when not even Paris can help
03.06.2026
under the surface
Mavis Gallant: Green Water, Green Sky. 1959.
The story, under the quite brisk and bright surface (in the beginning, in the first part) is quite dark, melancholy that intrigued me, got me going and it got darker, and for me the book is about shattering of a mind, mental illness, it´s effects .
There is Bonnie, an American, diveorcee and her daughter Flor. They, after mother ´s quite distubing divorce (this is after the WW2, in the fisties, I think) travel in Europe, In Cannes, In Paris, in Venice and in Cannes, Flor meets a man, Bob Harris (never just a Bob,not Mr Harris but alway Bob Harris) and Flor and Bob Harris get married (but it soon is a marriage of no happiness - but security, yes, stability).
In the secon part, Flonrence ´s mental illness, struggles, cannot be hidden any longer. This part was very dark, sad even though it all happens in jolly Paris, in August.
In part three time takes us back to happy /happier days when Flor and Bob Harris met in Cannes.
In the last part all is open.
And the text - you need to read carefully every line, since she says a lot with a few words. Gallant really knows how to draw a full blown picture, a life story with so little, is really very admirable.
This was a slow read for me even though the pages are quite few. The text is so rich and somehow I did not find the rythm - mainly because I was reading it late at nights. But I liked this, a lot, wanted to stay in the feelings, but as said, this needs a good reading time, preferably read a lot in one session to get the fragile tensions, the reality under the lines, between the shown reality.