Most lives are wasted. All are shortchanged. A few are tragic.I skipped over Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant many times while searching the audiobook database from my library -- I was never in the mood and I had never heard of Gallant; why bother? What a pleasure it was, then, to listen to these short stories as though I were discovering a secret treasure; and what a shame to then learn that the author passed away this year at 91. More celebrated outside of Canada, Gallant had 114 stories published in The New Yorker (only exceeded by John Cheever) and yet still I had never heard of her -- had not even noted her passing.
The short stories in this collection (known as Varieties of Exile outside of Canada) are in three groupings of related characters, and although each story is a complete world unto itself, it was often unsettling to finish one and then have that world shaken up by the new information or perspective revealed in the next. Told from the points of view of Anglo Montrealers, this collection explores the culture and customs that, while firmly situated in the mid-20th century, laid the groundwork for today's Montreal where the Anglos have become even less welcome (despite the long roots in the community demonstrated here).
Listening to this collection was a good experience because voice and accent were often described and the narrators did a wonderful job of demonstrating them (what would I know about the posh lisping French of a convent boarding school?) I'd suspect most of the Rest of Canada thinks about the Quebec issue from time to time, and this collection -- wholly apart from being works of real literary genius in themselves -- is an intriguing perspective. I may have jumped on the Mavis Gallant bandwagon a little late, but I'm looking forward to continuing the journey.
The downside of listening to this collection is that I don't have access to the quotes I would have liked to remember from this book. I can usually google excerpts from books I listen to, but am having no luck with this, so I'm left with just the notes I made as I went along: "a crocodile of little girls" leaving a building; a man "who laughs but never smiles"; something about "common sense"; and a shocking scene about Americans laughing in a movie theater (unheard of in mid-century Montreal, no matter how funny the flick).
As often happens, this book came to me right when I needed it, extending my experience of recent books like None Is Too Many (with several stories about refugees and DPs -- Gallant, as an Anglo Montrealer, recognised these people as simply more exiles like her own ancestors and not an existential threat) and, to a lesser degree, Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic -- not only does Gallant say that anyone who spends six months in London's West End will pick up a faux British accent for life (a curiously nasty charge that the Lit Prof makes against Davies in my course), but she also describes a series of oil paintings often seen in Montreal -- those political and business leaders who make it big and then retire back to their traditional British homelands, complete with their millions and their honorary titles (as Davies' own father, Rupert, did).
On many levels, this was a thoroughly enjoyable collection to listen to.
