Can't and Won't: Stories
Written by Lydia Davis
Narrated by Janet Metzger
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of "Bloomington" reads, "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before." Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert's correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author's own dreams, or the dreams of friends.
What does not vary throughout Can't and Won't, Lydia Davis's fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.
Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis is the author of Essays One, a collection of essays on writing, reading, art, memory, and the Bible. She is also the author of The End of the Story: A Novel and many story collections, including Varieties of Disturbance, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction; Can’t and Won’t (2014); and The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, described by James Wood in The New Yorker as “a grand cumulative achievement.” Davis is also the acclaimed translator of Swann’s Way and Madame Bovary, both awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize, and of many other works of literature. She has been named both a Chevalier and an Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2020 she received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
More audiobooks from Lydia Davis
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis: Volume 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Essays One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Can't and Won't
Related audiobooks
Clever Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEileen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things I Don't Want to Know: On Writing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Should a Person Be? Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sing to It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Trick: Thirteen Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Real Estate: A Living Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Saw Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Debriefing: Collected Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Suppose a Sentence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to be both Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Small Backs of Children Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Indelicacy: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Screen Tests: Stories and Other Writing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ducks, Newburyport Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artful Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Dark: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creatures: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homesick for Another World: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Telex from Cuba: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Optic Nerve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kant's Little Prussian Head & Other Reasons Why I Write Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Cat Person" and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Wings and Ruin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Thorns and Roses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Mist and Fury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Omens: A Full Cast Production Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Frost and Starlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Gods [TV Tie-In]: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neverwhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Duke and I Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Two Towers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Can't and Won't
3 ratings0 reviews