Customer Reviews

Break It Down (High Risk Books)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have never written an online review, but I just could not help myself this time. "Break It Down" is absolutely exquisite. Not only can Ms. Davis write, she can make you FEEL what she's writing about. There is a pulse to her stories that grabs you and will not let you go. Her exploration of the individual's need for rationalization and order in the world is powerfully conveyed and leaves you aching for her characters. I've read many good short stories by many good authors, but seldom do I come across anything that rocked my world--This rocked my world.

In a rare miscue, Amazon has plugged in the Publisher's Weekly review of a murder mystery which this collection of cutting edge fiction is anything but. This is short fiction by a rare voice. Lots of writers have done very short fiction, lots have experimented with style, few get it right like Lydia Davis. She strips the conventions of fiction down to the barest essentials, often speaking from a removed perspective. She adds just enough strokes of imagery, however, to warm it up and allow the reader to enjoy a rich experience. Davis is in total control. I highly recommend this volume to anyone who wants to know what is going on at the forefront of literary fiction. Another note: this edition, a trade paperback, is of uncommon high quality, with a cover that sports flaps like the dust jacket on a hardcover.

Lydia Davis is among the best writers writing today, but I'm not sure that's the point. There are zero other writers I would do with as with her - press it on out of town visitors, make them read The Mouse before I will take them out to whatever they came here for. I am not sure why it doesn't appear in collections of the best stories of the latter half of the century, but it should.

A master of the short-short story. The friend who introduced me to this book -- reprinted nicely by High Risk, although I read it in the original, sadly out of print hardback -- pointed out that one probably wouldn't want to hang out with Lydia Davis. She's obsessive and a bit morbid, but she nails certain male-female relations cleanly on the head. Smart women do make bad bedmates sometimes, but their books do not.

(I am signing this as a smart woman in hopes of averting charges of sexism -- women aren't the problem I have, nor are men -- it's the obsessing over the minute details of relationships that many women and some men fall prone to.)

Quite a bit of "Break it Down" is amazingly good. Amazingly good because most of the stories are brief, to the point and blatant with a slight quirk to them. Not all the stories in "Break it Down" are remarkable, however, and Davis seems to get swallowed in her repetitive cycle of a confused, quietly angry woman. 3/5 (Buy "Almost No Memory," its far better)

"Break it Down" is a varied collection of pieces- some as short as a paragraph, some of short stroy length, but none of them are at all like anything else you've ever read.

Some pieces seem to be simple narrative of the author's life- a small detail, dwelled on in depth and worked over until every bit of meaning is wrung out of them. Some merely evoke a mood, or a feeling.

The title story- "Break it Down"- is a man's internal monologue, reflecting on (at first) the cost of a relationship, as he tries to make sense of it, and eventually its meaning to him, and how it affected him. It is a startling honest and accurate- to this reader, at least- portrayal of the thoughts and feelings that accompany a relationship, and that mark its end. It is also a stralingly accurate portrayal of (and, one would have to assume, understanding of) a man's internal monologue given that it's being told by a woman. Or perhaps men and women are more alike in this regard than most of us suspect.

Regardless, it's a brilliant story, and by itself justifies purchase of this book. The rest is just icing on the cake.

I love this writer! It's been a while since I've read this book, but I have only fond memories of it. Her focus is always very tight, and the situations she presents are wildly subjective. All of her stuff is eliptical and I seem to remember laughing (it's been a while). I've read some of her other stuff, and this one is definitely the first place to start.

I find it difficult to properly address the broad spectrum of writing in Lydia Davis' Break It Down. There are traditional stories like "Story," "What an Old Woman Will Wear," and the title story as well.

There are complex, compact, and hauntingly accurate micro-stories like "In a House Beseiged," "What She Knew," "The Fish," "City Employment," and the chilling, "The Mother."

Last, there are strange mind trips like "Liminal: The Little Man", and "French Lesson I" that challenge not only the art of writing fiction, but also expand and stretch the meaning of words and language. Davis tries very hard to get the reader to understand her complex thoughts regarding the liminal, the barely persceptible. She also guides the reader through a French lesson, where at the story's end, non-French speakers will understand the story in French. It's mind-boggling.

I give her four stars, because many of the stories miss their mark. There are either too contrived, or they are not at the level of the rest of the book. I would prefer to give her 4.5 stars, as she most assuredly deserves it.

Break It Down is a book I lend to friends, who inevitably love it and are stunned by its force and integrity. So I decided to check amazon.com to see if it's still in print. Serpent's Tail Press has done a fine thing in keeping this book available. The moral and stylistic power of Davis's work is riveting, and the author's humor is dark, profound, and liberating, both very modern and ancient. I recently gave the book to someone I'd heard doing a "cost-benefit" analysis of a love affair; in this age of self-interest and therapy, the wonderful title story of the book, Break It Down, brings us back to the power and absurdity of passion and its way of undoing us.

This is literature as compelling, haunting, and funny as Bach's cellos solos, the psalms of David (Lord I love you. Now please kill my enemies.), the great Hasidic parables, and the band Cake's comically sad ballads all rolled into one, and that's saying something, since (as in the writing of Anne Carson), all of the eros, and stoicism of Western philosophy undergird Davis's limpid writing.

but one of Dave Eggers' books referred me to her. And if Dave Eggers commented on her as "terrifyingly good" then I suspose she's pretty damn good. I will comment again after I've read the book.