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Paris Stories
Mavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker for close to fifty years who has, in the words of The New York Times, “radically reshaped the short story for decade after decade.” Michael Ondaatje’s new selection of Gallant’s work gathers some of the most memorable of her stories set in Europe and Paris, where Gallant has long lived. Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.
378 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
About the author
Mavis Gallant
88 books258 followersCanadian journalist and fiction writer. In her twenties, Gallant worked as a reporter for the Montreal Standard. She left journalism in 1950 to pursue fiction writing. To that end, always needing autonomy and privacy, she moved to France.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
In 1981, Gallant was honoured by her native country and made an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contribution to literature. That same year she also received the Governor General's Award for literature for her collection of stories, Home Truths. In 1983-84, she returned to Canada as the University of Toronto's writer-in-residence. In 1991 Queen’s University awarded her an honorary LL.D. In 1993 she was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada.
In 1989, Gallant was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2000, she won the Matt Cohen Prize, and in 2002 the Rea Award for the Short Story. The O. Henry Prize Stories of 2003 was dedicated to her. In 2004, Gallant was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
With Alice Munro, Gallant was one of a few Canadian authors whose works regularly appeared in The New Yorker. Many of Gallant’s stories had debuted in the magazine before subsequently being published in a collection.
Although she maintained her Canadian citizenship, Gallant continued to live in Paris, France since the 1950s.
On November 8, 2006, Mavis Gallant received the Prix Athanase-David from the government of her native province of Quebec. She was the first author writing in English to receive this award in its 38 years of existence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 227 reviews
September 1, 2019
Magnificent. I read this collection of short stories over the course of several months in the manner suggested by the author herself: "Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after the another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait."
It turned out to be advice worth taking. Rather than blast through the book at once, in a week or so, I was able to absorb each short story on its own. I frequently found myself thinking of a last story after I'd moved on to a completely different book. These stories stay with you.
Mavis Gallant's language is somehow at once sumptuous and spare. Gallant, a Canadian-born writer who has lived the bulk of her life in Paris, is successful in all the elements that make for good narrative, but it is the richness of her sentences that stand out. Consider a few gems -- with a caveat that some of the power is lost to lack of context -- but which reveal sadness and hilarity, simultaneously.
From "The Moslem Wife": "She was the only person Netta had heard who could make Mozart sound like an Irish jig. Presently Iris began to say that it was time Jack gave a concert. Before this could turn into a crisis Iris changed her her mind and said what he wanted was a holiday. Netta thought he needed something: He seemed to be exhausted by love, friendship, by being a husband, someone's son, by trying to make a world out of reading and sense out of life. A visit to England to meet some stimulating people, said Iris. To help Iris with her tiresome father during the journey. To visit art galleries and bookshops and go to concerts. To meet people. To talk. [...] She suddenly knew to a certainty that if Jack were to die she would search the crowd of mourners for a man she could live with. She would not return from the funeral alone. Grief and memory, yes, she said to herself, but what about three o'clock in the morning?"
Or from "August": "These perceptions, which came only when he was alone, when creaking or mournful or ghostly sounds emerged from the stairs and the elevator shaft and formed a single substance with the walls, curtains, and gray light from the courtyard, he knew were only the lingering vapors of adolescent nostalgia--that fruitless, formless yearning for God knows what. It was not an ambiance of mind he pursued."
From "Speck's Idea": "Walter in search of the Eternal was like one of those solitary skippers who set out to cross an ocean only to capsize when barely out of port."
Oh, were I able to write half as well as Mavis Gallant.
It turned out to be advice worth taking. Rather than blast through the book at once, in a week or so, I was able to absorb each short story on its own. I frequently found myself thinking of a last story after I'd moved on to a completely different book. These stories stay with you.
Mavis Gallant's language is somehow at once sumptuous and spare. Gallant, a Canadian-born writer who has lived the bulk of her life in Paris, is successful in all the elements that make for good narrative, but it is the richness of her sentences that stand out. Consider a few gems -- with a caveat that some of the power is lost to lack of context -- but which reveal sadness and hilarity, simultaneously.
From "The Moslem Wife": "She was the only person Netta had heard who could make Mozart sound like an Irish jig. Presently Iris began to say that it was time Jack gave a concert. Before this could turn into a crisis Iris changed her her mind and said what he wanted was a holiday. Netta thought he needed something: He seemed to be exhausted by love, friendship, by being a husband, someone's son, by trying to make a world out of reading and sense out of life. A visit to England to meet some stimulating people, said Iris. To help Iris with her tiresome father during the journey. To visit art galleries and bookshops and go to concerts. To meet people. To talk. [...] She suddenly knew to a certainty that if Jack were to die she would search the crowd of mourners for a man she could live with. She would not return from the funeral alone. Grief and memory, yes, she said to herself, but what about three o'clock in the morning?"
Or from "August": "These perceptions, which came only when he was alone, when creaking or mournful or ghostly sounds emerged from the stairs and the elevator shaft and formed a single substance with the walls, curtains, and gray light from the courtyard, he knew were only the lingering vapors of adolescent nostalgia--that fruitless, formless yearning for God knows what. It was not an ambiance of mind he pursued."
From "Speck's Idea": "Walter in search of the Eternal was like one of those solitary skippers who set out to cross an ocean only to capsize when barely out of port."
Oh, were I able to write half as well as Mavis Gallant.
September 20, 2018
Kitabın yazarı günlük okunması gereken öykü adedinin bir ile sınırlandırılmasını istemiş. Bu isteğe genelde uymama rağmen iki ya da üç öğün yaptığım oldu. Hem boş zamanım çoktu, hem açlığımı gidermem lazımdı, hem de kimi öyküler diğerlerine göre kısaydı. Yoksa yazarın isteğine katılmamak mümkün değil. Çünkü öykü standartlarında zor bir kitapla karşı karşıyasınız. İş güç içinde, gündelik hayatta bin bir dert ile uğraşırken bir ikinci öykü fazla gelebilir.
Zordu, çünkü yer yer proustvari bir tarzla, kılı kırk yararcasına meseleler didik didik ediliyor, o kadar çok ayrıntı işin içine sokuluyordu ki... Bu arada şunu belirtmek lazım ki, mesele ayrıntılara boğulmuşken, bir tane bile fazlalığın olmaması bir edebi başarıdır... Zordu, çünkü bir çok yaşam arasındaki ince geçişler söz konusuydu. Başka bir deyişle bu yaşamlar arasında birbirine açılan o kadar çok kapı vardı ki ister istemez kendinizi bir labirentin içinde hissediyordunuz. Bir öyküde birden fazla kişi konuşuyor, her birine söz geldiğinde onun zihninden yansıyanları dinliyorduk. Mesela Ağustos adlı öyküde, öykünün üç saç ayağı Bonnie, Bob ve Florence arasındaki girift ilişkiyi kah Bonnie'nin, kah Bob'un, kah Florence'nin zihninden okuyorduk... Zordu, çünkü hikaye yüksek ihtimal başka yere akabilir,savrulabilir, başta olanla sonda olan arasında nasıl bir ilişki var, nasıl buraya geldik diye kukumav kuşu gibi düşünüyor olabilirsiniz... Zordu çünkü anı, izlenim, düş bir aradaydı, bu nedenle hangisi nerede bitiyor, diğeri nerede başlıyor sorularıyla başbaşa kalmamak için hep tetikte olmak gerekiyor...
Ne yapmak lazım o zaman? Çaresi var bence. Elimizi taşın altına koyacağız: Birincisi yazarın her güne bir öykü isteği dikkate alınacak, ikincisi ise her öyküyü iki defa okuyacağız. O zaman tadı çıkıyor işte. O zaman anladım diyebiliyoruz. İşte tam o zaman okuduğumuz öyküye tam not verebiliyoruz. Eksik olur aksi takdirde. Ben, dört beş öyküyü iki defa okudum, iki üç tanesini de bir buçuk defa okudum, bazı kısa öyküleri de tek defa okudum kısa olması sebebiyle. Şunu söylemem gerekir ki her bir öyküyle ilgili uzun birer inceleme yazılabilir. Velhasılı Paris Öyküleri sıkıntılı bir okuma olabilir, ama özellikle kavgayı sevenlere önerilir....
Zordu, çünkü yer yer proustvari bir tarzla, kılı kırk yararcasına meseleler didik didik ediliyor, o kadar çok ayrıntı işin içine sokuluyordu ki... Bu arada şunu belirtmek lazım ki, mesele ayrıntılara boğulmuşken, bir tane bile fazlalığın olmaması bir edebi başarıdır... Zordu, çünkü bir çok yaşam arasındaki ince geçişler söz konusuydu. Başka bir deyişle bu yaşamlar arasında birbirine açılan o kadar çok kapı vardı ki ister istemez kendinizi bir labirentin içinde hissediyordunuz. Bir öyküde birden fazla kişi konuşuyor, her birine söz geldiğinde onun zihninden yansıyanları dinliyorduk. Mesela Ağustos adlı öyküde, öykünün üç saç ayağı Bonnie, Bob ve Florence arasındaki girift ilişkiyi kah Bonnie'nin, kah Bob'un, kah Florence'nin zihninden okuyorduk... Zordu, çünkü hikaye yüksek ihtimal başka yere akabilir,savrulabilir, başta olanla sonda olan arasında nasıl bir ilişki var, nasıl buraya geldik diye kukumav kuşu gibi düşünüyor olabilirsiniz... Zordu çünkü anı, izlenim, düş bir aradaydı, bu nedenle hangisi nerede bitiyor, diğeri nerede başlıyor sorularıyla başbaşa kalmamak için hep tetikte olmak gerekiyor...
Ne yapmak lazım o zaman? Çaresi var bence. Elimizi taşın altına koyacağız: Birincisi yazarın her güne bir öykü isteği dikkate alınacak, ikincisi ise her öyküyü iki defa okuyacağız. O zaman tadı çıkıyor işte. O zaman anladım diyebiliyoruz. İşte tam o zaman okuduğumuz öyküye tam not verebiliyoruz. Eksik olur aksi takdirde. Ben, dört beş öyküyü iki defa okudum, iki üç tanesini de bir buçuk defa okudum, bazı kısa öyküleri de tek defa okudum kısa olması sebebiyle. Şunu söylemem gerekir ki her bir öyküyle ilgili uzun birer inceleme yazılabilir. Velhasılı Paris Öyküleri sıkıntılı bir okuma olabilir, ama özellikle kavgayı sevenlere önerilir....
November 24, 2009
Gallant is one of the few writers, like Proust and Nabokov, whom I approach with utter delight and dread. Delight because her writing is so beautifully crafted and each phrase a treat; dread because as a writer reading her is so intimidating one feels that, not only could one never hope to write a story as good as hers, but even a sentence. Her images are precise and perfect in a way that renders them all familiar and identifiable, yet unexpected and fresh. Sentences such as, "All the fat men of comic stories and of literature were to be Willy Wehler to me, in the future," and "Sociable elderly ladies, such as Mme. Obier, no longer roamed the aisles looking for someone to stand them a drink but were stopped at the entrance by a charming person holding a clipboard and wanting to know if they were expected," are tossed off with as much ease and naturalness as a person taking off a coat. Toward the end of the collection, the stories delve into the territory of the political and offer some keen insights into the cultural shift that occured in Europe during the 60's and 70's. But in my opinon the real standouts are the stories toward the beginning of the collection that deal with the Europe of and around the World Wars. "The Latehomecomer," about a young man returning to Germany after being taken prisoner and kept in exile in Paris as a teenager in the Nazi army is a moving rumination on family, becoming an adult, and fate, and is a brilliant exercise in humanizing the seemingly deplorable. And my favorie story of the lot, "The Moslem Wife," about a pair of cousins who marry and run a hotel together until the husband embarks on a romantic tryst abroad just at the outbreak of World War II, leaving the wife saddled with a hotel full of foreign troops in the South of France, is one of the most devastating depictions of how experience -- particularly experience of war -- unites and divides us that I have ever encountered. It may be a cliche, but Mavis Gallant truly is a "writer's writer" and this is a collection to be savored by any and all fans of short fiction.
March 6, 2019
Bazı öykü kitaplarını tek seferde okumuyorum. Öyle daha anlamlı oluyor. Kitabın hissi, tadı sürüp gidiyor. Zaman zaman içinden bir öykü açıp okumayı sevdiğim kitaplardan biri Paris Öyküleri de. Hem ilk bahsettiğim sebepten hem de çok fazla öykü olduğu için içinde. Ve bu öykülerin çoğuna kısa öykü değil novella denebilir.
Aradan zaman geçse de okuduğumda tekrar beni aynı yerden vurabilen kuvvetli öyküler Gallant öyküleri. Öyle güzel ayrıntılar yakalanmış ki, bazı sahneler hatıramda dipdiri duruyor hala. Karakterlerin bazılarını gerçek hayatta tanıyor gibi hissediyorum.
Güzel bir öykü ansiklopedisi gibi önce baş ucunuzda, bitince de kitaplığınızın ağır topları arasında durabilecek öykü kitabı Paris Öyküleri.
Öykü severlere tavsiye ederim.
Aradan zaman geçse de okuduğumda tekrar beni aynı yerden vurabilen kuvvetli öyküler Gallant öyküleri. Öyle güzel ayrıntılar yakalanmış ki, bazı sahneler hatıramda dipdiri duruyor hala. Karakterlerin bazılarını gerçek hayatta tanıyor gibi hissediyorum.
Güzel bir öykü ansiklopedisi gibi önce baş ucunuzda, bitince de kitaplığınızın ağır topları arasında durabilecek öykü kitabı Paris Öyküleri.
Öykü severlere tavsiye ederim.
Read
July 31, 2020This collection could just have easily have been titled Homelessness or Lost Souls. Many of the characters have no sense of home other than a roof over their heads - there's no sense of home as a safe or comfortable place for them. And they are truly lost souls.
Reading Mavis Gallant's afterward, it seems that she was without a stable home from a very young age, and later became an expatriate, but it's often a mistake to equate an author with her characters.
Many of these are what I would call open ended stories. By that, I mean that even though there is an ending, it doesn't seem like a climax. I have the feeling that Ms. Gallant could have kept writing if she had chosen to. I mean this as a comment, not as a criticism.
The major problem I had when reading these stories was that I didn't have the sense that Mavis Gallant had empathy for many of her characters. She described them and and their situations with skill, but a sense of empathy was missing. I don't know if a writer has to care about her characters but, as a reader, I have to care about them, or at least have some sort of connection to them. I didn't find that connection here.
I could appreciate these stories for their proficiency and inventiveness, but the lack of emotional connections made reading them a somewhat empty experience. For that reason, I don't want to give the book a rating.
Reading Mavis Gallant's afterward, it seems that she was without a stable home from a very young age, and later became an expatriate, but it's often a mistake to equate an author with her characters.
Many of these are what I would call open ended stories. By that, I mean that even though there is an ending, it doesn't seem like a climax. I have the feeling that Ms. Gallant could have kept writing if she had chosen to. I mean this as a comment, not as a criticism.
The major problem I had when reading these stories was that I didn't have the sense that Mavis Gallant had empathy for many of her characters. She described them and and their situations with skill, but a sense of empathy was missing. I don't know if a writer has to care about her characters but, as a reader, I have to care about them, or at least have some sort of connection to them. I didn't find that connection here.
I could appreciate these stories for their proficiency and inventiveness, but the lack of emotional connections made reading them a somewhat empty experience. For that reason, I don't want to give the book a rating.
July 11, 2019
I've worked my way through half of these stories--had to take it back to the library. I'm sure I will check the rest out eventually--the stories linger. Fascinating and somewhat astringent tales of people we would now call expats, set during the fifties and sixties. Brittle and infused with a sense of entitlement, often clinging to their illusions about themselves by their fingernails, these characters make you cringe at their crankiness and sense of superiority, and laugh at the absolute specificity, and hurt for their inner wounds which have been so long ignored. Mavis Gallant spares no one--in certain ways she reminds me of Nathalie Saurraute, though not as experimental on the sentence level, she can really get you inside the cockeyed world of people who believe some privilege should be bestowed upon them and horribly put out when this does not occur. Very very funny and full of surprising turns.
July 10, 2019
Excellent.
June 17, 2009
This book was listed at the back of Francine Prose's How to Read Like a Writer. Years ago I added the first page or two of suggested reading from Prose's list to my Amazon Wishlist. Last Christmas someone gave me Gallant's Paris Stories and I've only now read all the stories in the collection. I'm not certain I've read more beautiful, direct declaritive sentences. Gallant's prose is so clean it's perfect. Her ability to slip from one character's thoughts to another's, sometimes within the same sentence, is startling and refreshing and entertaining. These stories inspire the imagination; they make me want to write. Some are humorous, others tragic; all reach a level of care and coherency that make the act of reading them one of heightened senses, of an almost anxious pleasure which pleads for them not to end, for the sentences to keep living and breathing with each exact word, each shiny, perfect step forward. Read The Moslem Wife. Read them all, and then find copies of her many collections and read those too. That is my plan.
July 24, 2023
"Ben insanlar hakkında hissedebileceklerinizin limitini keşfettim. Bir şey daha keşfettim, o da şu ki seks ile aşkın birbiriyle hiç alakası yok. Sadece bazen bir tesadüf olarak bir araya geliyorlar. Bu tesadüfün sürüp gideceğine inanıyor, o yüzden de evleniyorsunuz."
İngiliz dilinin en iyi öykücülerinden kabul edilen Kanadalı yazar Mavis Gallant'ın Paris Öyküleri kitabı, sıradan bir öykü kitabından çok daha fazla emek ve mesai isteyen bir eser okurdan. Bir kere öyküler hem yoğun, hem uzun; her biri birer küçük novella gibi düşünülebilir. Yazarın kendisi şöyle söylüyor: "Öyküler roman bölümleri değildir. Sanki birbirlerini takip edecek gibi arka arkaya okunmamalıdır. Birini okuyun. Kitabı kapatın. Başka bir şey okuyun. Sonra geri gelin. Öyküler bekleyebilir."
Buna birkaç açıdan itiraz etmek istiyorum. Evet, öyküler roman bölümleri değildir ve öyle hissettirmemelidirler - bana kalırsa bir öyküyü bitirip diğerine geçtiğinizde bambaşka bir evrende bulmalıdır okur kendini. Bambaşka kişiler, bambaşka biçimlerde konuşuyor olmalıdır. Yazar sizi alıp götürmeli, bir öncekinden çok başka bir dinamiğin içine sürükleyebilmelidir. Böyle olunca da arka arkaya okumak veya okumamak tercihi size kalır ama arka arkaya da okusanız bir romanı takip ediyor gibi hissetmezsiniz.
Bu kitapla temel derdim burası oldu sanırım. Evet çok güzel ve incelikli yazılmış metinler bunlar, Gallant müthiş bir gözlemci, bazı detayları çok iyi yakalıyor ve dili gayet lezzetli ama işte - her öyküde birbirine benzeyen insanları okudum gibi hissediyorum. Hem benzer meslekler (bol bol yazar ve ressam var kitapta), hem benzer konuşan karakterler. Bu nedenle okudukça birbirine girdi her şey. Evet yazarın önerdiği biçimde okusam böyle olmayacaktı muhtemelen ama buna mecbur olmamalıyız sanki biz okurlar, yazarın bunu sağlaması gerekirdi gibi hissediyorum.
Hal böyle olunca kitaptan aldığım zevk de gitgide azaldı. Hele ki yer yer çok uzayan betimlemeler de işin içine girince zaman zaman odaklanmakta güçlük çeker oldum. Bu kitabın seveni çok biliyorum, benim de beklentim daha yüksekti ama maalesef böyle oldu. Kötü dersem çarpılırım, ama umduğumu bulamadığımı söylemem lazım.
İngiliz dilinin en iyi öykücülerinden kabul edilen Kanadalı yazar Mavis Gallant'ın Paris Öyküleri kitabı, sıradan bir öykü kitabından çok daha fazla emek ve mesai isteyen bir eser okurdan. Bir kere öyküler hem yoğun, hem uzun; her biri birer küçük novella gibi düşünülebilir. Yazarın kendisi şöyle söylüyor: "Öyküler roman bölümleri değildir. Sanki birbirlerini takip edecek gibi arka arkaya okunmamalıdır. Birini okuyun. Kitabı kapatın. Başka bir şey okuyun. Sonra geri gelin. Öyküler bekleyebilir."
Buna birkaç açıdan itiraz etmek istiyorum. Evet, öyküler roman bölümleri değildir ve öyle hissettirmemelidirler - bana kalırsa bir öyküyü bitirip diğerine geçtiğinizde bambaşka bir evrende bulmalıdır okur kendini. Bambaşka kişiler, bambaşka biçimlerde konuşuyor olmalıdır. Yazar sizi alıp götürmeli, bir öncekinden çok başka bir dinamiğin içine sürükleyebilmelidir. Böyle olunca da arka arkaya okumak veya okumamak tercihi size kalır ama arka arkaya da okusanız bir romanı takip ediyor gibi hissetmezsiniz.
Bu kitapla temel derdim burası oldu sanırım. Evet çok güzel ve incelikli yazılmış metinler bunlar, Gallant müthiş bir gözlemci, bazı detayları çok iyi yakalıyor ve dili gayet lezzetli ama işte - her öyküde birbirine benzeyen insanları okudum gibi hissediyorum. Hem benzer meslekler (bol bol yazar ve ressam var kitapta), hem benzer konuşan karakterler. Bu nedenle okudukça birbirine girdi her şey. Evet yazarın önerdiği biçimde okusam böyle olmayacaktı muhtemelen ama buna mecbur olmamalıyız sanki biz okurlar, yazarın bunu sağlaması gerekirdi gibi hissediyorum.
Hal böyle olunca kitaptan aldığım zevk de gitgide azaldı. Hele ki yer yer çok uzayan betimlemeler de işin içine girince zaman zaman odaklanmakta güçlük çeker oldum. Bu kitabın seveni çok biliyorum, benim de beklentim daha yüksekti ama maalesef böyle oldu. Kötü dersem çarpılırım, ama umduğumu bulamadığımı söylemem lazım.
April 2, 2023
The Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant is another classic I kept trying to get into over the years, couldn't read because I found the writing stale, and have fallen in love with now. It really goes to show you that if a classic isn't working you really just have to read it in the right time in you life. Eventually that book will come to astound you... What's interesting about the Paris stories is how how peripheral Paris or the idea of it really is. In reality the characters of the collection come from various parts of the West and are trying to make sense of what it means to call a place home - often that place isn't even Paris. Frenchness isn't really a concern.
Gallant is also an excellent craftsman. She writes sentences that you could get lost in for days. Her narrative arcs tend to take unique turns. I'd start off a story thinking I'd be reading about a funeral or a woman's relationship to her hat, and it ended up being really nothing about that. And a lot of the characters are quite memorable, even if they only remain thought about in third person...
Gallant is truly an under-rated short story writer, and I look forward to revisiting her stories time and time again, when I am in the mood to wander into the European expat life of another century, and when I want to read something with effortless characters and prose delivery.
Gallant is also an excellent craftsman. She writes sentences that you could get lost in for days. Her narrative arcs tend to take unique turns. I'd start off a story thinking I'd be reading about a funeral or a woman's relationship to her hat, and it ended up being really nothing about that. And a lot of the characters are quite memorable, even if they only remain thought about in third person...
Gallant is truly an under-rated short story writer, and I look forward to revisiting her stories time and time again, when I am in the mood to wander into the European expat life of another century, and when I want to read something with effortless characters and prose delivery.
May 27, 2016
İlk öykünün bitişi Great Gatsby'ninkinden sonra okuduğum en etkileyici son. Okuyucunun öykü karakterleriyle özdeşleşme hissetmesi için en ufak bir çaba bile göstermeyen bir yazar Gallant. Ama öyküler, kişiler uzun zaman sonra bile aklınızda kalıyor, hatta aklınıza düşüyor. Being Malkovich filmi gibi, sanki karakterlerin içine girip, oradan dünyaya bakmışsınız gibi. Çok iyi bir yazar, hayranıyım.
March 18, 2016
Balthus and his daughter, Harumi Klossowska
Of the stories in this collection that I read and enjoyed -- I do not read everything; I love to skip and skim; I am not a "completist" -- which is, at the very least, a luxury of the young -- these were the best:
Ice Wagon Going Down the Street
Latehomecomers (... should be all one word)
The Moslem Wife (...which was my favorite)
Gabriel Baum (1935 -)
Remission (...another magnificent story)
Scarves, Beads, Sandals (...see the picture above... ;-)
At her best, Gallant is fabulous -- and I hope to reread these some day.
April 23, 2020
All criticism to come should be qualified by the knowledge that I expressly disobeyed the author's instructions (alas, in the final lines of the final page!)
Even before I learned that Gallant wrote for the New Yorker for decades, her style seemed to me exactly typical of that magazine's Golden Age - learned but worldly, not bookish; cosmopolitan but archly Anglo-Saxon; wealthy or at least pretending; viewing life as a wry, unserious thing. Reading these straight made them all somewhat blend together (well, except for From the Fifteenth District, a ghost story). I can't recall a moment of raised voices or strong emotion - at most nostalgia, regret, loneliness. Gallant left Canada early in her life for exile in Paris, and all of these stories (selected by Michael Ondaatje) concern expats in various European cities. All have the air of Old World grandeur - which to me evokes high-ceilinged cafés with blinds drawn during the day, waiters in white uniforms, elaborate platings - even when they concern the privations of the postwar period, or social upheaval in the 70s. I enjoyed the vibe, but I doubt I'll remember a single distinct story or character from this volume.
P.S. Today, after I'd finished it, I listened to this podcast, which relates that Gallant was cheated by her agent, who told her that her stories had been rejected by the New Yorker, while telling the magazine's fiction editor, William Maxwell, that the author was "unreachable in Capri", leading him to address his editorial notes futilely to
There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I may never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.Rather, that is, than blasting through it straight in three days (what can I say? Pandemic-induced lockdown.)
Even before I learned that Gallant wrote for the New Yorker for decades, her style seemed to me exactly typical of that magazine's Golden Age - learned but worldly, not bookish; cosmopolitan but archly Anglo-Saxon; wealthy or at least pretending; viewing life as a wry, unserious thing. Reading these straight made them all somewhat blend together (well, except for From the Fifteenth District, a ghost story). I can't recall a moment of raised voices or strong emotion - at most nostalgia, regret, loneliness. Gallant left Canada early in her life for exile in Paris, and all of these stories (selected by Michael Ondaatje) concern expats in various European cities. All have the air of Old World grandeur - which to me evokes high-ceilinged cafés with blinds drawn during the day, waiters in white uniforms, elaborate platings - even when they concern the privations of the postwar period, or social upheaval in the 70s. I enjoyed the vibe, but I doubt I'll remember a single distinct story or character from this volume.
P.S. Today, after I'd finished it, I listened to this podcast, which relates that Gallant was cheated by her agent, who told her that her stories had been rejected by the New Yorker, while telling the magazine's fiction editor, William Maxwell, that the author was "unreachable in Capri", leading him to address his editorial notes futilely to
Mavis Gallant
General Delivery
Isle of Capri
July 30, 2022
Witty, wry, often humorous. The kind of empathy I think most good stories need to have for short stories to hit. There’s just no time to build anything otherwise. From an old bitty bigot ruminating on an actress she once knew who was very nice for someone who isn’t actually French enough, to the a very short story about people literally In Transit at an airport - these stories are usually defined by a really great rendering of interiority.
I wouldn’t say they’re very “active” and they’re not connected, so they are probably out of vogue. They are exceptionally well written and vary in interest but are never in any danger of being put down by me when that happened, which is probably the best endorsement I can think of for a collection. There’s also advice on reading short stories I did not take: Read a story, put the book down. They are self contained and not meant to be parsed together. I have heard this advice elsewhere, and one day I might do it. Probably, it does make you remember and think on each one more. Even still this was very enjoyable in a 3 sitting format.
I wouldn’t say they’re very “active” and they’re not connected, so they are probably out of vogue. They are exceptionally well written and vary in interest but are never in any danger of being put down by me when that happened, which is probably the best endorsement I can think of for a collection. There’s also advice on reading short stories I did not take: Read a story, put the book down. They are self contained and not meant to be parsed together. I have heard this advice elsewhere, and one day I might do it. Probably, it does make you remember and think on each one more. Even still this was very enjoyable in a 3 sitting format.
May 5, 2025
Think I put off reading Gallant for a long time because she seems to be connected to the New Yorker (fairly) and Margaret Atwood (unfairly). The second one might be only in my head.
Favourites in no particular order:
Speck's Idea (a failing art curator embraces fascism. lot of good laughs at his expense and explains without any sympathy how a certain sort of person falls into fascism)
The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street (this and Irina kind of reminded me of Christian Petzold movies for some reason I can't quite nail down)
Irina
Grippes and Poches (comedic story about an author and his relationship with a controller from the tax office)
Baum, Gabriel, 1935–( ) (A Jewish refugee in Paris plays a Nazi officer in a film.)
The Latehomecomer (A German soldier returns from France in 1950 and struggles to adapt to life and with his self-conception of his past, he hates the older generation for taking his youth)
In Transit
Favourites in no particular order:
Speck's Idea (a failing art curator embraces fascism. lot of good laughs at his expense and explains without any sympathy how a certain sort of person falls into fascism)
The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street (this and Irina kind of reminded me of Christian Petzold movies for some reason I can't quite nail down)
Irina
Grippes and Poches (comedic story about an author and his relationship with a controller from the tax office)
Baum, Gabriel, 1935–( ) (A Jewish refugee in Paris plays a Nazi officer in a film.)
The Latehomecomer (A German soldier returns from France in 1950 and struggles to adapt to life and with his self-conception of his past, he hates the older generation for taking his youth)
In Transit
March 19, 2008
It took me forever to finish this book, and I loved it so much. The stories aren't dense, exactly, but they do completely create worlds that you have to put it down for awhile after each one to really think about what just happened. Someone take me to Paris. Please? I think my favorite story was actually "Grippes and Poche" about a self-centered, aging writer and a French tax bureaucrat. I know, it was a surprise to me, too. Also loved "The Remission".
August 16, 2014
Crossposted at Booklikes
I almost didn’t buy this book.
But I’m glad I did.
I don’t think I have read Gallant before picking up this book, unless it was in college during the Canadian Literature course I took. But wow.
Paris Stories is somewhat of a misnomer as half the stories don’t take place in Paris. The overarching theme of these stories seems to be that what people see and what actually is – in terms of relationships, reality, or anything else. They are about creative beings.
Many of the stories are just so stunningly beautiful and can turn so suddenly.
In terms of style, Gallant seems to be the love child of Austen and Twain (if Twain had actually liked Austen).
The stories focus on families, for the most part. A couple with children, a grandmother, a honeymoon couple, a woman and her tenet who is more than a tenet.
It’s a good thing that the stories are so good that I have trouble deciding which one of them is my favorite. There is “Mlle Dias De Corta”, a story told in letter form. The narrator is one of those catty and endearing women. Then there is “The Moselm Wife” which really isn’t about a Moselm wife. It has the sentence, “He read steadily but cautiously now, as if every author had a design on him” (102).
The stories are like Chinese boxes and Russian dolls. Hidden parts, rich food, and great wine.
Perhaps it is “From the Fifteenth District” a story about haunting but not in the way you think. It is somewhat “Irina” about grandmother who is not what she appears to be.
This review is crap because I cannot write about how truly wonderful this collection is.
I almost didn’t buy this book.
But I’m glad I did.
I don’t think I have read Gallant before picking up this book, unless it was in college during the Canadian Literature course I took. But wow.
Paris Stories is somewhat of a misnomer as half the stories don’t take place in Paris. The overarching theme of these stories seems to be that what people see and what actually is – in terms of relationships, reality, or anything else. They are about creative beings.
Many of the stories are just so stunningly beautiful and can turn so suddenly.
In terms of style, Gallant seems to be the love child of Austen and Twain (if Twain had actually liked Austen).
The stories focus on families, for the most part. A couple with children, a grandmother, a honeymoon couple, a woman and her tenet who is more than a tenet.
It’s a good thing that the stories are so good that I have trouble deciding which one of them is my favorite. There is “Mlle Dias De Corta”, a story told in letter form. The narrator is one of those catty and endearing women. Then there is “The Moselm Wife” which really isn’t about a Moselm wife. It has the sentence, “He read steadily but cautiously now, as if every author had a design on him” (102).
The stories are like Chinese boxes and Russian dolls. Hidden parts, rich food, and great wine.
Perhaps it is “From the Fifteenth District” a story about haunting but not in the way you think. It is somewhat “Irina” about grandmother who is not what she appears to be.
This review is crap because I cannot write about how truly wonderful this collection is.
May 8, 2018
Her birinden sonra durma, dinlenme, öykünün içinizde devamıa izin verme ihtiyacı duyuran muhteşem öyküler...
Özden Arıkan'ın çevirisiyle, Yüz Kitap tarafından dilimize kazandırılmış kitap, iyi edebiyat arayanlar için hazine niteliğinde...
Keyifli okumalar...
Özden Arıkan'ın çevirisiyle, Yüz Kitap tarafından dilimize kazandırılmış kitap, iyi edebiyat arayanlar için hazine niteliğinde...
Keyifli okumalar...
September 23, 2014
My favourite stories in this collection would likely be "The Remission," "The Late Homecoming," and "The Moslem Wife," which were gripping, followed by "The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street" and "Grippes and Poche." The collection was a bit of a slog for me, I think partly because Gallant's writing is very dense and it's easy to let it wash over you and then lose the thread. Beautiful sentences, careful and astute observation, but perhaps not imbued with empathy? While appreciating the sentences and the observations, I was sometimes unsure what to make of the whole.
April 4, 2017
Gallant'ın öyküleri dinlene dinlene okunması gerekenlerden. Günümüzdeki öykü tanımından da uzak diyebilirim, bazıları niceliği ve niteliğiyle adeta bir novella. Detaylar, incelikler, 2. dünya savaşı sonrası Fransa, farklı insan hikâyeleri ve çok iyi bir çeviri sizi bekliyor.
agos'a yazdığım yazıyı ekledim http://tembelveyazar.blogspot.com.tr/...
agos'a yazdığım yazıyı ekledim http://tembelveyazar.blogspot.com.tr/...
March 12, 2018
Holy crap at this quiet moment in "The Latehomecomer" where the son has been belittling the mother in his mind for always talking infrequently/softly and covering her mouth when she talks only to realize that her front teeth have been knocked or fallen out while he was gone.
March 15, 2015
To begin at the end, Mavis Gallant wrote an Afterword to this volume of short stories selected and introduced by Michael Ondaatje, which is, in effect, an autobiography of her life as a writer from her childhood in Canada through her decisive move to her expatriate home in Paris. I begin with the Afterword because it sheds light on the writer's mind, the stories, and the craft of writing; because it might better be read as a Foreword; but most of all because it is as well written as the stories themselves. Every sentence that Gallant published was crafted to serve the whole of which it formed a part. In the stories (filled with oblique narration, sly humor, intricate description, personality/culture clashes, and segues that depend heavily upon the reader paying attention and participating in the telling of the tale) one finds hints in the characters, the situations, and the tone of narration that allow one to surmise what might have gone on before and that invite speculation on what might be yet to come. These stories are not suggested for reading in airports between flights or in hospital waiting rooms. These stories require a library with lots of rich, dark wood, polished brass, soft and aromatic leather upholstery, heavy fabrics in the colors of malachite, with only the whisper of turning pages for background noise. A decanter of malmsey or a pot of Jungpana Darjeeling is optional. The point is that attention must be paid. These stories create worlds that the reader must inhabit in order to appreciate their art, so distractions must be minimized. And now we come to the rub -- as wonderfully written as they are, as evocative of the human condition as they may be, these stories are not fun. Gallant must have been a keen observer of the world around her and a good listener not only to what was said directly to her but also to conversations overheard. She must have been a marvelous writer to weave her gleanings from chance encounters into such magical narrative yarns of entire and believable lives of characters conjured out of air and woven together on the page to await the insights of her readers. But together they create an atmosphere that is the opposite of hope -- think lowering clouds and shutters closed against the sunlight. Gallant recommends reading one story and then closing the book to do or read something else before returning for another. That's good advice both in order to give the reader time to thoroughly digest what has been read and also to guard against the onset of depression (particularly a danger for expatriate readers, I would think). As Gallant observed, Paris Stories are not all set in Paris, but they were all written there. Nevertheless, in the City of Lights, she managed to find some dark shadows. Of many of her characters, one might well say with Vergil, "Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram."
September 29, 2014
Let's face it, everyone needs some Mavis Gallant in their lives.
Expats in Europe, post-war malaise, stories of those left out and discontent with society, all with a fantastic ex-pat Canadian flair. Also, supremely well constructed short stories on par with the best.
Expats in Europe, post-war malaise, stories of those left out and discontent with society, all with a fantastic ex-pat Canadian flair. Also, supremely well constructed short stories on par with the best.
April 5, 2026
Warning. Do not read Mavis Gallant if you are stressed or tired (as we all seem to be at the moment). You will miss so much because her writing is so dense and filled with details. In fact, I’m still not sure if I missed the humour in the first half of the book, perhaps it is not in the early stories in this collection or more likely I was so swamped by her writing style that I didn’t realise the humour in the stories until about half way through.
To explain a bit more about Gallant’s style - Gallant approaches her fictional writing of mid to late twentieth century characters as if she was a world builder, “developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology, is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers.” Yes, but of course she is not writing science fiction or fantasy yet she really does build a “world” for each of her characters and that is why (at least for me) reading her is a challenge.
For those chasing her short stories, which are spread across quite a few collections, here are the stories in Paris Stories. I won’t be reviewing all of them, just my favourites but at the very least I will try and give you a glimpse in each story of her style and all the details she creates seemingly from nowhere.
The ice wagon going down the street
Irina
The Latecomehomer
In Transit
The Moslem Wife
From the Fifteenth District
Speck’s Idea
Baum, Gabriel, 1935-( )
The Remission
Grippes and Poche
Forain
August
Mlle. Dias de Corta
In Plain Sight
Scarves, Beads, Sandals
For me, the first story was initially very elusive but after reading the excellent Francine Prose’s analysis of it, I realised that not even everything is clear cut, not even for a character. The Fraziers and their two children have led a very peripatic life, always on the edge of things, in Europe after the second world war. They are back home now living with Peter’s unmarried sister and the seemingly happy couple discuss their time in exile.
“Every Friday in May and June and part of July, the Fraziers rented a sky-blue Fiat and drove forty miles east of Geneva to the Burleighs’ summer house. They brought the children, a suitcase, the children’s tattered picture books and a token bottle of gin. This, in memory, is a period of water and water birds; swans, roses and singing birds.”
But gosh the end of this story, is I think after a second reading, the most powerful in the book.
Irina, who the family worry about, is getting old:
“She had written in November of that year that a friend, whom she described, with some quaintness, as “a person”, had come for a long stay. They liked that. A visitor meant winter company, lamps at four, China tea, conversation, the peppery smell of carnations (her favourite flower) in a warm room.” I enjoyed her thoughts about her grandchild.
The Latehomecomer is a powerful story and suggests with one character, what many, or even most, of the displaced people from World War 2 must have experienced. It is one of the rare stories told in first person.
“I had been in a prisoner-of-war camp at Rennes when an order arrived to repatriate everyone who was under eighteen. For some reason, my name was never called. Five years after that, when I was in Saint-Malo...the police sent for me and asked what I was doing in France with a large “PG: for “prisonnier de guerre” on my back.”
I enjoyed this story for the insights into Europe after WW2 but somehow didn’t really connect with the narrator, even after the tragic loss of his young friend, although the last line of the story is poignant.
In Transit, is very short and I have nothing really to quote.
The Moslem Wife for all its details, left me a bit cold I’m afraid. I just couldn’t get close to the main character. But then that may have been the point. Here are the two main characters, Netta and Jack:
“When they finally married, both were relieved that the strain of partings and of tense disputes in railway stations would come to a stop. Each privately blamed the other for past violence, and both believed that once they could live openly, without interference, they would never have a disagreement again.”
“I’m afraid that From the Fifteenth District left me a little baffled.
Sandor Speck in Speck’s Idea is one of my favourite characters. He reminds me of a later character Grippes who I also like:
Here is the opening paragraph (worldbuilding) of Speck’s Idea:
“Sandor Speck’s first art gallery in Paris was on the Right Bank, near the Church of St Elizabeth, on a street too narrow for cars. When his block was wiped off the map to make way for a five-storey garage, Speck crossed the Seine, in the shadow of Saint Julien-le-Pauvre, where he set up shop in a picturesque slum protected by law from demolition. When this gallery was blown up by Basque Separatists, who had mistaken it for a travel agency exploiting the beauty of their coast, he collected his insurance money and moved to the Faubourg Saint-Germain.”
Amid all the details we realise that Speck is indefatigable and determined. He decides on a new retrospective of a forgotten artist, Herbert Cruche. And as he deliberates on an essay to accompany the paintings (which he must ask permission from the artist’s widow to show) this is where I really began to notice the humour in Gallant’s stories:
“Easy, Speck told himself. Easy on the discretion. This isn’t interior decoration.”
Of course, he meets his match in the widow and their sidestepping, working around each other is a delight.
My favourite story of the collection is Baum, Gabriel 1935-( )
Gabriel lost his parents in WW2 and his only relative is an uncle who tries to give him advice on how to live his life. Gabriel ignores him.
“The Algerian pension affair rankled with Gabriel. He had to fill out employment forms that demanded assurance that he had “fulfilled his military obligations”. Sometimes it was taken for granted he had been rejected out of hand. There was no rational basis for this; he supposed it must be because of “Profession: Actor.”
I really loved the scenes detailing Gabriel’s career, mainly playing victims, while his German friend, Dieter Pohl became higher and higher up in the roles he played of German military officers. The play on real versus roles is really cleverly done throughout this story.
“Dear friend and old comrade,” said Dieter, “don’t take offense at this. Ten years ago, you would have been the first man chosen. But now you are at the wrong age. Who cares what happens to a man of forty-three? You aren’t old enough or young enough to make anyone cry. The fact-forgive me for saying so-but you are the wrong age to play a Jew. A uniform has no age,” he added, because he was also forty-three. “And no one is expected to cry at the end but just to be thoughtful and satisfied.” A brilliant take on the world of cinema by Gallant.
The Remission I felt was just too long but there were glimpses of magic in the form of observations by the characters:
“The children would recall later on that their cook had worn a straw hat in the kitchen, so that steam condensing on the ceiling would not drop on her head, and that she wore the same hat to their father’s funeral.”
“Like the residue left by the winter rains, awareness of Barbara and Wilkinson seeped through the house. There was a damp chill that crept to the bone. One of the children, Will, perceived it as torment.”
In Grippes and Poche, the novelist Grippes grapples with the unwelcome Poche, a tax inspector constantly sniffing about the novelist’s earnings. There are several meetings real and imagined over the years and their tusslings are often very amusing. Here is Grippes musing on one of his novels:
“What a mistake it had been Grippes reflected, still feeling pain beneath the scar, to have repeated the male teacher-female student pattern. He should have turned it around, identified himself with a brilliant and cynical woman teacher. Unfortunately, unlike Flaubert (his academic stalking horse), he could not put himself in a woman’s place, probably because he thought it an absolutely terrible place to be.”
Forain is a literary agent and I’m afraid I had trouble connecting with him or the people he deals with, particularly one of his novelists and the novelist’s widow.
The short story August is very good, my second favourite, but I am confused by it as it seems to be the last quarter of Gallant’s first novel, Green Water, Green Sky. Even down to the characters.
In August, Bonnie an aging and selfish socialite lives with her daughter Flor and Flor’s husband Bob in Paris. Flor’s mental health is declining but no-one realises how seriously. There is also no-one to keep Flor company during the month of August. When both Bonnie and Bob are going to be away. Luckily, or unluckily as it turns out, Flor meets a new American friend, Doris. Here they are with their separate thoughts about a painting:
"They all turned to the painting. Bonnie look at a bright patch on the bright wall and Doris at something a child of six might have done as well. Flor saw in the forms exploding with nothing to hold them together absolute proof that the universe was disintegrating and that it was vain and foolish to cry for help. Bob looked at a rising investment, that at the same time, gave him aesthetic pleasure; that was the way to wrap up life, to get the best of everything."
The last few pages from Flor’s point of view are devastatingly wrought.
In Mlle. Dias de Corta a crotchety old woman reminisces about a maidservant that she once employed:
“You called from a telephone on a busy street. I could hear the coins jangling and traffic going by. Your voice was low-pitched and agreeable and, except for one or two vowel sounds, would have passed for educated French.”
In the short story In Plain Sight, Grippes appears to be older and for the most part pottering about his apartment. Then Martha Parfaire, a tenant from upstairs offers to move in and take care of him thereby adding six years to his life:
“She knew he would not quit the junk and rubble of his own dwelling. His creative mind was rooted in layers of cast-off books, clothes and chipped ashtrays. For that reason, she was willing to move downstairs and share his inadequate closets.”
Of course Grippes can’t think of anything worse.
....”The only sound, once Grippes had stopped speaking to Mme. Parfaire, was the new elevator, squeaking and grinding as if it were very old. Allegra waddled into view and stood with her tongue hanging. Mme. Parfaire turned away and prepared to resume her climb. He thought he heard, “I am not likely to forget this insult.” There are such touches as the small dog, Allegra, that really make Gallant’s writing amusing. And mention of the stretcher!
“No one dies in Grippes’s novels; not anymore. If Mme. Parfaire were to be carried down the winding staircase, every inch of her covered up (the elevator is too small to accommodate a stretcher), her presence would remain as a blur and a whisper.” I think this is my favourite of the Grippes stories.
The last story, Scarves, Beads, Sandals is a meditation on marriage. Two in fact. Mathilde used to be married to Theo an artist but then they divorced and she is now married to Alain who she feels she is much better suited to and who shows more promise. Strangely though she keeps visiting Theo, all the while telling Theo that:
...Alain accepts her as a concerned and contributing partner, intellectually and spiritually....”
“Theo wonders about “spiritually”. It sounds to him like a moist west wind, ready to veer at any minute, with soft alternatives of sun and rain. Whatever Mathilde means, or wants to mean, even the idea of the partnership should keep her fully occupied. Nevertheless, she finds time to drive across Paris, nearly every Saturday afternoon, to see how Theo is getting along without her.”
This last story is very visual with previous relationships looked back on:
“When dinner was almost finished, the women would take off their glass beads and let them drop in a heap among the ashtrays and coffee cups and on top of the wine stains and scribbled drawings. Their high-heeled sandals were narrow and so tight that they had to keep their toes crossed; and at last they would slip them off, unobserved, using first one foot, then the other. Scarfless, shoeless, unbound, delivered....”
Of course, each story is imbued with the hint of the social and political times it is told against. Her intelligence as an observer shines through. Four stars for a formidable talent, even if some of the stories didn’t speak to me.
To explain a bit more about Gallant’s style - Gallant approaches her fictional writing of mid to late twentieth century characters as if she was a world builder, “developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology, is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers.” Yes, but of course she is not writing science fiction or fantasy yet she really does build a “world” for each of her characters and that is why (at least for me) reading her is a challenge.
For those chasing her short stories, which are spread across quite a few collections, here are the stories in Paris Stories. I won’t be reviewing all of them, just my favourites but at the very least I will try and give you a glimpse in each story of her style and all the details she creates seemingly from nowhere.
The ice wagon going down the street
Irina
The Latecomehomer
In Transit
The Moslem Wife
From the Fifteenth District
Speck’s Idea
Baum, Gabriel, 1935-( )
The Remission
Grippes and Poche
Forain
August
Mlle. Dias de Corta
In Plain Sight
Scarves, Beads, Sandals
For me, the first story was initially very elusive but after reading the excellent Francine Prose’s analysis of it, I realised that not even everything is clear cut, not even for a character. The Fraziers and their two children have led a very peripatic life, always on the edge of things, in Europe after the second world war. They are back home now living with Peter’s unmarried sister and the seemingly happy couple discuss their time in exile.
“Every Friday in May and June and part of July, the Fraziers rented a sky-blue Fiat and drove forty miles east of Geneva to the Burleighs’ summer house. They brought the children, a suitcase, the children’s tattered picture books and a token bottle of gin. This, in memory, is a period of water and water birds; swans, roses and singing birds.”
But gosh the end of this story, is I think after a second reading, the most powerful in the book.
Irina, who the family worry about, is getting old:
“She had written in November of that year that a friend, whom she described, with some quaintness, as “a person”, had come for a long stay. They liked that. A visitor meant winter company, lamps at four, China tea, conversation, the peppery smell of carnations (her favourite flower) in a warm room.” I enjoyed her thoughts about her grandchild.
The Latehomecomer is a powerful story and suggests with one character, what many, or even most, of the displaced people from World War 2 must have experienced. It is one of the rare stories told in first person.
“I had been in a prisoner-of-war camp at Rennes when an order arrived to repatriate everyone who was under eighteen. For some reason, my name was never called. Five years after that, when I was in Saint-Malo...the police sent for me and asked what I was doing in France with a large “PG: for “prisonnier de guerre” on my back.”
I enjoyed this story for the insights into Europe after WW2 but somehow didn’t really connect with the narrator, even after the tragic loss of his young friend, although the last line of the story is poignant.
In Transit, is very short and I have nothing really to quote.
The Moslem Wife for all its details, left me a bit cold I’m afraid. I just couldn’t get close to the main character. But then that may have been the point. Here are the two main characters, Netta and Jack:
“When they finally married, both were relieved that the strain of partings and of tense disputes in railway stations would come to a stop. Each privately blamed the other for past violence, and both believed that once they could live openly, without interference, they would never have a disagreement again.”
“I’m afraid that From the Fifteenth District left me a little baffled.
Sandor Speck in Speck’s Idea is one of my favourite characters. He reminds me of a later character Grippes who I also like:
Here is the opening paragraph (worldbuilding) of Speck’s Idea:
“Sandor Speck’s first art gallery in Paris was on the Right Bank, near the Church of St Elizabeth, on a street too narrow for cars. When his block was wiped off the map to make way for a five-storey garage, Speck crossed the Seine, in the shadow of Saint Julien-le-Pauvre, where he set up shop in a picturesque slum protected by law from demolition. When this gallery was blown up by Basque Separatists, who had mistaken it for a travel agency exploiting the beauty of their coast, he collected his insurance money and moved to the Faubourg Saint-Germain.”
Amid all the details we realise that Speck is indefatigable and determined. He decides on a new retrospective of a forgotten artist, Herbert Cruche. And as he deliberates on an essay to accompany the paintings (which he must ask permission from the artist’s widow to show) this is where I really began to notice the humour in Gallant’s stories:
“Easy, Speck told himself. Easy on the discretion. This isn’t interior decoration.”
Of course, he meets his match in the widow and their sidestepping, working around each other is a delight.
My favourite story of the collection is Baum, Gabriel 1935-( )
Gabriel lost his parents in WW2 and his only relative is an uncle who tries to give him advice on how to live his life. Gabriel ignores him.
“The Algerian pension affair rankled with Gabriel. He had to fill out employment forms that demanded assurance that he had “fulfilled his military obligations”. Sometimes it was taken for granted he had been rejected out of hand. There was no rational basis for this; he supposed it must be because of “Profession: Actor.”
I really loved the scenes detailing Gabriel’s career, mainly playing victims, while his German friend, Dieter Pohl became higher and higher up in the roles he played of German military officers. The play on real versus roles is really cleverly done throughout this story.
“Dear friend and old comrade,” said Dieter, “don’t take offense at this. Ten years ago, you would have been the first man chosen. But now you are at the wrong age. Who cares what happens to a man of forty-three? You aren’t old enough or young enough to make anyone cry. The fact-forgive me for saying so-but you are the wrong age to play a Jew. A uniform has no age,” he added, because he was also forty-three. “And no one is expected to cry at the end but just to be thoughtful and satisfied.” A brilliant take on the world of cinema by Gallant.
The Remission I felt was just too long but there were glimpses of magic in the form of observations by the characters:
“The children would recall later on that their cook had worn a straw hat in the kitchen, so that steam condensing on the ceiling would not drop on her head, and that she wore the same hat to their father’s funeral.”
“Like the residue left by the winter rains, awareness of Barbara and Wilkinson seeped through the house. There was a damp chill that crept to the bone. One of the children, Will, perceived it as torment.”
In Grippes and Poche, the novelist Grippes grapples with the unwelcome Poche, a tax inspector constantly sniffing about the novelist’s earnings. There are several meetings real and imagined over the years and their tusslings are often very amusing. Here is Grippes musing on one of his novels:
“What a mistake it had been Grippes reflected, still feeling pain beneath the scar, to have repeated the male teacher-female student pattern. He should have turned it around, identified himself with a brilliant and cynical woman teacher. Unfortunately, unlike Flaubert (his academic stalking horse), he could not put himself in a woman’s place, probably because he thought it an absolutely terrible place to be.”
Forain is a literary agent and I’m afraid I had trouble connecting with him or the people he deals with, particularly one of his novelists and the novelist’s widow.
The short story August is very good, my second favourite, but I am confused by it as it seems to be the last quarter of Gallant’s first novel, Green Water, Green Sky. Even down to the characters.
In August, Bonnie an aging and selfish socialite lives with her daughter Flor and Flor’s husband Bob in Paris. Flor’s mental health is declining but no-one realises how seriously. There is also no-one to keep Flor company during the month of August. When both Bonnie and Bob are going to be away. Luckily, or unluckily as it turns out, Flor meets a new American friend, Doris. Here they are with their separate thoughts about a painting:
"They all turned to the painting. Bonnie look at a bright patch on the bright wall and Doris at something a child of six might have done as well. Flor saw in the forms exploding with nothing to hold them together absolute proof that the universe was disintegrating and that it was vain and foolish to cry for help. Bob looked at a rising investment, that at the same time, gave him aesthetic pleasure; that was the way to wrap up life, to get the best of everything."
The last few pages from Flor’s point of view are devastatingly wrought.
In Mlle. Dias de Corta a crotchety old woman reminisces about a maidservant that she once employed:
“You called from a telephone on a busy street. I could hear the coins jangling and traffic going by. Your voice was low-pitched and agreeable and, except for one or two vowel sounds, would have passed for educated French.”
In the short story In Plain Sight, Grippes appears to be older and for the most part pottering about his apartment. Then Martha Parfaire, a tenant from upstairs offers to move in and take care of him thereby adding six years to his life:
“She knew he would not quit the junk and rubble of his own dwelling. His creative mind was rooted in layers of cast-off books, clothes and chipped ashtrays. For that reason, she was willing to move downstairs and share his inadequate closets.”
Of course Grippes can’t think of anything worse.
....”The only sound, once Grippes had stopped speaking to Mme. Parfaire, was the new elevator, squeaking and grinding as if it were very old. Allegra waddled into view and stood with her tongue hanging. Mme. Parfaire turned away and prepared to resume her climb. He thought he heard, “I am not likely to forget this insult.” There are such touches as the small dog, Allegra, that really make Gallant’s writing amusing. And mention of the stretcher!
“No one dies in Grippes’s novels; not anymore. If Mme. Parfaire were to be carried down the winding staircase, every inch of her covered up (the elevator is too small to accommodate a stretcher), her presence would remain as a blur and a whisper.” I think this is my favourite of the Grippes stories.
The last story, Scarves, Beads, Sandals is a meditation on marriage. Two in fact. Mathilde used to be married to Theo an artist but then they divorced and she is now married to Alain who she feels she is much better suited to and who shows more promise. Strangely though she keeps visiting Theo, all the while telling Theo that:
...Alain accepts her as a concerned and contributing partner, intellectually and spiritually....”
“Theo wonders about “spiritually”. It sounds to him like a moist west wind, ready to veer at any minute, with soft alternatives of sun and rain. Whatever Mathilde means, or wants to mean, even the idea of the partnership should keep her fully occupied. Nevertheless, she finds time to drive across Paris, nearly every Saturday afternoon, to see how Theo is getting along without her.”
This last story is very visual with previous relationships looked back on:
“When dinner was almost finished, the women would take off their glass beads and let them drop in a heap among the ashtrays and coffee cups and on top of the wine stains and scribbled drawings. Their high-heeled sandals were narrow and so tight that they had to keep their toes crossed; and at last they would slip them off, unobserved, using first one foot, then the other. Scarfless, shoeless, unbound, delivered....”
Of course, each story is imbued with the hint of the social and political times it is told against. Her intelligence as an observer shines through. Four stars for a formidable talent, even if some of the stories didn’t speak to me.
September 12, 2019
Oh my goodness-what beautiful writing-after each story you have to take a breath and let the story seep in.Each one a novelette really, mostly set in Paris-my dream city. Gallant is canadien and always dreamed of living in Paris and left her journalist job to move there and write. These are such evocative tales some so very lonely and sad and some full of love and mystery.lovely read cannot wait to find more of her writing.
February 27, 2013
"his real life a secret so splendid he could share it with no one except himself." (p.11)
"They are white-hot Protestants, and they live with a load of work and debt and obligation." (p.12)
"If she had been foreign, ill-favored though she was, he might have flirted a little, just to show that he was friendly; but their being Canadian, and suddenly left together, was a sexual damper." (p.13)
"Angels are created, not born. Nowhere in any written testimony will you find a scrap of proof that angels are 'good'. Some are merely messengers; other have a paramilitary function. All are stupid." (p.124)
"For a time her letters were like the trail of a child going ever deeper into the woods. He could not decide whether or not to follow; while he was still deciding, and not deciding, the trail stopped and the path became overgrown behind her." (p.177)
"A woman can always get some practical use froma torn-up life....She likes mending and patching it, making sure the edges are straight. She spreads the last shred out and takes its measure: 'What can I do with this remnant? How long does it need to last? A man puts on his life ready-made. If it doesn't fit, he will try to exchange it for another. Only a fool of a man will try to adjust the sleeves or move the buttons; he doesn't know how." (p.183)
"he suddenly recalled his dismay when as a young man he had looked at a shelf in his room and realized he had to compete with the dead- Proust, Flaubert, Balzac, Stendhal, and on into the dark. The rivalry was infinite, a Milky Way of dead stars still daring to shine." (p.241)
"Grippes believed in the importance of errors. No political system, no love affair, no native inclination, no life itself would be tolerable without a wide mesh for mistakes to slip through." (p.244)
"It was remarkable...the way litrate people, reasonably well traveled and educated, comfortably off, could live adequate lives without wanting to know what had gone before or happened elsewhere." (p.262)
"No present horror equaled the potential suffering of the past. Reliving the past, with full knowledge of what was to come, was a test too strong for their powers. It would have been too strong for anyone; they were not magical; they were only human beings." (p.304)
"The distinction between journalism and fiction is the difference between without and within. Journalism recounts as exactly and economically as possible the weather in the street; fiction takes no notice of that particular weather but brings to life a distillation of all weathers, a climate of the mind. Which is not to say it need be exact and economical: It is precision of a different order." (p.366)
"..there is no such thing as a Canadian childhood. One's beginnings are regional." (p.373)
"They are white-hot Protestants, and they live with a load of work and debt and obligation." (p.12)
"If she had been foreign, ill-favored though she was, he might have flirted a little, just to show that he was friendly; but their being Canadian, and suddenly left together, was a sexual damper." (p.13)
"Angels are created, not born. Nowhere in any written testimony will you find a scrap of proof that angels are 'good'. Some are merely messengers; other have a paramilitary function. All are stupid." (p.124)
"For a time her letters were like the trail of a child going ever deeper into the woods. He could not decide whether or not to follow; while he was still deciding, and not deciding, the trail stopped and the path became overgrown behind her." (p.177)
"A woman can always get some practical use froma torn-up life....She likes mending and patching it, making sure the edges are straight. She spreads the last shred out and takes its measure: 'What can I do with this remnant? How long does it need to last? A man puts on his life ready-made. If it doesn't fit, he will try to exchange it for another. Only a fool of a man will try to adjust the sleeves or move the buttons; he doesn't know how." (p.183)
"he suddenly recalled his dismay when as a young man he had looked at a shelf in his room and realized he had to compete with the dead- Proust, Flaubert, Balzac, Stendhal, and on into the dark. The rivalry was infinite, a Milky Way of dead stars still daring to shine." (p.241)
"Grippes believed in the importance of errors. No political system, no love affair, no native inclination, no life itself would be tolerable without a wide mesh for mistakes to slip through." (p.244)
"It was remarkable...the way litrate people, reasonably well traveled and educated, comfortably off, could live adequate lives without wanting to know what had gone before or happened elsewhere." (p.262)
"No present horror equaled the potential suffering of the past. Reliving the past, with full knowledge of what was to come, was a test too strong for their powers. It would have been too strong for anyone; they were not magical; they were only human beings." (p.304)
"The distinction between journalism and fiction is the difference between without and within. Journalism recounts as exactly and economically as possible the weather in the street; fiction takes no notice of that particular weather but brings to life a distillation of all weathers, a climate of the mind. Which is not to say it need be exact and economical: It is precision of a different order." (p.366)
"..there is no such thing as a Canadian childhood. One's beginnings are regional." (p.373)
December 13, 2016
Mavis Gallant öykülerin birer romanı bölümü olmadığını bu yüzden bir öykü okuduktan sonra kapatıp bırakmamızı söylemiş. Çünkü öyküler bizi orada bekliyor olur.
Eğer bu kitabı alma gibi bir hevesiniz varsa kesinlikle yazarın söylediği gibi yapmalısınız. Ben kendime yenik düşüp bir kaç gece boyunca 12'den 2'e kadar durmadan bu kitabı okudum. Bir öyküyü bitirip daha ne olduğunu anlamadan diğer bir öyküye geçtim. Birini okurken acaba bir önceki öyküde ne olmuştu, neden öyle bitti ya da şöyle olsaydı ne olurdu diye düşünüp durmaktan; o anda okuduğum öykünün tadını alamadım. İlk defa bu tarz öykü dolu bir kitap okudum. Gerçekten öykü gibi öyküydü hepsi. İnanılmaz güzel kaleme alınmış. Ve bir olay oluyor, okuyup gidiyorsunuz ardından bir bakmışsınız başka bir olayın içinden çıkıyorsunuz. Çok ustaca yazıldığı için ne zaman oraya geçtiğini anlamıyorsunuz. Sonunu bilmediğiniz bir yolun içine girer gibi öykülere dalıyorsunuz. Bu yüzden çok ama çok beğendiğim bir kitap oldu. (Bana biraz Virginia Wolf kitaplarını hatırlattı o yüzden de çok beğenmiş olabilirim.)
Tam bir konu bütünlüğü yok öykülerde. Adı gibi bütün öyküler Paris'te geçiyor. Değişik zaman dilimlerini okuyoruz. Benim en beğendiğim öykü "Ölümden Önce" adlı öykü oldu. Hikayede Alec Webb adında bir adam ağır bir hasta. Karısı Barbara, 3 çocuğu Molly, James ve Will ile beraber yaşıyor. Herkes Alec'in ölmesini bekliyor. O kadar çok hasta ki yataktan bile kalkamıyor. Daha sonra hastanede olduğu zamanlarda konuşmaya bile mecali kalmıyor. Molly üniversiteye gittiğinde annesi onu erkeklerle konuşmaması için tembihliyor, kimsenin arabasına binmemesini söylüyor ama işte Molly kendine yenik düşük Bay Wilkinson'ın arabasına binip kendini eve bıraktırıyor. Bay Wilkinson, Molly'i eve bırakıyor. Ardından neredeyse her gün Bay Wilkinson onların evine gidip geliyor. Böylece Molly'nin annesi ve Bay Wilkinson arasında bir şeyler olmaya başlıyor. Molly bundan çok pişman ve babasının ölüm döşeğinde olması onu yıpratıyor. Hikaye bu yönde ilerleyip gidiyor. Kitabı okumasanız bile bu öyküyü okuyun.
Kapak tasarımını ise ayrı beğendim. Bu yayın evinden aldığım ilk kitap oldu ama dahası gelecek gibi duruyor.
Eğer bu kitabı alma gibi bir hevesiniz varsa kesinlikle yazarın söylediği gibi yapmalısınız. Ben kendime yenik düşüp bir kaç gece boyunca 12'den 2'e kadar durmadan bu kitabı okudum. Bir öyküyü bitirip daha ne olduğunu anlamadan diğer bir öyküye geçtim. Birini okurken acaba bir önceki öyküde ne olmuştu, neden öyle bitti ya da şöyle olsaydı ne olurdu diye düşünüp durmaktan; o anda okuduğum öykünün tadını alamadım. İlk defa bu tarz öykü dolu bir kitap okudum. Gerçekten öykü gibi öyküydü hepsi. İnanılmaz güzel kaleme alınmış. Ve bir olay oluyor, okuyup gidiyorsunuz ardından bir bakmışsınız başka bir olayın içinden çıkıyorsunuz. Çok ustaca yazıldığı için ne zaman oraya geçtiğini anlamıyorsunuz. Sonunu bilmediğiniz bir yolun içine girer gibi öykülere dalıyorsunuz. Bu yüzden çok ama çok beğendiğim bir kitap oldu. (Bana biraz Virginia Wolf kitaplarını hatırlattı o yüzden de çok beğenmiş olabilirim.)
Tam bir konu bütünlüğü yok öykülerde. Adı gibi bütün öyküler Paris'te geçiyor. Değişik zaman dilimlerini okuyoruz. Benim en beğendiğim öykü "Ölümden Önce" adlı öykü oldu. Hikayede Alec Webb adında bir adam ağır bir hasta. Karısı Barbara, 3 çocuğu Molly, James ve Will ile beraber yaşıyor. Herkes Alec'in ölmesini bekliyor. O kadar çok hasta ki yataktan bile kalkamıyor. Daha sonra hastanede olduğu zamanlarda konuşmaya bile mecali kalmıyor. Molly üniversiteye gittiğinde annesi onu erkeklerle konuşmaması için tembihliyor, kimsenin arabasına binmemesini söylüyor ama işte Molly kendine yenik düşük Bay Wilkinson'ın arabasına binip kendini eve bıraktırıyor. Bay Wilkinson, Molly'i eve bırakıyor. Ardından neredeyse her gün Bay Wilkinson onların evine gidip geliyor. Böylece Molly'nin annesi ve Bay Wilkinson arasında bir şeyler olmaya başlıyor. Molly bundan çok pişman ve babasının ölüm döşeğinde olması onu yıpratıyor. Hikaye bu yönde ilerleyip gidiyor. Kitabı okumasanız bile bu öyküyü okuyun.
Kapak tasarımını ise ayrı beğendim. Bu yayın evinden aldığım ilk kitap oldu ama dahası gelecek gibi duruyor.
February 13, 2018
Even back when I was a total heathen about short stories, there were only two authors of short stories that I would occasionally pick up, Somerset Maugham (yeah duh, I go on and on about it enough I know) and Mavis Gallant. I have read a lot Mavis' stories from the old New Yorker issues, and boy nobody writes like Mavis does, she's a legit queen of descriptions and might I say shade. One of my favorite Mavis quotes is:
"Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait."
And when it comes to Mavis' stories this is spot on, you can never read a Mavis story and move on to the next, you need time to process, and flip back the pages because you are not sure what the hell happened and in a good way, you finish a Mavis story and go all 'wait, what?' and then you need time to process and think about the story.
This is the first time I actually picked up a collection of her stories and read them between other books, the way stories are intended to be read. There were some I liked more than the others: the Moslem wife, Remission, Irina and August were a few of the favorites.
"Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait."
And when it comes to Mavis' stories this is spot on, you can never read a Mavis story and move on to the next, you need time to process, and flip back the pages because you are not sure what the hell happened and in a good way, you finish a Mavis story and go all 'wait, what?' and then you need time to process and think about the story.
This is the first time I actually picked up a collection of her stories and read them between other books, the way stories are intended to be read. There were some I liked more than the others: the Moslem wife, Remission, Irina and August were a few of the favorites.
August 26, 2016
A GR friend whose taste and views I respect gave this book his highest rating. So I feel really bad and kind of stupid in saying that I didn't like it at all. Not one bit. And in fact, this is the second time I've tried to read it. True, I did get through more of it this time. I started at the beginning and read 8 of the 15 stories. I didn't like any of them. Gallant writes well, but I don't like what she writes about. All the stories depressed me except for Speck's Idea where I was so bored I eventually started flipping ahead to see how many pages were left. This was a short story with many pages.
I don't read to study literature, although I do look for fine literature and good writers, and I avoid what I see as hacks. When I read fiction it is to vicariously meet people I want to spend time with, or travel to places I want to be, and I didn't find either of those here.
I don't read to study literature, although I do look for fine literature and good writers, and I avoid what I see as hacks. When I read fiction it is to vicariously meet people I want to spend time with, or travel to places I want to be, and I didn't find either of those here.
December 10, 2014
In her afterword (which by the way is so long, it's almost a short story in itself), Mavis Gallant says, in her last paragraph: "Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after the other, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait". Well... I wish she had mentioned that at THE BEGINNING of the book and not the end! In fact, reading one story after the other was tiresome. So much in fact, I had dropped this book and forced myself to come back to it, out of discipline. I can say I enjoyed the first stories --her characters and environments are so well defined-- but I almost hated this book by the end and simply wanted to finish it up to move along.
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