DeDe – Mavis Gallant

In past blog entries I have written several times about the trouble I have with Gallant. I have addressed it with honesty I believe and I don’t think I have shoved her aside with a short post on her story.


Below, you can find links to her other stories I addressed that were collected in the BASS.


Speck's Idea


Kingdom Come


The Assembly


Lena


The Remission




There are just some authors that I’ll never “get”. Unfortunately, Mavis is one. I tried with DeDe to read it in different settings…to attempt to appreciate what she is writing…the story she is telling…but DAMN! I just can’t get her. At least not today. I believe that someday there may be a time that I’ll happen across a story by her and perhaps it’ll click. For now..No..it’s just not happening.


It’s been suggested that I need to slow down when I read Gallant. Actually, I think I need to slow down when I read any of these authors. I need to appreciate that these authors worked hard on the word placement that creates the sentences and paragraphs and stories I ingest.


Their stories are not like these silly posts that are just dashed up on this site. No, they sometimes are created over years before they see being bound into a collection. My failure to recognize this leads to a lack of complete appreciation for the author and the story.

P.S.

I just finished The Hunger Diaries -in the latest issue of the New Yorker - here is their abstract:

Excerpts from Mavis Gallant’s diary. The entries are from March to June, 1952, when Gallant was living hand to mouth in Spain, giving English lessons and anxiously awaiting payment for her New Yorker stories to arrive via her literary agent.

It is a wonderful read and if you are a fan of Gallant - it's a must read.