The Light of Imagination: Mavis Gallant’s Fiction by Neil K. Besner (review)

HUMANITIES 159 collections are 'arranged' and some 'deliberately arranged' seems more indicative of structural cohesion than rigid patterning, at least in some books. A more serious flaw is possibly the result of poor editing of this thesis. The writing is often laboured and pedantic; there are too many grammatical and typographical errors. Moreover, the self-consciously academic organization ('tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; then tell them that you told them'), while admirably coherent, produces elaborate overviews before the reader has the content to assimilate them, and then requires awkward repetitions (up to four times and often word for word) of these theses and sub-theses. Nevertheless, the book is a scholarly contribution to the literary criticism of Hood's works. (BARBARA PELL) Neil K. Besner. The Light of Imagination: Mavis Gallant's Fiction University of British Columbia Press. 171. $29.95 With the appearance of Neil Besner's The Light of Imagination and the anticipated appearance of more studies still in progress, the call- so long and often repeated - for sustained, serious criticism of Mavis Gallant's fiction has been finally answered. Besner's book, essentially a thematic analYSis beginning with several of Gallant's earliest uncollected works preceding The Other Paris (1956) and concluding with her more recent works collected in Overhead in a Balloon (1985), stands as the first comprehensive publication ofany significance on Gallant's canon. Unlike the only previous extended analysis, Grazia Merler's 1978 monograph, a rigidly schematic structuralist study, Besner explores Gallant's fiction from within a flexible humanistic tradition: while identifying recurrent linguistic and formal patterns, Besner always subordinates discussion of these patterns to his examination of the evolution of Gallant's vision as she tests 'home truths about time, memory, history, voice, and imagination .' Itis in this spirit then - a spirit that best befits Gallant's fiction - that Besner's The Light of Imagination is to be welcomed. As author of the first published book on Gallant, Besner might be expected to consolidate bibliographical data and biographical details, now scattered throughout a number of sources, to evaluate the merits of individual works, and to provide a framework to trace Gallant's development as a writer. Only in the last respect will The Light ofImagination be a useful reference tool. Besner's failure to provide an inclusive or categorized bibliography creates confusion within the text, particularly in chapters 1 and 4 when he ventures outside the anthology being examined to cite uncollected stories or those from other anthologies; however, the other shortcomings do not detract from his discussion but simply underscore the need for future studies of Gallant to provide alternative 160 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 emphases and methods of analysis. The sketch of Gallant's early life is never impertinent to Besner's subject - a living author - or purpose - an objective reading, guided by interlocking thematic interests, of the entire range of Gallant's fiction. Given this purpose, Besner's decision to select stories that best trace the development of Gallant's vision, rather than to attempt any consistent evaluation of them, is understandable, although this decision results in Besner's conferring greater attention on some stories weakened by Gallant's crude satire of taste (for example, 'The Deceptions ofMarie-Blanche') than on thematically and formally superior stories. Conversely, Besner's controlled perspective enables him to gain insight into a story such as 'My Heart Is Broken,' which many have dismissed as no better than its title connotes, but which Besner convincingly demonstrates to be a powerful evocation of the failure of many Gallant characters to break through 'the interruptions, silences, and misunderstandings' that prevent meaningful communication. Borrowing freely from several contemporary theorists (most notably Barthes and Culler), but rarely succumbing to the jargon of their disciples (only with Linnet Muir does Besner invest a Gallant character with the vocabulary of a 1980s literary critic), Besner, having carefully selected his ports of call, leads us on 'one of the most important interpretative journeys' through Gallant's fiction. As navigator, Besner alerts us to the 'flashes and sparks' of significance contained within her fiction that enable us to 'develop the imaginative agility to respond to these moments...