Samuel Johnson Is Indignant Stories

We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn't read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn't read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn't read it now. Went on my guard when I heard that the title story was one sentence long – speaking, as such conceits do, of holy-urinal superstitious art – but this is actually a standout, a series of droll, exacting capsules and nutshells. A typical piece is one page long and part gag, part compulsive meditation, part confession of petty vice. Once you get over her diffident, terse non-being, it is fun stuff. The long piece on jury duty is best, its length and repetitious babble a symmetry of the trial.

A return to form for Davis after the disappointing (to me, at least) Almost No Memory. I always end up skipping the longest story in Davis's collections because they're almost never as good as any of the other ones; in this case I skipped "In A Northern Country". I'll probably buy her Collected Stories anyway, so I can always go back and reread it. This is probably a good place to start if you've never read Davis before, also.