A Position at the University

I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university. Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely, and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.

Copyright Credit: Lydia Davis, “A Position at the University” from Almost No Memory, published by Picador. Copyright © 1997 by Lydia Davis. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg.

Source: Almost No Memory (Picador, 1997)

The Sort of Person You Imagine: A Discussion of Lydia Davis’s “A Position at the University”