Break It Down: Stories [Paperback]

Lydia Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

The thirty-four stories in this seminal collection powerfully display what have become Lydia Davis’s trademarks—dexterity, brevity, understatement, and surprise. Although the certainty of her prose suggests a world of almost clinical reason and clarity, her characters show us that life, thought, and language are full of disorder. Break It Down is Davis at her best. In the words of Jonathan Franzen, she is “a magician of self-consciousness.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Davis is one of the most precise and economical writers we have.” —DAVE EGGERS, McSweeney’s

About the Author

LYDIA DAVIS has received a MacArthur genius grant among other honors. Her collection Varieties of Disturbance was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374531447
• ISBN-13: 978-0374531447
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the acclaimed translator of a new edition of Swann's Way and is at work on a new translation of Madame Bovary.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interior of the mind, October 14, 2008

By 

R. Lynne "roolynne" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break It Down: Stories (Paperback)

Break it down by Lydia Davis is a great book of short stories. I appreciate her bare bones approach to each story. She has little staging and dialogue. The way she introduces many of her characters is through interior thoughts using the character, or an authorial voice as she looks from the outside onto the character. The reader gets a full 360 view of each character in this book. There are many themes in the book, but a general theme is self absorption and how it manifests itself in behaviors and thoughts in each character. This book has alot to do with the hidden anxiety in each of us, that we don't necessairly want to think about or discuss. Good stories to study and break down.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One to Buy, April 20, 2010

By 

Tina Radi (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break It Down: Stories (Paperback)

Absolutely no word is wasted in Lydia Davis' Break it Down. Her stories are comical, honest, clever and varying.

I simply hate sitting down to a short story collection and reading the same "finding myself" story 20 times over. This bad experience had led to never be much of a short stories person, and yet this I was drawn to. I am glad that I was.

I am a big library-goer, a.k.a. don't want to spend money on books that I will read only once. But this is one that I will head to the bookstore to purchase, to keep on my shelf as a reference book, almost, to brilliant and forthright writing.

I highly recommend picking it up.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Less can be much more than only more, December 14, 2010

By 

Alysson Oliveira "Alysson Oliveira" (Sao Paulo-- Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Break It Down: Stories (Paperback)

It has become a cliché to say that less is more, but there is no other expression that best summarizes Lydia Davis's writing. Her stories are, however, way beyond any clichéd idea. They are fresh, perceptive and addictive. She writes as if telling us something personal, something that happened with her - some stories may have an autobiographical touch, especially when told in first person, but nevertheless they don't mean to be really confessional.

She writes both short-short stories and short-long ones and is first among equals in each case. Her shortest stories may be not longer than one line, and even in these cases she is able to bring something meaningful.

In her first collection "Break it down", Davis writes mostly about fractured relationships, about lost love, and people dealing with the changes in their lives. One of the best of them is "The fears of Mrs Orlando", about a woman afraid of leaving her home, and the consequences of that. Actually it is not only about it - this woman's fear works as a metaphor for everybody's fears. Another brilliant one is called "French Lesson I: Le Meurtre". It could be read as a thriller disguised as a French Lesson. The key words, which are taught in this lesson, give away a deeper meaning to the narrative.

First published in 1984, "Break it down" is seen as an assured debut of a mature talent for short fiction. Davis doesn't aim a Chekhovian realism - her helm is another one that sometimes is expressed in only a few words.