This collection of sharp, spare, occasionally absurd, cruel, touching miniatures addresses the fundamental difficulty we have in making the people we love understand what we want and need. Demonstrating that language and intimacy are as much barriers between human beings as ways of connecting them, Andrej Blatnik here provides us with a guided tour of the slips, misunderstandings, and blind alleys we each manage to fall foul of on a daily basis--no closer to understanding the motives of our families, friends, lovers, or coworkers than we are those of a complete stranger... or, indeed, our own. Partly parables, partly fairy tales, partly sketches for novels that will never be written, "You Do Understand" is a perfect comedy of errors--the errors of a species of talkers who've never learned how to listen.

Save your kisses for me
Was I?
And since I couldn't sleep
Melting point
QED
An almost perfect evening
Voyeur
Do it quickly, she said
Misunderstanding
One
Say that
Separation
Overload
Highway, high beams
I write these words
Words matter
The moment of decision
On paper
Other paths
Stains
In passing
Discourse
Learning
Crossing the horizon
Cracks
The man who didn't throw himself under a train speaks
A day I loved you
All over
Thirty years
Spinning
A single night
I can't decide
Experts
Sunday dinners
I think
The power of words
Home from xpand
Videotapes
The Stones meet my grandma
Coming
Becoming
A dark and stormy night
Officers' daughters
Cup of coffee
Final statement
On the house of honor
Own stories
End of the novel
Marks