Mavis Gallant’s “Scarves, Beads, Sandals”

2020-08-26T13:03:21-04:00

No need to debate the significance of the Oxford comma here—there’s no ‘and’ to stir the pot. One could easily mis-identify the story and add the conjunction. But this is not a story about a set of accessories. It is about a series of another sort. A series of

Mavis Gallant’s “Scarves, Beads, Sandals”2020-08-26T13:03:21-04:00

A Balancing Act, Ongoing

2020-01-23T13:49:33-05:00

Before I settled on some other reading projects for 2020 (more on that tomorrow), I entertained the possibility of making a simpler goal than usual: choosing half of my reading from my own shelves and half from the library’s shelves. The idea being that I have tended to read

A Balancing Act, Ongoing2020-01-23T13:49:33-05:00

Mavis Gallant’s “A Flying Start” (1982)

2019-07-09T13:05:04-04:00

“All raise hands, please, who remember Rosalia. (Camera on studio smiles.)” You remember Rosalia, right? We met her in “A Painful Affair”, this collection’s fourth story: the dedicated servant of Miss Mary Margaret Pugh. Miss Pugh’s artistic patronage is not-yet-transpired in “Larry” (Larry is her half-brother), it’s an already-transpired-fact

Mavis Gallant’s “A Flying Start” (1982)2019-07-09T13:05:04-04:00

Mavis Gallant’s “A Painful Affair” (1981)

2019-06-26T15:53:21-04:00

As soon as I met Henri Grippes, I felt like I knew him. He reminded me of Charles Filandreux in “Siegfried’s Memoirs” (in Coming Ashore). Filandreux is a writer, all tied up in knots at the idea of writing a review he “would undoubtedly be requested to write”. Except

Mavis Gallant’s “A Painful Affair” (1981)2019-06-26T15:53:21-04:00

Mavis Gallant’s “Overhead in a Balloon” (1984)

2019-06-11T15:16:00-04:00

We have to assume that Speck came first, with “Speck’s Idea” published in 1979. “Overhead in a Balloon” was published five years later (both stories in the pages of “The New Yorker”, where the majority of Mavis Gallant’s stories appeared before they were bound into collections). So we have

Mavis Gallant’s “Overhead in a Balloon” (1984)2019-06-11T15:16:00-04:00
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