Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Canadian Short Story: Status, Criticism, Historical Survey
- 1 Canadian Animal Stories: Charles G. D. Roberts, “Do Seek Their Meat from God” (1892)
- 2 Tory Humanism, Ironic Humor, and Satire: Stephen Leacock, “The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias” (1912)
- 3 The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism: Raymond Knister, “The First Day of Spring” (written 1924/25)
- 4 From Old World Aestheticist Immoralist to Prairie Moral Realist: Frederick Philip Grove, “Snow” (1926/1932)
- 5 Psychological Realism, Immigration, and City Fiction: Morley Callaghan, “Last Spring They Came Over” (1927)
- 6 Modernism, Prairie Fiction, and Gender: Sinclair Ross, “The Lamp at Noon” (1938)
- 7 “An Artful Artlessness”: Ethel Wilson, “We Have to Sit Opposite“ (1945)
- 8 Social Realism and Compassion for the Underdog: Hugh Garner, “One-Two-Three Little Indians” (1950)
- 9 The Perils of Human Relationships: Joyce Marshall, “The Old Woman” (1952)
- 10 The Social Critic at Work: Mordecai Richler, “Benny, the War in Europe, and Myerson's Daughter Bella” (1956)
- Myth and the Postmodernist Turn in Canadian Short Fiction: Sheila Watson, “Antigone” (1959)
- 12 The Modernist Aesthetic: Hugh Hood, “Flying a Red Kite” (1962)
- Doing Well in the International Thing?: Mavis Gallant, “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)
- 14 (Un-)Doing Gender: Alice Munro, “Boys and Girls” (1964)
- 15 Collective Memory and Personal Identity in the Prairie Town of Manawaka: Margaret Laurence, “The Loons” (1966)
- 16 “Out of Place”: Clark Blaise, “A Class of New Canadians” (1970)
- 17 Realism and Parodic Postmodernism: Audrey Thomas, “Aquarius” (1971)
- 18 “The Problem Is to Make the Story”: Rudy Wiebe, “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” (1971)
- 19 The Canadian Writer as Expatriate: Norman Levine, “We All Begin in a Little Magazine” (1972)
- 20 Canadian Artist Stories: John Metcalf, “The Strange Aberration of Mr. Ken Smythe” (1973)
- 21 “A Literature of a Whole World and of a Real World”: Jane Rule, “Lilian” (1977)
- 22 Failure as Liberation: Jack Hodgins, “The Concert Stages of Europe” (1978)
- 23 Figures in a Landscape: William Dempsey Valgardson, “A Matter of Balance” (1982)
- 24 “The Translation of the World into Words” and the Female Tradition: Margaret Atwood, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother” (1983)
- 25 “Southern Preacher”: Leon Rooke, “The Woman Who Talked to Horses” (1984)
- 26 Nativeness as Third Space: Thomas King, “Borders” (1991)
- 27 Digressing to Inner Worlds: Carol Shields, “Our Men and Women” (1999)
- 28 A Sentimental Journey: Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Dreams:Storms:Dogs” (1999)
- Further Reading on the Canadian Short Story
- Time Chart: The Short Story in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
22 - Failure as Liberation: Jack Hodgins, “The Concert Stages of Europe” (1978)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Canadian Short Story: Status, Criticism, Historical Survey
- 1 Canadian Animal Stories: Charles G. D. Roberts, “Do Seek Their Meat from God” (1892)
- 2 Tory Humanism, Ironic Humor, and Satire: Stephen Leacock, “The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias” (1912)
- 3 The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism: Raymond Knister, “The First Day of Spring” (written 1924/25)
- 4 From Old World Aestheticist Immoralist to Prairie Moral Realist: Frederick Philip Grove, “Snow” (1926/1932)
- 5 Psychological Realism, Immigration, and City Fiction: Morley Callaghan, “Last Spring They Came Over” (1927)
- 6 Modernism, Prairie Fiction, and Gender: Sinclair Ross, “The Lamp at Noon” (1938)
- 7 “An Artful Artlessness”: Ethel Wilson, “We Have to Sit Opposite“ (1945)
- 8 Social Realism and Compassion for the Underdog: Hugh Garner, “One-Two-Three Little Indians” (1950)
- 9 The Perils of Human Relationships: Joyce Marshall, “The Old Woman” (1952)
- 10 The Social Critic at Work: Mordecai Richler, “Benny, the War in Europe, and Myerson's Daughter Bella” (1956)
- Myth and the Postmodernist Turn in Canadian Short Fiction: Sheila Watson, “Antigone” (1959)
- 12 The Modernist Aesthetic: Hugh Hood, “Flying a Red Kite” (1962)
- Doing Well in the International Thing?: Mavis Gallant, “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)
- 14 (Un-)Doing Gender: Alice Munro, “Boys and Girls” (1964)
- 15 Collective Memory and Personal Identity in the Prairie Town of Manawaka: Margaret Laurence, “The Loons” (1966)
- 16 “Out of Place”: Clark Blaise, “A Class of New Canadians” (1970)
- 17 Realism and Parodic Postmodernism: Audrey Thomas, “Aquarius” (1971)
- 18 “The Problem Is to Make the Story”: Rudy Wiebe, “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” (1971)
- 19 The Canadian Writer as Expatriate: Norman Levine, “We All Begin in a Little Magazine” (1972)
- 20 Canadian Artist Stories: John Metcalf, “The Strange Aberration of Mr. Ken Smythe” (1973)
- 21 “A Literature of a Whole World and of a Real World”: Jane Rule, “Lilian” (1977)
- 22 Failure as Liberation: Jack Hodgins, “The Concert Stages of Europe” (1978)
- 23 Figures in a Landscape: William Dempsey Valgardson, “A Matter of Balance” (1982)
- 24 “The Translation of the World into Words” and the Female Tradition: Margaret Atwood, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother” (1983)
- 25 “Southern Preacher”: Leon Rooke, “The Woman Who Talked to Horses” (1984)
- 26 Nativeness as Third Space: Thomas King, “Borders” (1991)
- 27 Digressing to Inner Worlds: Carol Shields, “Our Men and Women” (1999)
- 28 A Sentimental Journey: Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Dreams:Storms:Dogs” (1999)
- Further Reading on the Canadian Short Story
- Time Chart: The Short Story in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Unlike most of Jack Hodgins's early stories, “The Concert Stages of Europe,” which opens his second collection of short stories, The Barclay Family Theatre (1981), employs a first-person narrator and seemingly fictionalizes episodes from the author's own life. In this respect it differs from the narrative mode preferred by Hodgins. Gaining critical recognition in 1976 with his first collection, Spit Delaney's Island, he had originally written about characters very different from himself and avoided the autobiographical impulse that inspired many stories by major Canadian writers like Alice Munro and Clark Blaise. Apart from the story “Earthquake” (later included in an adapted form in The Macken Charm, 1995, the first volume of Hodgins's trilogy, followed by Broken Ground, 1998, and Distance, 2003), which drew on the memories and experiences of Hodgins's parental generation and his extended family, only the two framing stories of The Barclay Family Theatre use first-person narration and focus on the activities of the author's alter ego, Barclay Philip Desmond. Here and elsewhere, the feats of his kin, such as the histrionic and humorous talents and adventures of the narrator's six maternal aunts, provide the touch of situational comedy that is the hallmark of Hodgins's art in his stories and early novels. He characteristically evokes a vivid and often humorous picture of life in the hitherto literally unmapped region of northern Vancouver Island, a territory populated by loggers, veterans, settlers on stump farms, and workers in pulp mills.
In an early interview, the author stated that he had overcome a sense of marginalization and insignificance by choosing to depict the sometimes freakish characters inhabiting his “own little postage stamp of native soil … worth writing about” (Faulkner in Cowley 1959, 141). William Faulkner's famous phrase seems to be particularly apt in an analysis of Hodgins's fiction; the latter admitted to an intense admiration for the American writer, one that had initially prevented him from finding his own voice. The precision of his depiction of landscape and of social structures in his early stories quickly earned him the label “realist” and “regionalist” (Pritchard 1984; 1985). But it was through American masters of fiction such as Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Connor (see Zacharasiewicz 1986) that Hodgins learned to invoke the universal aspects of a seemingly restricted, rural existence, remote from the centers of culture.
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- The Canadian Short StoryInterpretations, pp. 313 - 320Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007