the april 2003 issue of Harper’s had a review of the two new collections of Gallant’s stories—being published by The New York Review of Books (one of which has just been released)—and called her an “unknown master.” at first i felt like reading the review had pushed my expectations too high; while the first three stories were interesting, all centering around the same family in montreal with some interesting language dynamics, they weren’t as altogether astounding as i’d assumed they would be. then in the middle a couple of the stories were just amazing and i understood where the reviewer was coming from.
at times Gallant’s style reminds me a little of Alice Munro, a similar sort of subtlety with momentous insights. sometimes she seems really cold, there are these unexpected distances between writer-character-reader. it’s strange feeling like reading these stories tells nothing about who wrote them. but eventually it makes it all seem more real somehow.
my reading of “Mlle. Dias de Corta” was unfortunately marred by a previous library borrower’s pencil markings—forcing certain lines to stand out and a seemingly unnecessary margin note of “list lots of info quickly.” the presence of this book in the lunchroom inspired one of the more heated lunchtime arguments lately; somehow “ah, a library book” made the jump to “let’s debate world politics with a special focus on nuclear weapons” in just a few short moves.
comments
this book sounds really interesting, i should start keeping a list of "books i want to read".
and i HATE HATE HATE books with notes in the margin.
well, i guess, i mean public/library books. use sticky notes, people. haha.
i think you'd like her style. you should find something by her.
sticky notes: TOTALLY.
one time i got a book that not only had one person's notes but another person's arguments on some of their analysis. it was kind of funny in a way, the futility of it all.
i used to underline things in the books i owned, but only my books and only when i was a teenager. looking back it's kind of embarassing the things that i thought were so DEEP.
i score down the edges of paras or lines...i'm not an underliner though, and i only do it in my own books.
When there's more than one copy of a book in the library, I tend to pick the copy that is less marked up and tattered, so I guess I'm prejudiced in this sense, but I recently read a really great essay in the "Best American Essays" 2001 titled "Book Marks." It's by a poet named Rebecca McClanahan and about the things you learn about other people's lives and thoughts through marginalia--you should check it out! Also, there's a book titled "Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books," all about the study of marginalia--hee.
thanks for the recommendations, celia. i've added them to my list! my out-of-control, growing-faster-than-i-can-read list.