I Don't Finish Most of the Books I Read

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On page four 18 of your new book, essays too, you imply that you don't finish most of the books you read. Is that correct? Ye. And how do you think about that? You get to try more books. Because i'm very much the same way. I'm not sure that i finish one in ten that i pick up. But that's for me, mostly non fiction. So i won't say that i pride myself on it or it's a wonderful thing. I'm always annoyed by it. and now i'm trying to develop the ab to skim. The temptation just to open a brand new book and start reading it is just too difficult for me to resist

A prolific translator, author, and former professor of creative writing, Lydia Davis’s motivation for her life’s work is jarringly simple: she just loves language. She loves short, sparkling sentences. She loves that in English we have Anglo-Saxon words like “underground” or Latinate alternatives like “subterranean.” She loves reading books in foreign languages, discovering not only their content but a different culture and a different history at the same time. Despite describing her creative process as “chaotic” and herself as “not ambitious,” she is among America’s best-known short story writers and a celebrated essayist.

Lydia joined Tyler to discuss how the form of short stories shapes their content, how to persuade an ant to leave your house, the difference between poetry and very short stories, Proust’s underrated sense of humor, why she likes Proust despite being averse to long books, the appeal of Josep Pla’s The Gray Notebook, why Proust is funnier in French or German than in English, the hidden wit of Franz Kafka, the economics of poorly translated film subtitles, her love of Velázquez and early Flemish landscape paintings, how Bach and Schubert captured her early imagination, why she doesn’t like the Harry Potter novels—but appreciates their effects on young readers, whether she’ll ever publish her diaries, how her work has evolved over time, how to spot talent in a young writer, her method (or lack thereof) for teaching writing, what she learned about words that begin with “wr,” how her translations of Proust and Flaubert differ from others, what she’s most interested in translating now, what we can expect from her next, and more.

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Recorded February 3rd, 2022 Other ways to connect

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