was judged to have overall poor taste in lighting fixtures, tableware, and glassware. The wife was judged to have indifferent taste in window treatments, but the husband and wife both were judged to have good taste in floor coverings, bed linen, bath linen, large appliances, and small appliances. The husband was felt to have good taste in carpets, but only fair taste in upholstery fabrics. The husband was felt to have very good taste in both food and alcoholic beverages, while the wife had inconsistently good to poor taste in food. The husband had better taste in clothes than the wife though inconsistent taste in perfumes and colognes. While both husband and wife were judged to have no more than fair taste in garden design, they were judged to have good taste in number and variety of evergreens. The husband was felt to have excellent taste in roses but poor taste in bulbs. The wife was felt to have better taste in bulbs and generally good taste in shade plantings with the exception of hostas. The husband's taste was felt to be good in garden furniture but only fair in ornamental planters. The wife's taste was judged consistently poor in garden statuary. After a brief discussion, the judges gave the decision to the husband for his higher overall points score.

Collaboration with Fly

I put that word on the page, but he added the apostrophe.

(Continues...)



Excerpted from Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis Copyright © 2007 by Lydia Davis. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents


A Man from Her Past     3
Dog and Me     4
Enlightened     5
The Good Taste Contest     6
Collaboration with Fly     8
Kafka Cooks Dinner     9
Tropical Storm     19
Good Times     20
Idea for a Short Documentary Film     22
Forbidden Subjects     23
Two Types     25
The Senses     26
Grammar Questions     27
Hand     30
The Caterpillar     31
Childcare     33
We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders     34
Passing Wind     58
Television     60
Jane and the Cane     65
Getting to Know Your Body     66
Absentminded     67
Southward Bound, Reads Worstward Ho     68
The Walk     72
Varieties of Disturbance     83
Lonely     86
Mrs. D and Her Maids     87
20 Sculptures in One Hour     112
Nietszche     114
What You Learn About the Baby     115
Her Mother's Mother     125
How It Is Done     127
Insomnia     128
Burning Family Members     129
The Way to Perfection     135
The Fellowship     136
Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality     137
Reducing Expenses     178
Mother's Reaction to My Travel Plans     181
For Sixty Cents     182
How Shall I Mourn Them?     183
A Strange Impulse     186
How She Could Not Drive     187
Suddenly Afraid     189
Getting Better     190
Head, Heart     191
The Strangers     192
The Busy Road     194
Order     195
The Fly     196
Traveling with Mother     197
Index Entry     199
My Son     200
Example of the Continuing Past Tense in a Hotel Room     201
Cape Cod Diary     202
Almost Over: What's the Word?     218
A Different Man     219
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