Can't and Won't
Her stories may be literal one-liners: "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before," reads the entire "Bloomington." In "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralysed by the plethora of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may take the shape of letters of complaint, be drawn from Flaubert's correspondence, or be inspired by the author's own or friends' dreams.
The force of Lydia Davis's well polished writing remains consistent throughout Can't and Won't, her fifth collection of stories. Davis is very perceptive; she is wry, humorous, or tragic. Above all, she is energising. Davis writes on the mundane with bracing candour and subtle humour, uncovering the unknown, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasant within the regular routines of daily existence.
