In the late edition of the Sunday New York Times, on September 12, 1993 John McGahern describes “Forain” as “a story that is as close to perfection as possible”.
What a compliment. He says that “Mrs. Gallant has always written well about the Parisian emigre world, but never better than here”.
The praise rings loudly as he hasn’t been as enthusiastic about all the stories (including a couple of the Carette cycle, which I happen to love). But here, in “Forain”, he says, the “author’s sharp eye misses nothing; each detail is exact and telling”: “In ‘Forain,’ Mavis Gallant has written an elegy that is also a true celebration: it is a small marvel of wit and feeling and rare tact.”
As a prominent novelist and short story writer, John McGahern’s appreciation of “Forain” would likely have been intensified because of the glimpse offered into the publishing world.
Blaise Forain publishes Eastern European writers, even though translated fiction is not a profitable venture, even though the changing landscape of Europe has made the venture even more precarious.:
“At least once a year he committed the near-suicide of short stories and poetry. There were rewards, none financial.”
Blaise Editions is a labour of…not love, but something-like-love. The story begins with the funeral of the author at the heart of his list, Adam Tremski. (He’s expected to attend his authors’ funerals and their wives’ funerals too. A glimpse at his recent attendance schedule reveals the breadth of his literary relationships.)
Funerals are ideal settings for characters to reflect on the past, on disappointments small and large. “He went one further – bowed his head, like Tremski at Barbara’s funeral, promising himself he would keep in mind things as they once were, not as they seemed to him now.”
There are so many losses in this collection, not all of them with a burial and services. “Forain” is like a set of nested dolls, except that one loss is tucked inside another—and another, and another.
There is always a trade-off in Forain’s view. He is critical of the weather conditions at the funeral, the slippery nature of the steps leading into the church. It’s after-the-fact, but he presents his observations as though he knew that someone would fall, long before it happened.
He almost sounds a little resentful, believing that others must have had the same premonition, but they did nothing to avert the disaster. Which left Forain to take the woman to the hospital. Where he had to cover her costs. So that the whole world, from the weather-makers to the funeral attendees, was conspiring to place more responsibility on Forain’s shoulders. Those beneficent and bowed shoulders.
The story is titled for our humble publisher, but one could argue for the title of “Tremski” instead. Readers learn so much about his life and experiences through this tale. But always through Forain’s perspective, and about matters that the publisher deems note-worthy.
Forain’s observation, for instance, that many literary people like Tremski “live adequate lives without wanting to know what had gone before or happened elsewhere”; it reveals Forain’s disdain and doesn’t necessarily reflect anything true about Tremski.
Forain is both eminently capable and over-burdened. He is both orchestrator and victim, triumphant and vulnerable. And readers meet Forain on his own terms, afforded the opportunity to view all aspects of his personality. “Every light in the city was ablaze in the dark rain. Seen through rivulets on a window, the least promising streets showed glitter and well-being.”
Forain can choose to see the glitter. In his role as publisher, as distributor of stories, he is ideally situated to create a glitter-filled scene, to admire and to inhabit. Even though his hard work is unrecognized, unrewarded. After all: “Filling gaps was a question of style and logic, and could just as well take place after translation.”
Across the Bridge’s Stories: 1933 / The Chosen Husband / From Cloud to Cloud / Florida / Dédé / Kingdom Come / Across the Bridge / Forain / A State of Affairs / Mlle. Dias de Corta / The Fenton Child
Note: This is part of a series of posts on Mavis Gallant’s stories, as I read through her short fiction. This is the eighth story in Across the Bridge. Please feel free to check the schedule and join in, for the series, or for a single story; I would love the company. Next story: “A State of Affairs”.
There are leitmotifs that emerge in Gallant’s stories if you read enough of them. Among them are people who seem old before their time, a sense that the best days of European culture maybe passed, a preoccupation of emigrates with their compatriots to the exclusion of the French, a feeling life passes the people in the story by as they await a remittance of some sort. Forain came to Paris after the war, he runs a publishing house specializing in translations of Central and Eastern European literature into French.
“He ran his business with a staff of loyal, worn-out women, connected to him by a belief in what he was doing, or some lapsed personal tie, or because it was too late and they had nowhere to go.” This is a vision of Gallant’s Paris.
I’ve already left a longer comment to this effect on your post about this story, but, in short, I agree: there are a lot of familiar ideas and character types in her stories. Somehow, though, she keeps it fresh, and the characters remain unique individuals, even though they sometimes feel a little bit familiar.
Wow, that’s high praise indeed from McGahern, another writer I’ve been meaning to explore for a while. I think you’re right about funerals being a significant time for reflection. We tend to think of them as being times to remember the good things about the deceased, their most pleasant qualities and achievements in life. But they can also be a time when long-held resentments emerge, when a variety of emotions come bubbling up to the surface…
If I can find some McGahern collections, we could explore together. Because now I’m doubly curious: this wasn’t my favourite story from a plot perspective, but it’s intricately and delicately constructed, so if he was admiring that particular kind of crafting, I really want to see if that’s what he prioritized as a writer too. Also, to see if there are funerals!
Funerals are interesting places for this kind of character exploration. Forain and this story collection do sound very good.
It’s also a practical choice, too, because the main character can spend a lot of time quietly in their own thoughts, while the services unfold. Makes sense!
I have saved this story to post upon during Paris in July, hosted once again by Thyme for Tea
It’s perfect for that, Mel. You could draw a map, I think!
Interesting that Forain receives his praise when it has been one of my least favourites so far (in this collection). I understand what he sees in it, but for me it’s more a story to admire than to enjoy. The best part, for me, was that he helped the woman who slipped on the stairs and then had to pay for her. It was disappointing that that was the end of it.
But the publishing aspect was interesting. And lines like “Forain found unfocused, symbolized love positively terrifying” and “He associated Latin with early morning hunger, and sitting still” amused me, as always.
I think there were too many bits and pieces of people’s lives – enough to grab my attention, and then that was all I got.
I think that might be true, that it’s more about admiring this story rather than loving it. Which could be because Forain is someone we might admire but not love?
He’s ever-evaluating. And the observations that he makes about the people around him say more about him than about them, so it does leave you wanting to know more, wanting to have a slightly different perspective on them/their situations.
Those quotations you’ve pulled show her ability to be concise and witty. Also, I just realized how perfect the parallelism is with un-fo-cussed sym-bo-lized and pos-i-tive-ly terr-i-fy-ing. She always read aloud her work to make her revisions and even this phrase reveals her attention to detail.
I think you’ll like the next story and the last story more!
Oh that makes sense. I even remember thinking to myself that I should like Forain better than I did because he was making personal sacrifices for the sake of literature.
giggles And how often does one think that about someone IRL (not necessarily someone we know personally, but with public figures)!