The New Yorker: "So It Is In Life" by Daniil Kharms

This week we have a series of short fictions by Daniil Kharms, a Russian writer who died in 1942. They might be called flash fictions today, or short shorts: one about a man who may or may not be walking down the street in a purple coat, another about a man who won’t or can’t leave his room, another about a Frenchman who can’t decide whether to sit in a chair or lie on his couch. It’s an interesting bit of experimentalism, but probably good that The New Yorker isn’t tempted to do this sort of thing too often.

August 6, 2007: “So It Is In Life” by Daniil Kharms