Two absolute miracles occurred today while driving and listening to Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm:
- Silverblatt let the guest speak for most of the 30 minute show.
- That guest was Lydia Davis, reading from her new collection Varieties of Disturbance. A miracle because the pieces she read were so lovely, so spare and painful and beautiful and, well, full. Pregnant with meaning, the said, the unsaid. All the bits in between.
Do yourself a favor on this late Thursday night/early Friday morning and take a moment to listen to Davis read several short stories from her new collection. I'm swooning. Over the moon and other planets' moons. Wishing I had it with me on this five day trip. So divine, I cannot tell you. I've not yet read anything of hers and now I'm shamed. Embarassed. Bright red with disbelief. How could a writer as fine as this have missed my radar? Shame on me. I aim to set it right as soon as I return.
Other Davis books that I suspect are just as fine, just as worthy of a big, bold swoon: Samuel Johnson is Indignant, Almost No Memory: Stories and The End of the Story.
Must. Acquire. Poste haste.
