A Table of Green Fields: Stories

by Guy Davenport

Book Overview

A Table of Green Fields includes ten stories, variously about the painter Henry Scott Tuke, the mathematician James Joseph Sylvester, Kafka, Thoreau, along with some imaginary Frenchmen and Scandinavians, among others. Calculating the infinite in the finite, tracing geometries of desire, placing the obdurate world in an uncustomary light, each of these stories opens out its own world. Without giving up the plot or character of the traditional short...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811212513
• ISBN13: 9780811212519
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 149 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Splurge on the Hardcover!

No one plays with the assumptions of a reader in terms of genre, plot, image, or even sentence structure like Davenport. This book is one of his best. And in terms of the general American literary scene, this book is one the greatest!

"Gypsy acrobats on market day"

The line above, taken from a Davenport story, perhaps suggests the sense of vibrance flowing through a "typical" Davenport story: one not only gets to go to market, but there are Gypsies there as well! Arguably the most striking and unusual stories in this collection are those that pivot around three famous men: Lawrence of Arabia [disguised as Airman Ross] in "August Blue"; Thoreau in "The Concord Sonata"; and Soren Kierkegaard in "Mr. Churchyard and the Troll." But Kafka reappears here as well, sending postcards to a young girl whose missing doll is, according to Mr. K., embarked on a world tour. And in each of the two long stories we meet a just-adolescent boy, discovering his own sexuality and that of the world around him, with--in one case--tragic and heart-breaking results. Can every story be "the best"? Maybe not, but in this collection, Davenport comes very close