Guy Davenport

Da Vinci’s Bicycle, Guy Davenport’s second collection of stories, was first published in 1979, and contains some of his most important fiction. Written with tremendous wit, intelligence, and verve, the stories are based on historical figures whose endeavors were too early, too late, or went against the grain of their time. They are all people who see the world differently from their contemporaries and therefore seem absurd, like Pablo Picasso in “Au Tombeau de Charles Fourier,” Leonardo Da Vinci in “The Richard Nixon Freischütz Rag,” James Joyce and Guillaume Apollinaire in the marvelous “The Haile Selassie Funeral Train.” Hilton Kramer of The New York Times has said, “Davenport’s conception of the short story form is remarkable. He has given it some of the intellectual density of the learned essay, some of the lyrical concision of the modern poem––some of its difficulty too––and a structure that often resembles a film documentary. The result is a tour de force that adds something new to the art of fiction.”

Guy Davenport’s story collection A Table of Green Fields (New Directions, 1993) was praised for its amazing artistry and “stratospheric” literary intelligence (Kirkus Reviews). As The Washington Post noted, “It draws one in with its austere, beautifully formal sentences, its rich pattern of memory.” In Davenport’s follow-up collection, The Cardiff Team, the stories continue in this vein, their texts a wondrous collage of persons, events, and ideas from cultural history. The central theme is that of tribeless people joining, or trying to join, a team, a tribe, or a society. In “The Messengers,” Franz Kafka visits the Jungborn Health Spa in the Harz mountains and tries to feel comfortable in his own skin. In “Boys Smell Like Oranges,” a soccer team of boys from Henry de Montherlant’s Les Olympiques is its own contained tribe. The Cardiff Team perfectly displays Guy Davenport’s illustrious prose and his audacity; confirming The New Yorker’s assertion that his is “among the very few, truly original voices now audible in American letters.”

Here is a colorful variety of works by seven Greek poets and philosophers who lived from the eighth to the third centuries BC. Salvaged from shattered pottery vases and tattered scrolls of papyrus, everything decipherable from the remains of these ancient authors is assembled here. From early to late, the collection contains: Archilochos; Sappho; Alkman; Anakreon; the philosophers Herakleitos and Diogenes; and Herondas. This composite of fragments translated by Guy Davenport is the most complete collection of its kind ever to appear in one volume.

From Library Journal:

“Connoisseurs of art, history, religion, and literature will revel in this fine collection of ten stories by one of America’s most erudite writers. Although the tone is often playful, Davenport layers each story with a variety of allusions and rather obscure meanings that perhaps only the most scholarly readers will fully appreciate. A wonderful example is “Meleager,’’ in which the sexual play of two boys is juxtaposed with descriptions of geometry. Another is “And,’’ a snippet (nine paragraphs) of a parable in which Jesus scatters seeds on a river. More satisfying are the longer tales, especially “O Gadjo Niglo,’’ a touching love story told by Eros, and “Gunner and Nikolai,’’ with its surprise ending. Male sexuality is the predominant theme, one the author presents with light but clearly serious intent. The title–a story in itself–is taken from Falstaff’s dying vision, inspired by the 23rd Psalm. It makes a most fitting symbol for this most unusual and imaginative collection. Highly recommended.”

Here is a colorful variety of works by seven Greek poets and philosophers who lived from the eighth to the third centuries BC. Salvaged from shattered pottery vases and tattered scrolls of papyrus, everything decipherable from the remains of these ancient authors is assembled here. From early to late, the collection contains: Archilochos; Sappho; Alkman; Anakreon; the philosophers Herakleitos and Diogenes; and Herondas. This composite of fragments translated by Guy Davenport is the most complete collection of its kind ever to appear in one volume.