I have stolen the title of my essay from the Dossiers de Documentation sur la Littérature Canadienne-Française…. But my working title, in bad French, was "Gabrielle Roy: Chère Maître." Gabrielle Roy has nothing in common with Henry James except mastery and a deep concern with emerging national character. Her one short-term expatriate, Pierre Cadorai of La Montagne Secrète, dies of homesickness. Casting around for helpful comparisons, I thought of Flaubert—but Roy has sympathy. Of Willa Cather—but Roy has subtlety. Of Katherine Mansfield—but she has force. Of George Eliot—well, yes, but hardly canoeing down the Mackenzie. Finally I paused at Tchekov, and was rewarded when my research heard her say
I lived part of my life under the secret charm of a nouvelle that I read when very young…. For a long while this early reading penetrated my thoughts, fashioned in me, so to speak, a way of seeing, of observing and grasping the real…. A nouvelle of Tchekov, The Steppe…. Perhaps my penchant for uniting landscapes and states of mind (âme) dates from this time.
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