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Rating: 
Summary: A quietly eccentric humor
Review: ...that captures the essence of human experience. Urgent - natural - inevitable. A good variety of forms - entertaining for the minimalists in particular.
Rating: 
Summary: Another gem from McSweeneys
Review: Great Book!One of the best in the Mcsweeney's catalog
Rating:
Summary: A Master of Language
Review: I believe Lydia Davis to be one of the great wordsmiths of our time. Her latest collection, Samuel Johnson is Indignant, is nothing less than excellent. Davis's writing is so consise and precise that it completely blows my mind.
I was first turned on to her writing through McSweeney's (Issue 4, to be exact). While many now clump her in that group along with David Eggers, Rick Moody and others, Lydia Davis seems to outshine them with her quick wit and amazing use of words.
Davis's work, however, is not for everyone. If you're looking for traditional short stories then you'll be dissapointed because Lydia Davis's style is really groundbreaking. The title piece, for example, is one sentence long. Some of the stuff is short, some a bit longer, but none feel fluffy.
I would recommend this to anyone looking for something new. Davis's voice is strong and ripe with honesty. I truly love this collection.
Rating:
Summary: thought provoking, boiled-down, heart-of-the-matter stories
Review: I bought his book based on written reviews, not word of mouth. I found some of the short stories excellent, and some not. I'm an avid reader of modern fiction. I do feel Lydia Davis is an excellent writer, but it's the CONTENT that did not entertain me. I don't want to pay [a certain price] for a book and read a short story such as the following: "Remember that thou art but dust. I shall try to bear it in mind." I'm not kidding, that is the whole story. As I said, some of the stories are good, but many are written so as to alienate the reader, in the sense that you are not given any clues as to how these events or opinions have come to be formed. Here's another one entitled Certain Knowledge from Herodotus, "These are the facts about the fish in the Nile:" That's it! Is this literary snobbism, or the Emporer's New Clothes? Either way, I'm not buying any more of her books. My advice, check it out from the library, so at least someone else pays for the parts of the book that make no sense to anyone but the author, and the parts you may not understand or like. We live in an age of such incredible fiction, that I would not waste any more time on this type of thing. Although, I will say I did enjoy a FEW of the stories (The Furnace). But even then, those stories (such as the one entitled In A Northern Country) would have made better fodder for discussion than reading alone, which is the most common way I read. This book may be just for the elite acadmemic reader, but in my opinion, not very meaningful or enjoyable to the average well-read person.
Rating:
Summary: thought provoking, boiled-down, heart-of-the-matter stories
Review: I love this book and also felt the need to counter the 2 star reviewer who quoted a one line story from the book without including the story title or the italics. Both are essential to taking in the story because Lydia Davis does not waste a word, even on the title. Most of the stories leave the reader with something universal, even when the "univeral thing" goes unsaid. Some of the stories were so close to the bone that I feel I could've written them if I could pare off words as well as she does. I found the book thought provoking and highly entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Playful writer
Review: I've been quoting her story "Spring Spleen" to people (in its two-sentence entirety) because it's so delightfully short and it conveys its meaning perfectly. I appreciate quirky and inventive writers very much and found SJII to be an enjoyable read. She's up there with Russell Edson and Padgett Powell as a master of the short form.
Rating:
Summary: Playful writer
Review: I've been quoting her story "Spring Spleen" to people (in its two-sentence entirety) because it's so delightfully short and it conveys its meaning perfectly. I appreciate quirky and inventive writers very much and found SJII to be an enjoyable read. She's up there with Russell Edson and Padgett Powell as a master of the short form.
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