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Terri
Unregistered User
(8/9/00 12:25:44 am)
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The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
Has anyone here read Kathryn Davis's novel The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, based on the fairy tale of that title? It's an odd one, alternately juicy and cerebral. I liked it, probably best of her novels. Anyone else?
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Kate
Registered User
(8/9/00 8:57:08 am)
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Davis
Terri,
Yes, I've read it -- three times! -- and think it is brilliant. Kathryn is one of the smartest people I have ever encountered. Her writing is so intellectually sensual.
Kathryn got in touch with me nearly seven years ago after I wrote her a drippy fan letter (I'd just read Labrador) and we've been friends ever since.
Have you read all her other work?
Kate
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Carrie
Registered User
(8/9/00 10:03:25 am)
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food for the brain
As always -- I see a suggestion and run to the book store. I'm going to pick it up today. As a result of this wonderful board, my library is growing as my wallet shrinks. Time to sell another piece.
Carrie
| Terri
Unregistered User
(8/10/00 1:52:48 am)
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Kathyrn Davis's fiction
You know Kathryn Davis?! That's wonderful. Yes, I've read her other books, and like them, but I like this one the very best. (Does she have a new one out, set in Wales, or am I thinking of someone else...?) I agree with you, she's a wonderful writer.
Is she a fairy tale fan in general?
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Kate
Registered User
(8/10/00 3:06:48 pm)
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The Walking Tour
You're right, her most recent book, The Walking Tour (Houghton Mifflin), takes place partially in Wales. It's a fantastic book, sort of post-Apocalyptic, eerie and familial. As usual, the writing is so intensely fastidious that I almost feel sick when I read it--in a most pleasant way. Davis does have an interest in fairy tales (you can find an essay by her in Mirror, Mirror, by the way). Two of the characters in the new book run a business called SnowWhite & RoseRead, a company that allows readers to electronically alter the texts of books they are reading, when certain "vulnerabilities" in the text are encountered. Ah, it's complex and deeply pleasurable--I can barely summarize it!
We know each other only through correspondence so far, one that spans nearly eight years and which has been enormously important to me.
Kate
(By the way, yes, I would love to meet when we are next in Tucson at the same time.)
| Terri
Unregistered User
(8/12/00 12:45:39 am)
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Kathryn Davis
Ah, another one for my growing list of books to buy.
I like her essay in Mirror, Mirror and was very pleased to see her included there. [And Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni! Boy, did you get some great writers involved! Plus that delicious A.S. Byatt essay, worth the price of admission alone!] I know what you mean about K.D.'s fastidious writing. There are some writers who completely intimidate me -- only a few, because I was an editor for a New York publishing house for years and dealt with too many writers and artists on a daily basis to remain in any awe of the writing process. But a few are just so intellectually sharp and creatively precise that I feel like a raw kid (despite my age) beside them -- Kathryn Davis, John Crowley, Marina Warner....a few others...
A young Irish filmmaker friend told me about meeting an experienced LA filmmaker he admired and he said, "I could feel myself turning into a mere Cork lad as we spoke, standing in me wellies in a field of cowshit." I know that feeling, and K.D.'s prose (and skilled manipulation of story structures) definitely evokes it.
Okay, so has anyone *else* here read The Girl Who Trod on a Load? Which Kate and I can heartily recommend. (To Karen in particular. This is definitely up your alley.)
Kate, have you read Katherine Vaz's short fiction? (Fado & Other Stories.) She uses Portugese folklore, and her prose is sublime. She teaches out at the University of California, Davis.
| midori
Unregistered User
(8/12/00 2:50:30 pm)
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out of print!
aargh, I was all set to buy the book and amazon informs me that Girl Who TRod on a Loaf is out of print. I'm going to the library to see if I can lay hands on it! Likewise the Vado book, which doesn't seem to have a paperback edition!
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Kate
Registered User
(8/12/00 3:40:46 pm)
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Vaz/Davis
Terri,
No, I haven't read Katherine Vaz, but now I will, of course. (Is she also the author of a book called Saudade, which they have at the bookstore in my neighborhood?) Thanks for much for the suggestion.
Midori: You can find Kathryn Davis's book--in fact all of her books--online at Powells.com. Powell's is a great bookstore based here in Portland that carries both new and used books. The prices are fair. I saw a hardcover of Girl Who Trod for $6.95 there today, in fact.
I wonder if the fiction of Merce Rodoreda would interest anyone who likes either Vaz (whom of course I haven't read yet) or Davis. She's a Catalan author who died a few years ago. Gorgeous, mysterious tales--one favorite, "The Salamander," is about a women who turns into a salamander during an affair; "My Christina," the title story of her collection, about someone who ends up living in the belly of a beloved whale--named Christina--and must eat her to survive (relevant to the fee-fi-fo-fum discussion, actually).
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Karen
Registered User
(8/12/00 7:47:16 pm)
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Argh!
Argh! I haven't read Davis, Vaz or Rodoreda, but, rest assured, they have been added to my reading list.
K.
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