Lydia Davis @ EIBF

 

Lydia Davis made her Charlotte Square debut on a particularly inclement Edinburgh evening, the rain pattering on the marquee roof as though it wanted to get in. And who could blame it for trying? Davis is one of the most formally inventive writers but one who wears her innovation lightly, and doesn’t eschew narrative. Perhaps best known in this country for her translations of Proust, it’s her un-Proustian ability to economically pack tension and drama into as few words as possible (some of her stories are only a sentence long) that impresses me most. We were treated to a dynamic reading of a diverse handful from the newly released Collected Stories, and wowed by a selection of new work, written while at work on a forthcoming translation of Madame Bovary, and based around Flaubert’s letters to his mistress. In the allotted time for questions, someone bravely asked Davis for writing advice. When I came back to look at my notes I was somewhat baffled to read that she had advised aspiring writers to ‘get a motel’. My graphologist assures me it says ‘get a model’, and I’m not sure you could do better than Lydia Davis. [Colin Herd]