Lydia Davis is a sly miniaturist whose distinct blend of personal reflection, flash fiction, and poetic concision serve up little epiphanies in shot glass-sized portions.
I've enjoyed Davis's koan-like stories for years but never reviewed them, in part because I found them more appealing when ingested in micro-doses, like homeopathic remedies, rather than glugged down from start to finish on deadline.
Socrates famously argued that "the unexamined life is not worth living." No one could accuse Davis of living an unexamined life, although its value remains subject to her constant self-assessments. "Learning to Sing" exemplifies Davis' dogged yet humorous line of inquiry, although unusually, it is written in the second person.
[
add
]
[
|
|
...
]