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Green Water, Green Sky
Through the eyes of four observers, this novel tells the story of the relationship between a mother, Bonnie, and her daughter, Flor. With Venice and Paris as a backdrop, the frailty of the emotions that connect the characters is exposed through Flor's decline into insanity.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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714 people want to read
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 - 30 of 58 reviews
October 18, 2016
He did not know how to bring her back, or even if he wanted to, now. He had loved her; an inherent taste for exaggeration led him to believe he had worshipped her. She might have evaded him along another route, in drinking, or a crank religion, or playing bridge; it would have been the same betrayal. He was the only person she had trusted. The only journey she could make, in whatever direction, was away from him.
Difficult first novel from Gallant, a novel of unsettled Americans contriving to make Europe their personal theme park after the war. Consciously on Jamesian ground, Gallant's travelers are middle-class wannabes who look to reinvent themselves and their next generation, as they relocate with the season. Everything that happens here is calibrated and arranged to someone's 'advantage'-- whether in marital, societal, or monetary terms. Each moment has some careful calculation going on, and the novel is the log book of the sums, the balance-sheet.
The author chooses to glide between the four or five main character's interior monologues and assemble the whole thing loosely, with some overlap or missing elements here and there. So in one sense this is a travel story, fitted with spikes and doldrums in the emotional landscape. Fundamentally though, it is a love story, not simple but convincingly plausible, a couple finding themselves a pair as a solution to all of the pressing reckoning of advantage; somehow opting out of the game seems possible as a pair.
Along other lines, we've got conniving parents, faux-posh grifter types, unexamined bits of family history, an unfolding psychological breakdown, nosy neighbors and the swirl of rotating points-of-view to stay busy with. We've got Paris, Cannes, and Venice. Mavis Gallant is nothing if not a precision worker, though, and the colliding chunks of storyline are all constructed very carefully.
Seems to me that if anything this is too elaborate. There are three or four novellas here, and the author hasn't yet learned to trust her individual narratives. Telescoping or kaleidoscoping them must have seemed convenient at the time, or clever, allowing the montage strategy to cover her doubts. For me, it seems unnecessary; she's quite good enough on every level to let the modernist assemblage and cross-cutting take a summer holiday.
Difficult first novel from Gallant, a novel of unsettled Americans contriving to make Europe their personal theme park after the war. Consciously on Jamesian ground, Gallant's travelers are middle-class wannabes who look to reinvent themselves and their next generation, as they relocate with the season. Everything that happens here is calibrated and arranged to someone's 'advantage'-- whether in marital, societal, or monetary terms. Each moment has some careful calculation going on, and the novel is the log book of the sums, the balance-sheet.
The author chooses to glide between the four or five main character's interior monologues and assemble the whole thing loosely, with some overlap or missing elements here and there. So in one sense this is a travel story, fitted with spikes and doldrums in the emotional landscape. Fundamentally though, it is a love story, not simple but convincingly plausible, a couple finding themselves a pair as a solution to all of the pressing reckoning of advantage; somehow opting out of the game seems possible as a pair.
Along other lines, we've got conniving parents, faux-posh grifter types, unexamined bits of family history, an unfolding psychological breakdown, nosy neighbors and the swirl of rotating points-of-view to stay busy with. We've got Paris, Cannes, and Venice. Mavis Gallant is nothing if not a precision worker, though, and the colliding chunks of storyline are all constructed very carefully.
Seems to me that if anything this is too elaborate. There are three or four novellas here, and the author hasn't yet learned to trust her individual narratives. Telescoping or kaleidoscoping them must have seemed convenient at the time, or clever, allowing the montage strategy to cover her doubts. For me, it seems unnecessary; she's quite good enough on every level to let the modernist assemblage and cross-cutting take a summer holiday.
September 10, 2018
«Todos, no sé por qué, nos vengamos de alguien. Si tú eres tan mala con tu madre como ella dice que eres es porque te estás vengando de ella. Pero ten presente, Florence, que tu madre podría darse la vuelta y decir "Sí, pero mira a mis padres", y ellos podrían hacer y decir lo mismo. Comprenderás, pues, lo inútil que resulta repartir culpas.»
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Reseña completa en mi blog. Link en bio.
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La madre sueña que su hija es una sirena con una cola fea, un auténtico lastre que la simboliza a ella, la amputadora, la que no deja avanzar. La hija sueña con ser un pez y nadar, adentrarse en el mar, pero es incapaz de tan siquiera mojarse los pies en la orilla por lo que comienza a nadar en las aguas de su mente hasta que pierde la cordura. La madre se arrepiente de haber sacrificado su matrimonio por una aventura sin importancia, ¡ni siquiera estaba enamorada de él! y se centra en su hija, promete no volver a fijarse en ningún hombre, supedita su libertad a una dedicación maternal. La hija es apartada de sus raíces, sacada de su adorado Estados Unidos, de su adorado padre, de su adorado pony, de sus adoradas telarañas con gotas de rocío al amanecer, de su luz y sus colores brillantes y es arrastrada a una vida de nómada por Europa atravesando escenarios engañosamente idílicos... La madre cree que su obligación es cuidar de su hija pero realmente es ella la que necesita ser cuidada; la hija cree que su obligación es cuidar de su madre pero realmente es ella la que necesita ser salvada.
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Mavis Gallant, admirada por Alice Munro, comparada con Chéjov, tiene una voz narrativa brillante y a la vez oscura como se comprueba en esta historia de amor tóxico en la que madre e hija viven encadenadas una a la otra. La madre sueña con un pasado en el que fue hermosa y deseada, al que nunca podrá volver. La hija da muestras de tener «una grieta en el cerebro» que se agranda con el tiempo hasta convertirse en un foso. No hay salida y esa es una de las marcas de Mavis Gallant: su insistencia en que las limitaciones del ser humano son insalvables y trágicas.
Gracias a @pilar_adon por descubrirme esta #joyita de las #MaternidadesLit, a esta autora que es de las #imperdibles #imprescindibles
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Reseña completa en mi blog. Link en bio.
💚
La madre sueña que su hija es una sirena con una cola fea, un auténtico lastre que la simboliza a ella, la amputadora, la que no deja avanzar. La hija sueña con ser un pez y nadar, adentrarse en el mar, pero es incapaz de tan siquiera mojarse los pies en la orilla por lo que comienza a nadar en las aguas de su mente hasta que pierde la cordura. La madre se arrepiente de haber sacrificado su matrimonio por una aventura sin importancia, ¡ni siquiera estaba enamorada de él! y se centra en su hija, promete no volver a fijarse en ningún hombre, supedita su libertad a una dedicación maternal. La hija es apartada de sus raíces, sacada de su adorado Estados Unidos, de su adorado padre, de su adorado pony, de sus adoradas telarañas con gotas de rocío al amanecer, de su luz y sus colores brillantes y es arrastrada a una vida de nómada por Europa atravesando escenarios engañosamente idílicos... La madre cree que su obligación es cuidar de su hija pero realmente es ella la que necesita ser cuidada; la hija cree que su obligación es cuidar de su madre pero realmente es ella la que necesita ser salvada.
💚
Mavis Gallant, admirada por Alice Munro, comparada con Chéjov, tiene una voz narrativa brillante y a la vez oscura como se comprueba en esta historia de amor tóxico en la que madre e hija viven encadenadas una a la otra. La madre sueña con un pasado en el que fue hermosa y deseada, al que nunca podrá volver. La hija da muestras de tener «una grieta en el cerebro» que se agranda con el tiempo hasta convertirse en un foso. No hay salida y esa es una de las marcas de Mavis Gallant: su insistencia en que las limitaciones del ser humano son insalvables y trágicas.
Gracias a @pilar_adon por descubrirme esta #joyita de las #MaternidadesLit, a esta autora que es de las #imperdibles #imprescindibles
May 10, 2017
Green Water Green Sky published in 1960 is an interesting novel but one, I’m fairly sure, might not have seen the light of day nearly sixty years later. I could be wrong though because of Gallant’s oeuvre of short stories published by the New Yorker. It is a look at one young woman’s descent into madness or as it says on the unusual jacket cover - someone who is not there.
The book is made up of four parts. In the first section we see Florence, young and very pretty, from the point of view of her younger cousin George. They spend the day together in Venice - Florence, Florence’s very silly and vain mother Bonnie who since divorcing her husband has dragged Florence around Europe, never staying long in one place. And George who they are minding for the day.
Here is Bonnie explaining to George the reason for their lifestyle:
“Her husband Uncle Stanley had been so dreadful to her, he had humiliated her so deeply that she couldn’t live in America; she couldn’t show her face. She was condemned to live abroad and bring Flor up in some harmful way; harmful for Flor, that is. That was what Aunt Bonnie told him, in a high wretched voice, and Flor listened, bent over her plate, flashing a glance sideways, now to her mother, now to George, to see how he was taking it. She listened as if she had never heard any of it before, although it must have been her daily fare.”
In Part 2 we see into the inner workings of Bonnie’s mind - not a pretty place and beautifully done. And then we meet up with Florence again, now in her twenties and married. During this time Florence meets a new friend Doris.
In Part 3 we meet Wishart, a narcissist who seems to live off the generosity of others. “He got down from the train, holding his artfully bashed-up suitcase, and saw, in the shadow of the station, Mrs Bonnie McCarthy, his best American friend. She was his relay in the South of France, a point of refreshment between the nasal sculptress in London who had been his first hostess of the season and a Mrs Sebastian in Venice.” He “sees” Florence on a holiday when she meets her husband to be.
Part 4 I will leave for the readers to discover. There is a strong sense of the time in the novel - the late 1950s and the lifestyles of both McCarthy and Wishart - depending on the goodwill of others - seems inconceivable now. I mean, why don’t they just get jobs? But it is not the 21st century. It is the past where they do things differently. A finely nuanced novel for the discerning reader.
The book is made up of four parts. In the first section we see Florence, young and very pretty, from the point of view of her younger cousin George. They spend the day together in Venice - Florence, Florence’s very silly and vain mother Bonnie who since divorcing her husband has dragged Florence around Europe, never staying long in one place. And George who they are minding for the day.
Here is Bonnie explaining to George the reason for their lifestyle:
“Her husband Uncle Stanley had been so dreadful to her, he had humiliated her so deeply that she couldn’t live in America; she couldn’t show her face. She was condemned to live abroad and bring Flor up in some harmful way; harmful for Flor, that is. That was what Aunt Bonnie told him, in a high wretched voice, and Flor listened, bent over her plate, flashing a glance sideways, now to her mother, now to George, to see how he was taking it. She listened as if she had never heard any of it before, although it must have been her daily fare.”
In Part 2 we see into the inner workings of Bonnie’s mind - not a pretty place and beautifully done. And then we meet up with Florence again, now in her twenties and married. During this time Florence meets a new friend Doris.
In Part 3 we meet Wishart, a narcissist who seems to live off the generosity of others. “He got down from the train, holding his artfully bashed-up suitcase, and saw, in the shadow of the station, Mrs Bonnie McCarthy, his best American friend. She was his relay in the South of France, a point of refreshment between the nasal sculptress in London who had been his first hostess of the season and a Mrs Sebastian in Venice.” He “sees” Florence on a holiday when she meets her husband to be.
Part 4 I will leave for the readers to discover. There is a strong sense of the time in the novel - the late 1950s and the lifestyles of both McCarthy and Wishart - depending on the goodwill of others - seems inconceivable now. I mean, why don’t they just get jobs? But it is not the 21st century. It is the past where they do things differently. A finely nuanced novel for the discerning reader.
December 13, 2019
This elegantly written novella gives us four people adrift in a coldly bizarre family relationship: a divorced woman and her neurotic adult daughter, rootless and bouncing around European cities like Venice and Paris; the daughter's husband (who lives with them), and a dissolute male cousin who drifts in and out of the picture. The woman is clearly a clinging, deluded old bat, which partially explains her near-constant state of confusion and her daughters myriad, vague ailments. But there's a lot going on beneath the surface, at which Gallant's prose delicately probes but provides no solid answers.
March 8, 2014
The recent of death of Mavis Gallant, a Canadian writer who spent most of her life living in France, inspired me to read something of what she wrote. This short novel is a good introduction to her writing and I may have to try some of her short stories. The story is all about Bonnie and her daughter Florence...as seen through the eyes of several other characters. Bonnie is extremely self-serving and narcissistic. Flo...lingering on the edges of sanity. Gallant magically detailed August in Paris...I could feel the stifling heat, the lazy days. Writing like Gallants, for me, usually needs a lot of quiet time...so that I can absorb what she's telling me in the way she wanted me to hear it. Gallant writes about human nature, letting the inner voices of her characters come out and tell a story that may seem simple on the top...but is rather complex underneath.
July 31, 2019
0,3 estrellas
Estoy un poco dividida con esta novela, algunas cosas me han gustado y otras no.
La nociva relación de madre e hija está muy bien escrita y analizada, pero los saltos temporales y las apariciones de personajes secundarios, solo hacía entorpecer el relato. Hay mucha oscuridad y opresión en la historia, y eso se siente en cada línea.
"Bonnie los escuchaba esbozando una sonrisa y se sumió en la melancolía, preguntándose si se vería obligada a pasar el resto de su vida con gente moral, mental, social y emocionalmente inferior".
Estoy un poco dividida con esta novela, algunas cosas me han gustado y otras no.
La nociva relación de madre e hija está muy bien escrita y analizada, pero los saltos temporales y las apariciones de personajes secundarios, solo hacía entorpecer el relato. Hay mucha oscuridad y opresión en la historia, y eso se siente en cada línea.
"Bonnie los escuchaba esbozando una sonrisa y se sumió en la melancolía, preguntándose si se vería obligada a pasar el resto de su vida con gente moral, mental, social y emocionalmente inferior".
January 4, 2025
Very interesting.... May write more in future. Picked this up in Daunt Books after challenging both myself and Holly to buy a book that drew us in but that we would never have come across or thought to read otherwise. I think it was a success!
August 27, 2020
Stunning and heartbreaking.
August 17, 2024
An interesting little novella, though it took me some time getting used to exactly what it was about. I like the non-linear storytelling (obviously) and the different perspectives we learn from. This book is simultaneously thoughtful and very surface level at the same time.
July 29, 2025
Je ne connaissais pas vraiment Mavis Gallant, une écrivaine anglo-québécoise, mais après avoir entendu ma collègue Charlotte Biron en parler avec tant de passion, j'ai eu envie de découvrir son oeuvre. J'ai choisi ce roman - le seul, je pense - qui semble assez populaire. C'est un court roman, mais très dense et qui ne se lit que lentement (j'ai mis deux mois pour passer à travers). Cela ressemble à la fois à Henry James (pour la froideur tragi-comique de la narration et l'américanité qui est dépeinte), à Virginia Woolf (pour l'insistance sur les sensations, les décors, les pensées fugitives des personnages) et à Marguerite Duras (pour le vertige de lecture, cette sensation que c'est beau mais en même temps incompréhensible, presqu'indigestible, comme dans 'Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein' ou 'Les petits chevaux de Tarquinia'). La plume est agile et mature, mais c'est le genre d'oeuvre dans laquelle on n'arrive jamais à entrer et qui nous laisse une sorte de sensation de vide. Je pense que les nouvelles de l'autrice doivent être une meilleure porte d'entrée pour saisir vraiment son univers et son talent.
January 10, 2022
A mi entender hay tres maneras de hacer una gran novela:
1. Inventarse una gran historia que no hayamos leído ocho mil veces antes.
2. Tener una enorme capacidad creativa, de tal manera que la propia narrativa sea la protagonista, más allá de la historia que se cuente.
3. Conjugar las dos anteriores: una buenísima historia con una buenísima capacidad narrativa.
En el caso que nos ocupa tengo que decir que el libro de Mavis Gallant no cumple ninguno de los tres requisitos. Su estilo literario no es gran cosa (aunque es de sus primeros trabajos, así que no puedo juzgar el resto de su obra) y la historia es incluso peor, de una banalidad tremenda. O al menos así la he sentido yo, que la he leído pasando por sus páginas sin inmutarme lo más mínimo por lo que le ocurre a los personajes.
Yo diría que lo mejor del libro es su título y la portada de esta edición de Impedimenta, que lo hacen muy atractivo a pesar de que luego, por dentro, no lo sea.
1. Inventarse una gran historia que no hayamos leído ocho mil veces antes.
2. Tener una enorme capacidad creativa, de tal manera que la propia narrativa sea la protagonista, más allá de la historia que se cuente.
3. Conjugar las dos anteriores: una buenísima historia con una buenísima capacidad narrativa.
En el caso que nos ocupa tengo que decir que el libro de Mavis Gallant no cumple ninguno de los tres requisitos. Su estilo literario no es gran cosa (aunque es de sus primeros trabajos, así que no puedo juzgar el resto de su obra) y la historia es incluso peor, de una banalidad tremenda. O al menos así la he sentido yo, que la he leído pasando por sus páginas sin inmutarme lo más mínimo por lo que le ocurre a los personajes.
Yo diría que lo mejor del libro es su título y la portada de esta edición de Impedimenta, que lo hacen muy atractivo a pesar de que luego, por dentro, no lo sea.
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September 4, 2024Lacking an emotional country, it might be possible to consider another person one's home. She pressed her face against his unmoving arm, accepting everything imperfect, as one accepts a faulty but beloved country, or the language in which one's thoughts are formed. It was the most dangerous of ideas, this 'only you can save me', but her need to think it was so overwhelming that she wondered if this was what men, in the past, had been trying to say when they had talked about love.
January 23, 2022
Me ha dejado un poco igual este libro, la verdad. Está bien escrito y tiene partes de la trama más interesantes, pero más allá de la relación nociva madre-hija y la salud mental de esta, poco más hay.
October 31, 2024
excellent character study
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May 13, 2024Plotless fiction at its best. Reminiscent of Henry James in its subtlety and characterizations.
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July 18, 2021
Un retrato de una familia “wasp” de Nueva York, centrada en una madre y una hija desterradas a Europa, desarraigadas y con una relación bastante tóxica. Me gustó la descripción del ambiente y me aburrió un poco la descripción psicológica de los personajes. Últimamente me sobra este aspecto en libros muy distintos.
February 24, 2014
In what is essentially a novel told in four short stories, Gallant introduces Florence McCarthy from four points of view, beginning with George, who is seven years old, half her age when the story opens in Venice. George is just discovering how he feels about the people in his life, including Flo, who seems hard to grasp. He returns in the last installment, a young college man finding his feet and remembering Flo and their first meeting in Venice.
Bonnie McCarthy, Flo’s mother, moved her small family to Europe after her former husband discovers her infidelity and divorces her. A silly, vain and selfish woman who is not above manipulating people for her own ends, Bonnie fails to see the damage she is doing to others, especially to Flo, an adolescent who finds she has no place in the world and no identity. Despite her failure to develop as Bonnie would want, Flo meets and marries a kind, generous, and rich young man, Bob Harris. Bonnie doesn’t like him, but she does like his money. Much of this aspect of the story reminded me of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, with the mother’s incessant harping on her daughter’s failure to attract worthy suitors. In this story, Flo does attract the occasional suitor, and Bonnie despises all of them, including the one she marries. Bob turns out to be generous and decent to Bonnie regardless of the sad turns his marriage takes.
The final point of view comes through Wishart, a middle-aged man who distills in his false character the sins of Bonnie and her sort. Born poor and British, Wishart has managed to remake himself as a well-to-do American, and much of his annual summer vacation is spent playing out this new version of himself among the wealthy and titled in Europe. His concern with making a good impression on Bonnie year after year evaporates when he realizes that she is poor, and only Bob, the despised son-in-law, has any money.
The richness of this book lies not in the plot but in the way each person thinks about the others and their inter-relations, grows aware of his or her own thoughts, and the way one person can destroy another by feeding one’s own needs. Gallant is a master at intuiting the individual’s weakness and character, and the short appearance of the young abandoned American wife Doris is vividly drawn and insightful. Gallant captures in that one American character a vast array of differences between European and American women, and between youth and maturity.
Bonnie McCarthy, Flo’s mother, moved her small family to Europe after her former husband discovers her infidelity and divorces her. A silly, vain and selfish woman who is not above manipulating people for her own ends, Bonnie fails to see the damage she is doing to others, especially to Flo, an adolescent who finds she has no place in the world and no identity. Despite her failure to develop as Bonnie would want, Flo meets and marries a kind, generous, and rich young man, Bob Harris. Bonnie doesn’t like him, but she does like his money. Much of this aspect of the story reminded me of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, with the mother’s incessant harping on her daughter’s failure to attract worthy suitors. In this story, Flo does attract the occasional suitor, and Bonnie despises all of them, including the one she marries. Bob turns out to be generous and decent to Bonnie regardless of the sad turns his marriage takes.
The final point of view comes through Wishart, a middle-aged man who distills in his false character the sins of Bonnie and her sort. Born poor and British, Wishart has managed to remake himself as a well-to-do American, and much of his annual summer vacation is spent playing out this new version of himself among the wealthy and titled in Europe. His concern with making a good impression on Bonnie year after year evaporates when he realizes that she is poor, and only Bob, the despised son-in-law, has any money.
The richness of this book lies not in the plot but in the way each person thinks about the others and their inter-relations, grows aware of his or her own thoughts, and the way one person can destroy another by feeding one’s own needs. Gallant is a master at intuiting the individual’s weakness and character, and the short appearance of the young abandoned American wife Doris is vividly drawn and insightful. Gallant captures in that one American character a vast array of differences between European and American women, and between youth and maturity.
August 23, 2014
I picked up this book because two of my favorite authors cited Mavis Gallant as one of their favorite authors. I can see why. The language is beautiful. The cities live as characters - Cannes, Paris, Venice. The characters are complex and infuriating, and so very human. My only complaint has more to do with me than the book. I am not good at navigating too many subtexts in a social situation, and this book is rife with them. What is said is only the very tip of the surface of what is going on, which often leaves me a bit bewildered.
The primary characters are Flor, a young woman slowly going mad, and Bonnie, her controlling mother, who is demented in a more socially acceptable way. Then there is Bob Harris, who has married into the mess, and confusingly to me, a cousin George. Late in the book another character appears, Mr. Wishart, whose main function as far as I could see was to show Bonnie and Flor from a cynical but uninvolved viewpoint, and to give a way to explore Flor and Bob's early relationship. I admit the story is somewhat weak on plot, but I would argue that this is irrelevant. I suppose it could be summed up as the tragedy of being a shallow, selfish person.
Really no one in the entire story is likable, but they are fascinating in their own ways. My primary sensation from the book is sunlight. The story takes place in summer, for the most part, and the unrelenting sunshine seems important and symbolic. Colors are sharp and romantic cities are shown in both their romance and their sad inability to live up to the impossible promises. Flor's desperate desire to stay in a dark room, shutter her windows, and avoid the light as much as possible to me stood out even more because of the sunlight described.
I will have to read more of Mavis Gallant.
The primary characters are Flor, a young woman slowly going mad, and Bonnie, her controlling mother, who is demented in a more socially acceptable way. Then there is Bob Harris, who has married into the mess, and confusingly to me, a cousin George. Late in the book another character appears, Mr. Wishart, whose main function as far as I could see was to show Bonnie and Flor from a cynical but uninvolved viewpoint, and to give a way to explore Flor and Bob's early relationship. I admit the story is somewhat weak on plot, but I would argue that this is irrelevant. I suppose it could be summed up as the tragedy of being a shallow, selfish person.
Really no one in the entire story is likable, but they are fascinating in their own ways. My primary sensation from the book is sunlight. The story takes place in summer, for the most part, and the unrelenting sunshine seems important and symbolic. Colors are sharp and romantic cities are shown in both their romance and their sad inability to live up to the impossible promises. Flor's desperate desire to stay in a dark room, shutter her windows, and avoid the light as much as possible to me stood out even more because of the sunlight described.
I will have to read more of Mavis Gallant.
January 23, 2014
I think it's the characterization that doesn't sit well with me in this one. It seems somehow insufficient for a novel, although it would be just fine if this had been published as four separate shorts. The four perspectives don't give us any advantage in our attempt to identify with Flor, the protagonist, or any other character for that matter. Perhaps Gallant didn't mean for us to identify with anyone, but it is awfully hard to care about these characters or what their story might have to offer to our understanding of the human condition without being able to identify with any of them on any level.
Perhaps there is something in not being able to identify with any of these disconnected characters after all: perhaps they show us that genuine connections are only ever fleeting, passing, and that our attempts to mask our isolation by holding close a family member, friend, or even an idea of a loved one will ultimately be for nought...we are, after all, alone in death.
Aside from the characterization, Gallant's writing is rich and full, as ever. She remains one of my favorites, and in my reckoning one of the best short story writers of our time.
Perhaps there is something in not being able to identify with any of these disconnected characters after all: perhaps they show us that genuine connections are only ever fleeting, passing, and that our attempts to mask our isolation by holding close a family member, friend, or even an idea of a loved one will ultimately be for nought...we are, after all, alone in death.
Aside from the characterization, Gallant's writing is rich and full, as ever. She remains one of my favorites, and in my reckoning one of the best short story writers of our time.
May 21, 2018
I can see why some people find the novel skimpy when it comes to characterization, but I found that certain passages skewered a character so elegantly that Gallant's decision to eschew the deeper, layered, psychological probing of most contemporary fiction helps to convey the profound disassociation and disaffection of the main characters of this piece, and the way the narrative approaches and retreats from Flor, the lost and brittle centre of the book (though each character thinks she or he is the centre) creates a compelling insight on the virtual impossibility of anyone connecting with anyone ever even while people have moments of profound insight, accidental and unwelcome, about their own perceptions.
October 15, 2020
Ya han pasado varias semanas desde que terminé de leer este libro, y todavía sigo pensando en él. Aunque, verdaderamente, no tengo muy claro cómo es que me siento al respecto, esta novela resonó mucho conmigo y de cierta forma, me hizo sentir nostálgica; pero de esa nostalgia melancólica, de tiempos que uno desearía olvidar mas sigue recordando porque nos han marcado demasiado. La verdad, un libro que seguiré recordando por los años venideros.
February 21, 2019
Dudé mucho si darle cuatro estrellas o no a esta novela. Está muy bien escrita. Impecable. Pero realmente le falta contenido. Una historia que no me ha dejado nada, y que en algunos pasajes se puso muy densa. Personajes desabridos. Paisajes archiconocidos por todos nosotros. Un mensaje difícil de descifrar.
October 30, 2020
Me costó agarrarle el ritmo a este libro, básicamente porque todos los personajes (Bonnie, Florence, George, Bob, Wishart, la vecina) me desagradaron. De todas formas, rescato la escritura y la relación tan tóxica entre mamá e hija, y la extrañeza del amor/odio que sentía George por su prima.
October 19, 2023
Disparejo. La primera mitad me pareció un texto cruel
y realista. La segunda siento que pierde fuerza. Aún así el ojo clínico de Mavis Gallant para captar la esencia de sus personajes es muy notable.
y realista. La segunda siento que pierde fuerza. Aún así el ojo clínico de Mavis Gallant para captar la esencia de sus personajes es muy notable.
October 1, 2020
3.5 stars.
November 10, 2024
3.75
I’ve already read the bell jar and my year of rest and relaxation this year and I feel like Green water green sky paved the way to enable those two other books to exist later.
I’ve already read the bell jar and my year of rest and relaxation this year and I feel like Green water green sky paved the way to enable those two other books to exist later.
July 16, 2024
There’s a scene near the beginning of Mavis Gallant’s 1959 novella Green Water, Green Sky which seems to encapsulate this stunning book. We are in Venice in the height of summer. Seven-year-old Georgie has been left in the company of his fussy Aunt Bonnie and fourteen-year-old cousin Flor (short for Florence), who clearly has no time for the boy. While Georgie’s parents explore the Venetian galleries for the day, Bonnie takes Flor and young Georgie to the beach. As midday approaches, Flor dashes off and returns, brandishing a cheap glass-bead necklace, an impulse buy from a stall. But as soon as she tries to place the necklace over her head, it breaks, scattering the jewelled beads all over the ground.
The glass beads rolled and bounded all over the paving; pigeons fluttered after them, thinking they were grains of corn. The necklace breaking, the hotly blowing wind, excited Flor. She unstrung the beads still in her hands and flung them after the others, making a wild upward movement with her palms. ‘Oh, stop it,’ her mother cried, for people were looking, and Flor did appear rather mad, with her hair flying and her dress blowing so that anybody could see the starched petticoat underneath, and the sunburned thighs. (p. 9)
It’s a memorable scene, notable for its vivid visual imagery – a trademark of Gallant’s — and its signalling of one of the novella’s key themes. Namely, the snapping of something beautiful and fragile. As this shimmering novella unfolds, it reveals an unravelling – Flor’s unravelling – amidst the heat of the summer sun. At fourteen, Flor is already uneasy in her skin, lacking a sense of belonging in a transient, ephemeral world.
Just shy of forty, Bonnie McCarthy has removed herself and daughter Flor to Europe following the breakdown of her marriage. There the pair lead a roving existence, shuttling between Venice, Paris and the south of France, somewhat dependent on the generosity of others.
In essence, Georgie is struggling to understand the complex family dynamics being played out around him. His aunt’s disdain for her former husband, Stanley, Flor’s prickly behaviour and apparent dislike for her cousin, and his parents’ decision to sneak off for the day without warning, all come together to unsettle Georgie. He dislikes Flor and Bonnie, and feels hurt at being abandoned by his parents.
In George’s memory it was here that Florence cried: ‘She’ll never do anything anymore. I’ll always keep her with me.’ […] She meant these words, they weren’t intended for George. It was a solemn promise, a cry of despair, love and resentment so woven together that even Flor couldn’t tell them apart. (p. 15)
The intertwining of love and resentment mentioned here is one of the novella’s key themes, ‘always there, one reflecting the other, water under sky’ (p. 23)
As part one comes to a close, there are more hints of Flor’s fragility, as glimpsed in the earlier scene. By now, Flor is twenty-four and married to Bob Harris, a wealthy American who manages the French operation in his family’s business importing wine. Nevertheless, she remains under the ever-watchful eye of Bonnie, her demanding, eccentric mother.
They had all been told by Bonnie, separately, as a secret, that there was something wrong with Florence; she could never have children; she wasn’t well. (p. 20)
Gallant doesn’t tell her story chronologically; instead, she creates a non-linear series of episodes, shifting forwards and backwards in time, giving her story a supple, elastic feel. The novella’s power lies partly in what these scenes reveal about character, how these perspectives illuminate the motivations, desires, and failings of each participant in the dance. Moreover, there is a dreamlike quality to these episodes as memories and impressions are explored from various perspectives, building up the broader picture layer by layer. Chronologically speaking, the early scenes shape how the characters react later; and while Gallant doesn’t present these episodes to us in a linear fashion, her approach never seems confusing or tricksy. After all, it mirrors how our minds work, especially as memories often return to us shuffled out of order
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024...
The glass beads rolled and bounded all over the paving; pigeons fluttered after them, thinking they were grains of corn. The necklace breaking, the hotly blowing wind, excited Flor. She unstrung the beads still in her hands and flung them after the others, making a wild upward movement with her palms. ‘Oh, stop it,’ her mother cried, for people were looking, and Flor did appear rather mad, with her hair flying and her dress blowing so that anybody could see the starched petticoat underneath, and the sunburned thighs. (p. 9)
It’s a memorable scene, notable for its vivid visual imagery – a trademark of Gallant’s — and its signalling of one of the novella’s key themes. Namely, the snapping of something beautiful and fragile. As this shimmering novella unfolds, it reveals an unravelling – Flor’s unravelling – amidst the heat of the summer sun. At fourteen, Flor is already uneasy in her skin, lacking a sense of belonging in a transient, ephemeral world.
Just shy of forty, Bonnie McCarthy has removed herself and daughter Flor to Europe following the breakdown of her marriage. There the pair lead a roving existence, shuttling between Venice, Paris and the south of France, somewhat dependent on the generosity of others.
In essence, Georgie is struggling to understand the complex family dynamics being played out around him. His aunt’s disdain for her former husband, Stanley, Flor’s prickly behaviour and apparent dislike for her cousin, and his parents’ decision to sneak off for the day without warning, all come together to unsettle Georgie. He dislikes Flor and Bonnie, and feels hurt at being abandoned by his parents.
In George’s memory it was here that Florence cried: ‘She’ll never do anything anymore. I’ll always keep her with me.’ […] She meant these words, they weren’t intended for George. It was a solemn promise, a cry of despair, love and resentment so woven together that even Flor couldn’t tell them apart. (p. 15)
The intertwining of love and resentment mentioned here is one of the novella’s key themes, ‘always there, one reflecting the other, water under sky’ (p. 23)
As part one comes to a close, there are more hints of Flor’s fragility, as glimpsed in the earlier scene. By now, Flor is twenty-four and married to Bob Harris, a wealthy American who manages the French operation in his family’s business importing wine. Nevertheless, she remains under the ever-watchful eye of Bonnie, her demanding, eccentric mother.
They had all been told by Bonnie, separately, as a secret, that there was something wrong with Florence; she could never have children; she wasn’t well. (p. 20)
Gallant doesn’t tell her story chronologically; instead, she creates a non-linear series of episodes, shifting forwards and backwards in time, giving her story a supple, elastic feel. The novella’s power lies partly in what these scenes reveal about character, how these perspectives illuminate the motivations, desires, and failings of each participant in the dance. Moreover, there is a dreamlike quality to these episodes as memories and impressions are explored from various perspectives, building up the broader picture layer by layer. Chronologically speaking, the early scenes shape how the characters react later; and while Gallant doesn’t present these episodes to us in a linear fashion, her approach never seems confusing or tricksy. After all, it mirrors how our minds work, especially as memories often return to us shuffled out of order
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024...
April 19, 2022
3,5
Todavía rumiándolo. Me ha interesado mucho el retrato de personajes que realiza la autora, pero el libro genera más preguntas que respuestas y no logro empatizar con ninguno de los personajes, de modo que dichas incógnitas no me sirven para sumarles capas de complejidad, sino para que, finalmente, y por diferentes motivos, todo el mundo me caiga fatal. Me doy perfecta cuenta de lo mala madre que es Bonnie, pero no conecto con Flor tampoco nunca. Excepto en un pequeño fragmento en el que la autora nos permite vislumbrar algo de las motivaciones del personaje, el resto de la novela se comporta de manera erráticas e insufribles sin que tú, lector, sepas qué carajos le pasa. O quizás yo no he sabido verlo la mayor parte del tiempo porque, como señala George, yo he tenido, como él, una infancia arraigada, segura en el seno de una familia funcional y amorosa... y por eso Flor me resulta, a ratos, tan odiosa como su madre.
Y Bob tampoco ayuda demasiado; calzonazos nivel "soporto a mi esposa y me como con patatas a una suegra petarda que mangonea en todos mis asuntos y a la que, encima, debo mantener económicamente ", su personaje pasa de ansiar que Flor no desaparezca de su vida a que todo le dé igual y, sobre todo, a bailar al son de la insoportable Bonnie.
Y os cuento esto a la vez que no dejo de pensar en la novela (la acabéayer temprano pero me dejó sin fuerzas para empezar otra lectura) y, sobre todo, en cómo esos personajes deciden pasar página y obviar a Flor y su situación... y flipo, como George al final de la novela, de que tal cosa sea posible o, si quiera, sana.
Creo que para ser u a primera novela resulta muy interesante a pesar de los peros que he explicado más arriba y me ha hecho explorar el tema del desarraigo desde una perspectiva incómoda que todavía no acabo de despegar de mi piel. Desde luego, es una autora a la que seguir la pista (y he leído por ahí que como cuentista fue la fuente principal de Alice Munro... y eso ,e parecen ya palabras mayores).
Todavía rumiándolo. Me ha interesado mucho el retrato de personajes que realiza la autora, pero el libro genera más preguntas que respuestas y no logro empatizar con ninguno de los personajes, de modo que dichas incógnitas no me sirven para sumarles capas de complejidad, sino para que, finalmente, y por diferentes motivos, todo el mundo me caiga fatal. Me doy perfecta cuenta de lo mala madre que es Bonnie, pero no conecto con Flor tampoco nunca. Excepto en un pequeño fragmento en el que la autora nos permite vislumbrar algo de las motivaciones del personaje, el resto de la novela se comporta de manera erráticas e insufribles sin que tú, lector, sepas qué carajos le pasa. O quizás yo no he sabido verlo la mayor parte del tiempo porque, como señala George, yo he tenido, como él, una infancia arraigada, segura en el seno de una familia funcional y amorosa... y por eso Flor me resulta, a ratos, tan odiosa como su madre.
Y Bob tampoco ayuda demasiado; calzonazos nivel "soporto a mi esposa y me como con patatas a una suegra petarda que mangonea en todos mis asuntos y a la que, encima, debo mantener económicamente ", su personaje pasa de ansiar que Flor no desaparezca de su vida a que todo le dé igual y, sobre todo, a bailar al son de la insoportable Bonnie.
Y os cuento esto a la vez que no dejo de pensar en la novela (la acabéayer temprano pero me dejó sin fuerzas para empezar otra lectura) y, sobre todo, en cómo esos personajes deciden pasar página y obviar a Flor y su situación... y flipo, como George al final de la novela, de que tal cosa sea posible o, si quiera, sana.
Creo que para ser u a primera novela resulta muy interesante a pesar de los peros que he explicado más arriba y me ha hecho explorar el tema del desarraigo desde una perspectiva incómoda que todavía no acabo de despegar de mi piel. Desde luego, es una autora a la que seguir la pista (y he leído por ahí que como cuentista fue la fuente principal de Alice Munro... y eso ,e parecen ya palabras mayores).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 6, 2019
Las relaciones familiares son siempre difíciles, si te cae mal alguien tan cercano como tu hija o la madre, es algo complicado intentar alejarse. Y quizás es es la historia detrás del relato de Gallant: una madre divorciada cruza el Atlántico para instalarse en Francia, lleva consigo a su hija, hermosa criatura de pelo rojizo, que se casa con un estadounidense bueno para los negocios. De ahí al desastre hay sólo un paso, y con una pluma maravillosa, vamos entreviendo los celos de una madre a una hija que cae en depresión por no sentirse libre, de un marido-yerno que no sabe qué hacer con el amor que siente, un primo que viaja y reconsidera sus lazos familiares; todo con el transformo de un Paría lleno de cafeterías, de lecturas que acompañan y de algunos tragos que sirven para olvidar. Una historia algo agria, pero que se lee con maravilla por la prosa casi perfecta de Mavis. Una lectura que devuelve el amor por lo bien escrito aunque la historia sea una banalidad que se olvide al siguiente libro.
(...) “Pero ahora podían sonreír, pues George no iba a arruinarse la vida por esa chica. Él pensó que deberían haberlo sabido de sobre: jamás se arruinaría la vida por nadie.” “La madre es un encanto, y me casé con la hija.” “De repente le entraron ganas de vomitar. Tenía la boca llena de saliva.<>, pensó. Lo horrorizaba la sensibilidad de la herida; recordó lo que se sentía al estar perdidamente enamorado.” “La amistad es importante, decía Bonnie, sin perder la vista a Doris. Amistad, descanso, buena comida y libros relajantes. En otoño, Flor sería otra.” (...)
(...) “Pero ahora podían sonreír, pues George no iba a arruinarse la vida por esa chica. Él pensó que deberían haberlo sabido de sobre: jamás se arruinaría la vida por nadie.” “La madre es un encanto, y me casé con la hija.” “De repente le entraron ganas de vomitar. Tenía la boca llena de saliva.<>, pensó. Lo horrorizaba la sensibilidad de la herida; recordó lo que se sentía al estar perdidamente enamorado.” “La amistad es importante, decía Bonnie, sin perder la vista a Doris. Amistad, descanso, buena comida y libros relajantes. En otoño, Flor sería otra.” (...)
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