Buried in Print's Post on "The Ice Wagon Comes Down the Street" -
Twenty Five Cents? Hard to fathom
I was delighted when a book blog I have been following for years, Buried in Print, announced they planned to read and post on all the short stories of the great Mavis Gallant (born 1922 Canada, died 2014, Paris). As there are about two hundred stories, this will be a long term project. A kind invitation has been extended to read along as you may. I have The Collected Short Stories of Mavis Gallant which contains some 100 stories so I will be reading and posting along as I can. I thank Buried in Print for providing me with the motivation to read all these stories. Mavis Gallant is a wonderful artist, with for me an "old world" feel to her work.
I will keep my post on "The Ice Wagon Going Down The Street" brief. In the post of Buried in Print you will find their very insightful remarks and links to interesting reactions to the story by well known writers.
As the story begins, Peter Frazier and his wife are back in Canada, staying at his unmarried sister's house. Gallant is a master of small details, why is the sister described as unmarried? They left Canada about a decade ago, Peter felt he could get a very good job in
Paris and he had enough of an inheritance to hold them, they have two daughters, over for a year. Peter does not quite make the money he felt he should've in Paris, they move to Geneva where the family scraps by on his earnings as an office worker. Peter's wife, she was a fashion model when they met in London, accepts their life but wants more. At the office a new woman joins the work Place, also a Canadian so they put her with Peter.. A quiet unassuming, no doubt virginal woman she and Peter talk some. I'm not wanting to spoil or try to explain the mysterious event that takes place after a party, partially because happily I don't understand it anyway! Agnes will haunt him for years, her memories somehow almost becomes his, memories of a small town in western Canada.
The family relocates to Ceylon before ending up back in Canada.
The portrait of the marriage is really brilliantly done. We see how their love for each other changed as they learn more about themselves and each other and as their hopes for the future and their views of the past alter. Peter and his wife know he must go back to work soon. He was raised to be more than a clerk and the pain of his lack of meaningful accomplishment hangs over them.
This is a very powerful story.
Mel u
What a great question: why is it said that the sister is unmarried? Maybe because it is, therefore, assumed that she has room for another family's life, that she can offer the married couple and their children a temporary stopping place simply because she has not married and had her own family?
ReplyDeleteShe and the couple's children - her nieces - are described as 'wrens' rather than 'peacocks', and she seems to have a rather strict television viewing schedule, so perhaps we are meant to take note of her quiet life. Or consider whether the married loneliness of the Peter and Sheilah, with their past regrets, is better/worse than her single existence?
You've given me another reason to reread this story: thanks so much for joining in and I'm so glad that you're enjoying Mavis Gallant's stories!