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The Pegnitz Junction: A Novella and Five Short Stories
Contents:
The Pegnitz junction -- The old friends -- An autobiography -- Ernst in civilian clothes -- O lasting peace -- An alien flower.
In these dazzling stories, Mavis Gallant immerses us in the lives of ordinary people swept up in the upheaval and displacement that followed in the wake of the Second World War. A bitter yet stubbornly pragmatic woman prepares for what promises to be another disastrous Christmas with her mother, her aunt, and her would-be-war-hero uncle. Engaged to another man, a woman travels to Paris with her older lover and his young son. A wife recollects her complicated relationship with the refugee woman who had a brief affair with her husband. Small mercies form the backbone of a friendship between an actress and a police commissioner. A career soldier, now discharged and stranded in France, makes his first adjustments to life as a civilian. In elegant, diamond-sharp prose, Gallant distills the vanities, absurdities, and contradictions that lie at the heart of human behavior and fashions stories of rare power and insight.
The Pegnitz junction -- The old friends -- An autobiography -- Ernst in civilian clothes -- O lasting peace -- An alien flower.
In these dazzling stories, Mavis Gallant immerses us in the lives of ordinary people swept up in the upheaval and displacement that followed in the wake of the Second World War. A bitter yet stubbornly pragmatic woman prepares for what promises to be another disastrous Christmas with her mother, her aunt, and her would-be-war-hero uncle. Engaged to another man, a woman travels to Paris with her older lover and his young son. A wife recollects her complicated relationship with the refugee woman who had a brief affair with her husband. Small mercies form the backbone of a friendship between an actress and a police commissioner. A career soldier, now discharged and stranded in France, makes his first adjustments to life as a civilian. In elegant, diamond-sharp prose, Gallant distills the vanities, absurdities, and contradictions that lie at the heart of human behavior and fashions stories of rare power and insight.
186 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
Mavis Gallant
89 books256 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 1, 2018
For my first read of the year I was trying for something extraordinary. Or, at least, lovely. Got close to lovely. Never read the author, but apparently she was famous for her short fiction and well renown, awards and all. There is an undeniable melancholy sort of beauty to her stories, poignant evocative portrait of post WWII Europe, done in vignettes. The thing is it seems that the vignette quality isn't just due to format, it's a stylistic choice. It doesn't come across choppy per se, but something about the narrative just didn't quite engage me, despite the alluring vividly descriptive language. Toward the end of this collection the plots became more cohesive and less digressive and for such a small book, there's enough here to enjoy. It took me a morning to complete and as far as reading experiences go this was more like a thematic collection of great black and white snapshots (much like the cover one) as oppose to an immersive storytelling. Then again, this one seems like a book that'll be different things to different readers.
March 14, 2016
This was my first exposure to the short fiction of Mavis Gallant (though I had recently read the Paris Notebooks, about the events of 1968).
A Canadian journalist, who then spent the last 60+ years of her life in Paris and traveling Europe, Gallant was a wonderful writer, with an eye for detail and the peculiar turn, and (though not radical) not at all afraid of steering free of convention. She writes with intelligence, nuance, and an inner courage. She often published in The New Yorker, and came to epitomize The New Yorker (ex-pat) literary sensibility of the 1950s and 60s.
Neither especially plot-driven nor primarily interested in character *development*, her stories describe, with tenderness, wit, and irony, the lives and circumstances (the *givens*) of those who have been shipwrecked by history -- the European aftermath of WWII.
Best known for her Parisian tales, the stories in this collection are set in Germany. The Pegnitz Juncture, a novella, takes place on a train. It was deft and one of my favorite. Of the others, I liked all of them, but especially Old Friends, Ernst, and Alien Flower.
A very nice collection, and it has inspired me to read more of Gallant.
A Canadian journalist, who then spent the last 60+ years of her life in Paris and traveling Europe, Gallant was a wonderful writer, with an eye for detail and the peculiar turn, and (though not radical) not at all afraid of steering free of convention. She writes with intelligence, nuance, and an inner courage. She often published in The New Yorker, and came to epitomize The New Yorker (ex-pat) literary sensibility of the 1950s and 60s.
Neither especially plot-driven nor primarily interested in character *development*, her stories describe, with tenderness, wit, and irony, the lives and circumstances (the *givens*) of those who have been shipwrecked by history -- the European aftermath of WWII.
Best known for her Parisian tales, the stories in this collection are set in Germany. The Pegnitz Juncture, a novella, takes place on a train. It was deft and one of my favorite. Of the others, I liked all of them, but especially Old Friends, Ernst, and Alien Flower.
A very nice collection, and it has inspired me to read more of Gallant.
November 20, 2018
A collection that stands out in Gallant’s oeuvre for its thematical coherence, all the stories dealing in some way with Germans or Eastern European refugees and the aftermath of World War Two. It’s also a slightly more morose and maybe difficult volume than most of her other books, possibly because of that. A clear highlight for me was ‘Ernst in Civilian Clothes’, a story about two German expats in France. This story features some delicate comedy, especially in the description of Ernst’s friend Willi, a hustling translator and film extra who somehow stayed in Paris after his stint in the occupation army. Willi also figures in two other stories by Gallant from the same period not included in this volume: ‘Willi’, collected in book form only in 2009 in Going Ashore/The Cost of Living, and ‘A Report’, a story that was never collected in book form. These other two stories are more exuberantly comic, and that Gallant didn’t include them in The Pegnitz Junction can hardly have been because they are not good enough, since they are fine stories; maybe it was because their comic mockery would have jarred with the tone of the rest of the book.
That’s not to say the rest of the book is dour and glum: it’s simply more serious. And it can be a little difficult too, especially in the very long title story, at 26,000 words really a novella – and one of the rare stories of Gallant that was not accepted by the New Yorker, probably because of its length. This story, often cited by Gallant as her favourite (but maybe the New Yorker’s rejection also played a part in that?), is very good, very intriguing, but also more experimental than her other fiction. It describes the Paris trip of a 21-year-old intellectual German girl with her 30-year-old divorced lover and his little son – or actually their return to Germany at the end of that trip. As we see various people pass by who they meet on the train or simply view through the window in the towns they pass through, however, the narrative makes little excursions into telling the life stories of those passers-by. It is never explained whether this is an omniscient narrator roaming free, telling objectively ‘true’ facts, or mere subjective impressions or daydreams of the German girl who is clearly the protagonist. The latter makes most sense to me, but whichever of these two readings is correct, this makes the story harder to follow than her other stories. Maybe it is indeed her highest achievement; or maybe it’s just a story that will fail to satisfy both the lovers of hardcore experimental literature (in the vein of Bernhard, Beckett, Brautigam or Donald Barthelme, or even weirder authors I never got round to trying) who will think it tame, and the lovers of realist fiction the rest of her work mainly seems to appeal to. I’m on the hedge about that; I think I’ll have to reread it, and then maybe reread it again. It certainly seemed a story that may reward multiple rereadings.
That’s not to say the rest of the book is dour and glum: it’s simply more serious. And it can be a little difficult too, especially in the very long title story, at 26,000 words really a novella – and one of the rare stories of Gallant that was not accepted by the New Yorker, probably because of its length. This story, often cited by Gallant as her favourite (but maybe the New Yorker’s rejection also played a part in that?), is very good, very intriguing, but also more experimental than her other fiction. It describes the Paris trip of a 21-year-old intellectual German girl with her 30-year-old divorced lover and his little son – or actually their return to Germany at the end of that trip. As we see various people pass by who they meet on the train or simply view through the window in the towns they pass through, however, the narrative makes little excursions into telling the life stories of those passers-by. It is never explained whether this is an omniscient narrator roaming free, telling objectively ‘true’ facts, or mere subjective impressions or daydreams of the German girl who is clearly the protagonist. The latter makes most sense to me, but whichever of these two readings is correct, this makes the story harder to follow than her other stories. Maybe it is indeed her highest achievement; or maybe it’s just a story that will fail to satisfy both the lovers of hardcore experimental literature (in the vein of Bernhard, Beckett, Brautigam or Donald Barthelme, or even weirder authors I never got round to trying) who will think it tame, and the lovers of realist fiction the rest of her work mainly seems to appeal to. I’m on the hedge about that; I think I’ll have to reread it, and then maybe reread it again. It certainly seemed a story that may reward multiple rereadings.
August 9, 2020
Stories that need to be read s-l-o-w-l-y.
June 28, 2015
Not her best, but still pretty damned good. Mavis Gallant is most known for writing stories set in France, but this collection has more of a German/Swiss theme. What I love about Gallant's writing is the way she combines acute observation and sympathy with her characters with a bemused tone, but this detachment is missing from the title story, "The Pegnitz Junction," and from "An Autobiography". I can't help wondering if she unable to keep her distance from the characters in those stories because they are in some way autobiographical.
September 22, 2018
Not difficult to read, but some passages (particularly those dealing with a characters inner thoughts or feelings) are hard to comprehend. Sometimes I don't understand what she is getting at. These seem more like sketches rather than fully formed stories. More often than not, I'm left wondering what the point is. Some decent writing, but not engrossing. I haven't sworn off Mavis Gallant, but I'm not dying for more either.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2022
Weird in an unpleasant way Or i didn't get it. About ww2 Europe from the kinda wrong perspective, i felt, but - maybe it's just *me*.
July 15, 2022
Mavis Gallant is incredible. This collection is just wild. Highly recommend.
September 10, 2022
Definitely one of the best short story writers of the twentieth century, and this is one of her most interesting books.
February 15, 2013
I gave this book three stars because two of the six stories were wretched. But the first two and last two shined. The last story was especially bewildering to me--in a good way. I could not discern the narrator's true feelings but I believe that's because she could not discern those feelings herself. Mavis Gallant is not a famous writer but she is quite a storyteller and a crafted character-creator.
December 6, 2014
Gallant creates some really intriguing characters here, and does a lovely job of presenting them to us in concise, powerful and occasionally lyrical prose. But I find that her plotting leaves a bit to be desired - not the plot itself, but her telling of it. I felt like there were a lot of gaps that left me a little puzzled.
Still, you can see why she's one of the great story-tellers of our generation.
Still, you can see why she's one of the great story-tellers of our generation.
November 18, 2014
Nothing but good fiction going on in this collection, or at least decent fiction. The title story is great, but you may well find the true gem among the shorter pieces. Read this while disingenuous latecomers crow about Alice Munro - not that she's bad, but... if I need to explain it you're already lost.
April 4, 2015
This was an original 4-star rating for me but I found myself gradually unhappy with it as time passed and I returned to the text. While I understand engagement with texts that deal with the Holocaust must, ethically, be an arduous and uncomfortable task, this text is just too unapproachable. It does not provide enough for the reader to latch on to.
July 5, 2021
Post WWII
This was a very unusual book,. It sounded interesting, a story about post WWIi Germany. However. It was dry and boring.
This was a very unusual book,. It sounded interesting, a story about post WWIi Germany. However. It was dry and boring.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews