Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant | 
pickCollected shorts=rich dish, ready for small bites, but here I am greedy & nauseous after 900 pgs. Intricate & disorienting. Turns of phrase woven so tightly. Precise language coupled with big narrative gaps. Attention must be paid. Comedy of manners. Class, culture, ex-pats, domesticity, wartime politics. Imagery. Toddler in playpen=heavyweight champ in ring. Remarkable, in a language all her own. (But a bit much too muchness?) Pace your read.1996
“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.” From the Preface to her Collected Stories (1950).
-Lena
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(Only 65 pages left to go in this 950-page collection! I‘ve been at it since January, and will be sad to see it end.)
The opening paragraph to ‘Voices Lost In Snow.‘ Mavis Gallant‘s final stories often seem preoccupied with childhood, perhaps her own unhappy one.
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-The Doctor
Mavis Gallant at her most Canadian！
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-A State of Affairs
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😂😂 Thanks to Apple Music, I've listened to the song twice while preparing the quote, and it hasn't started rubbing me the wrong way yet. But I'll let you know how I feel after the 12th repeat!
The guidance counselor at Luc's Jesuit boarding school thinks he's not manly enough, so his mother, Simone, takes matters into her own hands.
-Luc and His Father
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Mavis Gallant considered this short novella (or lengthy short story), The Pegnitz Junction, to be her best. I'm reading it for the first time, and am captivated but confused. This one will need to be read at least twice, at least by me. How utterly fascinating!
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-Speck's Idea
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-Speck's Idea
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-Potter
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It's 7 AM here in Tokyo; I've got hours and hours of reading time ahead of me; I don't expect to encounter a sentence as perfect as this one.
-In The Tunnel
-The End Of The World
The opening to one of her most famous stories, "In Transit" — which I'm now finally reading for the first time.
-An Unmarried Man's Summer
