Help! Anybody read Lydia Davis's short stories?

[shimmergal]

I have to review her new collection. I suspect they're looking for a favorable review but so far, I just don't "get" it. I read literary fiction only sporadically; IMO some of it is wonderful but lots of it is just plain weird and boring.

If anyone has read this author's stories, I'd really like to hear some other opinions and insights. Maybe you can highlight good points that I've missed.

[smoogatz]

1. If you only read lit fic sporadically

you're not the right person to review Davis's work. Hand the project off to someone who "gets" it.

[shimmergal]

2. Well, possibly. Although by

sporadically I didn't mean "infrequently" but "It's not the genre I read the most." I probably read as much contemporary lit. fic. as the academics who make pronouncements about it. And by the reviews I've already read on this author's work, not so many of them "get it" either.

Anyhow, it's too late to hand it off; publishing schedule is more important at this time than getting someone who's an expert in the small sub-genre it falls into. So I'll just have to do my best. As a professional I don't have to love a work to review it fairly.

[smoogatz]

3. How can you possibly review it fairly?

You just said you don't understand what she's trying to do, which means you don't know anything about the tradition she's writing from. Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Maybe this will help.

[shimmergal]

4. In the interim,

I have gotten into it. I know about post-modernism. If the editors don't like it, they have the option to turn my review down and seek another. Case closed.