ALMOST NO MEMORY.<i> By Lydia Davis</i> .<i> Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 194 pp., $21</i>

Lydia Davis is one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction. Her language has such an inspiring air that it’s difficult to read without putting her book face down and writing yourself. It’s not the content of her stories but the manner and method by which she rambles--a contagious, ultra-direct phrasing. You quickly realize that the subject of a particular story isn’t really flies or the man and woman arguing about them, but the words Davis uses. She has one of the driest senses of humor on the planet, relying on subtle, awkward wording to carry each narrative. “Almost No Memory” reaches into a wide range of subjects. The consciousness that presides over each story is consistently flat, a flat monotone that ventures into delirium. She tells stories that are domestic, gently absurd, hyper-minimal. Her vocabulary has a utilitarian, carrots-and-potatoes quality, which is amusing coming from someone who has spent the last 15 years translating French philosophy and fiction. She takes great advantage of this simplicity, piling each word like a rock to form a wall of subtle strangeness. Lydia Davis’ stories are comic yet perversely controlled. It’s fiction on a short leash, tightly wound, with curious psychological underpinnings.