Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant (née Young) was born one hundred years ago today. Her image doesn't feature on the cover of Montreal Stories (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004), but it's easy to imagine that it's her standing before the mirror. Mavis Gallant was extremely photogenic. In later life, her image graced many covers, my favourite being Los cuentos (Barcelona: Lumen, 2009), Sergio Lledó's Spanish translation of The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant.
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| The Pegnitz Junction Minneapolis: Graywolf, 1984 |
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| Home Truths Toronto: Macmillan, 1985 |
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| In Transit Toronto: Penguin Canada, 1989
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| The Collected Stories New York: Everyman's Library, 2016 |
Miss Kimpsey's own parlour was excrescent with bows and draperies. "She is above them," thought Miss Kimpsey, with a little pang.
Elfrida Bell, daughter of to-day, doesn't feature in the first chapter; she is only as others see her... No, that's not right. During their meeting, Mrs Bell presents Miss Kimpsey with a cabinet photograph for which Elfrida "posed herself." The girl is seen as she wants to be seen.
Fairly beautiful and somewhat talented, Elfrida is easily the most graceful and artistic fish in Sparta's small pond. An aspiring painter, she's enrolled in a Philadelphia art school. When results don't meet Mr and Mrs Bell's expectations, Elfrida is sent to study under Monsieur Lucien in Paris. Sadly, her Hungarian cloak draws more notice than her work.
Elfrida was certain that if she might only talk to Lucien she could persuade him of a great deal about her talent that escaped him – she was sure it escaped him – in the mere examination of her work. It chafed her always that her personality could not touch the master; that she must day-after day be only the dumb, submissive pupil. She felt sometimes that there were things she might say to Lucien which would be interesting and valuable for him to hear.
"Phases of character have an attraction for me – I wear one to-day and another to-morrow. It is very flippant, but you see I am honest about it. And it must make me difficult to paint, for it can be only by accident that I am the same person twice."
A Daughter of To-Day was read in one go on July 22nd, the hundredth anniversary of Sara Jeannette Duncan's death. It was hard to put down. Writing to-day, I realize it was read too quickly. The more I consider, the more I see – much like Elfrida as she casts a critical eye on her portrait.
Trivia (or not): Sara Jeannette Duncan's mother was born Jane Bell. Elfrida's closest friend is named Janet.
Object: My copy, the first American edition, was purchased earlier this year from a Kentucky bookseller. Price: US$24.95. A thing of beauty, the image above doesn't come close to doing it justice. The novel proper is followed by four pages of adverts for Appleton editions of Rudyard Kipling, Wolcott Balestier, Beatrice Whitby, Egerton Castle, Edward Eggleston, and Maarten Maartens.
Access: First published in 1894 by the Toronto News Company (Canada), Appleton (United States). and in two volumes by Chatto & Windus (Great Britain).
Both the Toronto News Company, and Appleton editions can be read online through the Internet Archive.
The novel was reissued in 1988 by Tecumseh. Print on demand vultures offer this edition.
The greatest Canadian humorist of his generation, he would've enjoyed the typo.
...August nights are coolIn these north regions. Summer goes so soon!
In gleam of pale translucent amber wokeThe perfect August day;Through rose-flushed bars of pearl and amber brokeThe sunset's golden way.
The river seemed transfigured in its flowTo tide of amethyst,Save where it rippled o'er the sands below,And granite boulders kissed.
The clouds of billowy woodland hung unstirredIn languorous slumber deep,While, from its green recesses, one small birdPiped to its brood asleep.
The clustering lichens wore a tenderer tint,The rocks a warmer glow;The emerald dewdrops, in the sunbeam's glint,Gemmed the rich moss below.
Our birchen shallop idly stranded layHalf mirrored in the stream,Wild roses drooped, glassed in the tiny bay,Ethereal as a dream!
You sat upon your rock, enthroned a queen,As on a granite throne,And all that world of loveliness sereneHeld but us twain alone.
Nay! but we felt another presence there,Around, below, above;
It breathed a poem through the fragrant air
Its name was LOVE!
Several months ago, The Dorchester Review asked me to review David Staines' A History of Canadian Fiction.
Who am I to turn down an invitation.
Professor Staines' book was read at great sacrifice. Going through its 304 pages I ignored Stephen Henighan, a favourite critic, who shared his opinion of A History of Canadian Fiction in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement. A blind eye was turned to Stephen W. Beattie, another favourite, who reviewed the book for the Quill & Quire.
After submitting my review I read the two Stephens, sat back, and watched for more. I was more than rewarded with John Metcalf's newly published The Worst Truth: Regarding A History of Canadian Fiction by David Staines (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2022).
He provides a useful introduction to Inuit literary culture, paying the 39,000 native speakers of Inuktituk an attention he denies to Canada's 7.3 million native speakers of French.
How is it that a book titled A History of Canadian Fiction would exclude work written in French? Remarkably, Staines does not address this issue. In fact, he doesn’t so much as recognize the existence of Canadian fiction written in French. Of the hundreds of writers of fiction named in this book, we find two French names: Roger Lemelin and Gabrielle Roy. They first feature in a short list of “important people” who were once interviewed by Mavis Gallant and reappear as in another list of writers whose fiction Mordecai Richler had read. Roy’s name is in a third list, this of writers with whom Sandra Birdsell corresponded.
And that’s it.
The only mention of a work written in French appears in a nine-page "Chronology of historical, cultural, and literary events" that precedes the text itself. Next to the year 1632, we find: “Jesuit Relations, an annual, begins and continues until 1673.” But of course, they weren’t the “Jesuit Relations,” they were the Relations des jésuites.
One of the Fourscore years, Mary,Has passed like a dream away,A dream of laughter and tears, Mary,Like a showery summer's day,With its rainbow bright,In the warm twilight,Fair pledge of a happier day, Mary,God's pledge of a happier day.Swiftly the seasons roll, Mary,Like the waves o'er a mighty sea,Searching the depths of the soul, Mary,With their power and mystery.Every hour that flies,Tells in distant skiesThe words that it heard from thee, Mary,The deeds that are done by thee.See that the tale be pure, Mary,That the Hours may have to tell;Goodness and Truth, we are sure, Mary,Heav'n loveth exceeding well;And the beauteous mindWhere Truth is shrined,Glows bright as a sunny dell, Mary,Glows bright as a sunny dell.More of the Fourscore years, Mary,Must pass like the first away,Each, as its turn appears, Mary,May not be a summer's day;But Hope's rainbow bright,With its smile, will lightThe close of a happier day, Mary,The dawn of Eternal Day.
