I under-appreciate the tanka and the impact the tight form can impart. Thanks for this collection, X.P., and for continuing to entertain with tales from your adventurous and eventful life.
This brought back happy memories of reading Lessing in college and isn't there a book of hers that predicts climate disaster? Some noxious cloud that gathers over Scotland and spreads?
As for Gallant. She was a fixture at The New Yorker, I seem to recall, and I have ten of her books, many bought in Canada. A major joy to read her and even see her name in your substack.
THE FOUR-GATED CITY is the book you recall. After that, and a few minor novels, Lessing tipped over into what was effectively sci-fi (not that there's anything wrong with that). My favorite of her later works is the short book-length essay PRISONS WE CHOOSE TO LIVE INSIDE.
Yes, Mavis Gallant published short stores in THE NEW YORKER back when a writer could support herself doing that. She is a wonderful stylist. A couple of favorite lines and passages: "his mind was elsewhere—not far: on himself"; " "The district was out of fashion, crumbling, but the houses persisted; dragging their rock gardens, their humped tennis courts, they marched down the slope of a tamed minor alp" (both from her collection IN TRANSIT, her tenth book).
My favorite Gallant moment is how a Canadian audience goes "aaahhh" when they see a puppy on a movie screen and then cover their mouths in apparent embarrassment. I saw that in London, sort of, in The Importance of Being Earnest starring Maggie Smith when people laughed but with their mouths covered, as if laughter were somehow déclassé. Gallant sometime reminds me of Elizabeth Bowen...... Bowen by the way was intro'd to me by a prof. of Contemporary British Lit in the late 70s in whose seminar we read Susan Hill, Alan Sillitoe, Anthony Powell, Muriel Spark, Irish Murdoch, Lessing--sometimes two novels a week! It was sublime. What a time of discovery.
The Death of the Heart is my favorite Bowen novel, have read it more than once. There's a character in there who would make up to a rock he's so unctuous. I don't have the quote exact, but that's the idea.
I also was a sort of co-teacher (!) with that professor for a James course: he assigned me to work with an honors student. Those were grand times for learning because the MFA program involved tons of lit classes. Tons of reading, which was not, say, to the taste of some students who didn't think anything before Keroauc was worth their time. I once made a reference to Clarissa before class to some guy and he was blank.
Amazing collection, X.P. I remember "The Lost Weekend" fondly, and Jackson's tanka is both a reminder and a variation I appreciate. I especially love the quality of the titles--so provocative and so angular.
I love these. The Mavis Gallant story is wonderful! I was such a huge Doris Lessing fan in the pre Sci-fi era. I got a chance to meet and talk to her in Seattle (as a Seattle Arts & Lectures Patron in the early days). She was warm and chatty with me and signed a favorite of mine I brought, a little paperback, A Small Personal Voice (1974, collected non-fiction pieces). She was so pleased to see it, “I didn’t know if anyone ever read this one!”
What an extraordinary gift from Mavis Gallant! You do write the best of poems, and I feel lucky to know you.
Me, too. Callahan is one of the best discoveries for me here on Substack, along with Carolyn Jones and Paul Wittenberger.
Very much likewise, Mary.
I under-appreciate the tanka and the impact the tight form can impart. Thanks for this collection, X.P., and for continuing to entertain with tales from your adventurous and eventful life.
This brought back happy memories of reading Lessing in college and isn't there a book of hers that predicts climate disaster? Some noxious cloud that gathers over Scotland and spreads?
As for Gallant. She was a fixture at The New Yorker, I seem to recall, and I have ten of her books, many bought in Canada. A major joy to read her and even see her name in your substack.
THE FOUR-GATED CITY is the book you recall. After that, and a few minor novels, Lessing tipped over into what was effectively sci-fi (not that there's anything wrong with that). My favorite of her later works is the short book-length essay PRISONS WE CHOOSE TO LIVE INSIDE.
Yes, Mavis Gallant published short stores in THE NEW YORKER back when a writer could support herself doing that. She is a wonderful stylist. A couple of favorite lines and passages: "his mind was elsewhere—not far: on himself"; " "The district was out of fashion, crumbling, but the houses persisted; dragging their rock gardens, their humped tennis courts, they marched down the slope of a tamed minor alp" (both from her collection IN TRANSIT, her tenth book).
My favorite Gallant moment is how a Canadian audience goes "aaahhh" when they see a puppy on a movie screen and then cover their mouths in apparent embarrassment. I saw that in London, sort of, in The Importance of Being Earnest starring Maggie Smith when people laughed but with their mouths covered, as if laughter were somehow déclassé. Gallant sometime reminds me of Elizabeth Bowen...... Bowen by the way was intro'd to me by a prof. of Contemporary British Lit in the late 70s in whose seminar we read Susan Hill, Alan Sillitoe, Anthony Powell, Muriel Spark, Irish Murdoch, Lessing--sometimes two novels a week! It was sublime. What a time of discovery.
Yes, Bowen—an apt comparison.
The Death of the Heart is my favorite Bowen novel, have read it more than once. There's a character in there who would make up to a rock he's so unctuous. I don't have the quote exact, but that's the idea.
That one is on my bookshelf too.
I also was a sort of co-teacher (!) with that professor for a James course: he assigned me to work with an honors student. Those were grand times for learning because the MFA program involved tons of lit classes. Tons of reading, which was not, say, to the taste of some students who didn't think anything before Keroauc was worth their time. I once made a reference to Clarissa before class to some guy and he was blank.
My fave:
A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter
Unreliable
narrator. A voyeur, too,
in his mind, at least,
and his imagination
serves up quite the steamy tale.
My favorite tanka, that is. Not my favorite book.
Amazing collection, X.P. I remember "The Lost Weekend" fondly, and Jackson's tanka is both a reminder and a variation I appreciate. I especially love the quality of the titles--so provocative and so angular.
I love these. The Mavis Gallant story is wonderful! I was such a huge Doris Lessing fan in the pre Sci-fi era. I got a chance to meet and talk to her in Seattle (as a Seattle Arts & Lectures Patron in the early days). She was warm and chatty with me and signed a favorite of mine I brought, a little paperback, A Small Personal Voice (1974, collected non-fiction pieces). She was so pleased to see it, “I didn’t know if anyone ever read this one!”
Brilliantly done!