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Collected Stories
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
123 posts | 2 read | 1 reading | 20 to read
This generous collection of fifty-two stories, selected from across her prolific career by the author, includes a preface in which she discusses the sources of her art. A widely admired master of the short story, Mavis Gallant was a Canadian-born writer who lived in France and died in 2014 at the age of ninety-one. Her more than one hundred stories, most published in "The New Yorker" over five decades beginning in 1951, have influenced generations of writers and earned her comparisons to Anton Chekhov, Henry James, and George Eliot. She has been hailed by Michael Ondaatje as one of the great story writers of our time. With irony and an unfailing eye for the telling detail, Gallant weaves stories of spare complexity, often pushing the boundaries of the form in boldly unconventional directions. The settings in "The" "Collected Stories "range from Paris to Berlin to Switzerland, from the Riviera to the Cote d Azur, and her characters are almost all exiles of one sort or another, as she herself was for most of her expatriate life. The wit and precision of her prose, combined with her expansive view of humanity, provide a rare and deep reading pleasure. With breathtaking control and compression, Gallant delivers a whole life, a whole world, in each story."
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Pinta
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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Pickpick

Collected 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

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artkavanagh
Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant | Mavis Gallant, Mavis Llant
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“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).

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-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.)

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Chosen Husband

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saresmoore ♥️ 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Chosen Husband

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Varieties of Exile

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Lindy 🤔 7y
saresmoore What @Lindy said. 7y
shawnmooney @Lindy @saresmoore My only quibble is with the “in part“ part… LOL 7y
Spiderfelt Totally. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Between Zero and One

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emilyhaldi 👌🏻 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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Oh 🇨🇦‼️😂😂

-In Youth Is Pleasure

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-In Youth Is Pleasure

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MariettaSG Somewhat true to my mother, 😕 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Voices Lost In Snow

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UrsulaMonarch Thanks! Mavis gallant is great. 7y
LeahBergen Oh my. 💕💕💕 7y
shawnmooney @Lkelly @LeahBergen Wasn‘t that one particularly wonderful? 7y
saresmoore My goodness. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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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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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Doctor

Mavis Gallant at her most Canadian!

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Tamra This is mighty familiar from my own childhood up north! 😝 Great quote! 7y
Tamra Sadly, I say the the same to my own now. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Doctor

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LeahBergen I like her already 😂 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Mlle. Dias de Corta

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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#QuoteOfTheDay

@saresmoore I think this one's got your name on it! ❤️

saresmoore My goodness, yes. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-A State of Affairs

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saresmoore I just love the cadence of her writing. Her sentences are unhurried and honest and I find the effect to be striking. 7y
shawnmooney @saresmoore And how! 😘 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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😂😂
-Kingdom Come
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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#QuoteOfTheDay

😂😂 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!

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Luc and His Father

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Luc and His Father

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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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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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Pegnitz Junction

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Pegnitz Junction

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Suet624 I've had geese watch me. It's unnerving. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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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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saresmoore I believe this calls for an impromptu buddy read! 7y
shawnmooney @saresmoore 👏👏😘😘 7y
saresmoore My goodness, where is this story going? Or rather, where isn't it going? I am just along for the train ride! 7y
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shawnmooney @saresmoore Are you caught up to me? I am just a bit farther than this quote. 7y
saresmoore I just finished. I'm still not sure what to make of it! I just read a chapter in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird in which the writer is advised to let the characters write their own stories. I think "The Pegnitz Junction" certainly exemplifies this technique. 7y
shawnmooney @saresmoore I shall be picking your brains at length once I finally finish it, which probably won't be for quite a while… :-) 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Pegnitz Junction

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saresmoore ? This gives whole new dimension to "Don't get your knickers in a twist!" 7y
saresmoore This whole scene just made me giggle! 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The Pegnitz Junction

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Speck's Idea

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saresmoore I'm a little disappointed that you didn't find an accompanying "Sheep with an Earache" photo. (edited) 7y
shawnmooney @saresmoore 😂😂🐑🐑🐑 7y
minkyb That is quite a sentence! 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Speck's Idea

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batsy I don't know why, the quoted passage is so quietly beautiful, but the Mickey Mouse image is making me lmao 😂 7y
shawnmooney @batsy If Mavis is picking up your comment on some frequency, I have an inkling she'd be delighted to hear your reaction! 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Speck's Idea

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ReadingEnvy I like this 7y
MamaGina I love her word paintings🤓 7y
shawnmooney @ReadingEnvy @MamaGina I couldn't agree more! ❤️❤️ 7y
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MrBook I swear, no one does quotes like you 😎👌🏻🙌🏻! 7y
shawnmooney @MrBook Thanks! Your check is in the mail! 7y
TrishB @MrBook I read them with my first cup of tea in the morning 👍 7y
shawnmooney @TrishB Top of the morning to you! 😍😍😍😍 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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#QuoteOfTheDay

-Baum, Gabriel, 1935 - ( )

zsuzsanna_reads ♥️ 7y
shawnmooney @zsuzsanna_reads I love this quote! Have you read any Mavis Gallant? 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Baum, Gabriel, 1935 - ( )

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Shemac77 With what degree he approached his asparagus!! Bahahahahaha! Love it 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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saresmoore Good gracious, that's beautiful! @Suet624 Did you see this quote? 7y
Suet624 @saresmoore, this is gorgeous. 7y
shawnmooney @saresmoore @Suet624 Beautiful, except for the part where the woman hopes her boyfriend's children die! 😂😂 7y
saresmoore Ha! At least she's honest? 7y
Suet624 @saresmoore @shawnmooney well, yeah, there's that. But hey, it's realistic. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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coffeenebula Oooh that last line though 🎯 7y
Suet624 He took this to be a tribute to his presence? Hmmm... 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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saresmoore Every single Mavis quote is wonderful. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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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

LeahBergen It IS perfect. 7y
BooksForEmpathy 👏🏻! 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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The opening lines of 'In The Tunnel'

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-New Year's Eve

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-New Year's Eve

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-The End Of The World

LeahBergen Sounds like a catch. 😏 7y
drokka That last word wasn't where I thought it headed. 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-An Alien Flower

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-An Alien Flower

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-O Lasting Peace

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-O Lasting Peace

saresmoore Well, that's clever! 7y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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I love this opening to 'O Lasting Peace'!

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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The opening to one of her most famous stories, "In Transit" — which I'm now finally reading for the first time.

Redwritinghood Oh, so I'm not the only one who has a husband with this annoying habit! 8y
LiteraryinPA Wow, what a line. 8y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-An Unmarried Man's Summer

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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-An Unmarried Man's Summer

saresmoore Change failed to bailed and it's practically the story of your life, right? 😉 But seriously, as always, this is lovely imagery. 8y
shawnmooney @saresmoore 😂😂😘😘 8y
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shawnmooney
Collected Stories | Mavis Gallant
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-Ernst in Civilian Clothes

saresmoore Good sentence. 8y
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