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Across the bridge : stories

A New York Times Best Book of the Year: An arresting look at the way time can change familyOne of the greatest strengths of Mavis Gallant & rsquo;s writing is her ability to distill a character & rsquo;s emotions into a simple moment & mdash;a lingering glance or an unuttered word. Her flair for detail is everywhere in evidence in Across the Bridge, studies of Montreal and Paris over the last century. The primary focus of this story collection is the Carettes, a family of French Canadians who relocate to Paris before World War II. The two daughters, Marie and Berthe, could not be more different: Marie is traditional and quiet while Berthe is strong willed and open minded. But as they grow together, the two learn how much they truly have in common. Accompanying these stories of the Carettes are tales of growth and isolation at home and abroad, including one of a rebellious French-speaking Canadian girl growing up in the Anglophone area of the city. Another entry is focused on an anthropologist who, on a trip to a small country, finds a group of people who speak a language no one has ever heard before. Unfortunately, when he announces his discovery, no one believes him. Gallant & rsquo;s snapshots of life abroad create an indelible impression on her readers.

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  • "A New York Times Best Book of the Year: An arresting look at the way time can change familyOne of the greatest strengths of Mavis Gallant & rsquo;s writing is her ability to distill a character & rsquo;s emotions into a simple moment & mdash;a lingering glance or an unuttered word. Her flair for detail is everywhere in evidence in Across the Bridge, studies of Montreal and Paris over the last century. The primary focus of this story collection is the Carettes, a family of French Canadians who relocate to Paris before World War II. The two daughters, Marie and Berthe, could not be more different: Marie is traditional and quiet while Berthe is strong willed and open minded. But as they grow together, the two learn how much they truly have in common. Accompanying these stories of the Carettes are tales of growth and isolation at home and abroad, including one of a rebellious French-speaking Canadian girl growing up in the Anglophone area of the city. Another entry is focused on an anthropologist who, on a trip to a small country, finds a group of people who speak a language no one has ever heard before. Unfortunately, when he announces his discovery, no one believes him. Gallant & rsquo;s snapshots of life abroad create an indelible impression on her readers."@en
  • "A collection of short stories."@en
  • "The first four of the eleven stories in this book are connected, following the fortunes of the Carette family. In "1933" their widowed mother teaches Berthe and Marie to conceal the fact that she was a seamstress, and to say instead that she was "clever with her hands." In "The Chosen Husband" the luckless suitor, Louis, has to undergo the front-parlor scrutiny of Marie's mother and sister: "But then Louis began to cough and had to cover his mouth. He was in trouble with a caramel. The Carettes looked away, so that he could strangle unobserved. 'How dark it is, ' said Berthe, to let him think that he could not be seen." Almost all of the other stories take place in the Paris Mavis Gallant knows so well. "Across the Bridge," the title story, begins with the narrator's mother throwing her reluctant daughter's wedding invitations into the Seine. "I watched the envelopes fall in a slow shower and land on the dark water and float apart. Strangers leaned on the parapet and stared, too, but nobody spoke." A master of contemporary prose - elegant, concise, finely textured - Mavis Gallant never relaxes the tension between detachment and compassion, understanding and mystery, memory and truth. She constantly surprises the reader with her quicksilver perceptions of the moments when people's illusions are revealed and their lives change irrevocably as they form new, necessary illusions. With irony and an unfailing eye for the telling detail, she weaves stories of such intricate simplicity and spare complexity that critics have rightly compared her with Henry James and Anton Chekhov. Across the Bridge is a vintage collection by one of the best short-story writers in the world."

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  • "Frame-stories"
  • "Frame-stories"@en
  • "Ausgabe"
  • "Verhalen (teksten)"
  • "Electronic books"@en
  • "Domestic fiction"
  • "Domestic fiction"@en
  • "Fiction"
  • "Fiction"@en
  • "Nowele kanadyjskie w języku angielskim"

name

http://schema.org/name

  • "Across the bridge : stories"@en
  • "Across the bridge : stories"
  • "Across the bridge : a story"@en
  • "Across the Bridge"@en
  • "Die Lage der Dinge : Erzählungen"
  • "Across the bridge / with an afterword by Robertson Davies"@en
  • "De l'autre côté du pont : nouvelles"
  • "Across the bridge: stories"
  • "Across the bridge stories"@en
  • "Across the bridge stories"
  • "Across the bridge"@en
  • "Across the bridge"

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