The Concert Party by Mavis Gallant
"The Concert Party" by Mavis Gallant is a layered narrative centered around the complexities of social relationships among a group of Canadian expatriates in France. The story is narrated by Burnet, an academic who reflects on his interactions with his fellow graduate student, Harry Lapwing, and their wives, Lily and Edie. The titular concert party is hosted by Watt Chadwick, a novelist who wishes to elevate his young gardener, David Ogdoad, socially and romantically. Tensions arise when David becomes enamored with Lily, while another character, Fergus Bray, attempts to woo Edie away from Lapwing. As the evening unfolds, personal desires lead to difficult decisions and the dissolution of relationships, with Edie ultimately deciding to leave Lapwing after a public humiliation. Meanwhile, Lily's departure with David to London adds another layer of intrigue. The story captures the essence of romantic disillusionment and the stark contrast between the allure of artistic aspirations and the often harsh reality of personal connections. Through Burnet's reflections, Gallant examines themes of humiliation and the romanticization of experiences, inviting readers to contemplate the nuances of human emotions and societal expectations.
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The Concert Party by Mavis Gallant
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1988 (collected in The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, 1996)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
“The Concert Party” begins with the first-person narrator named Burnet, a Canadian academic, identifying with a colleague named Harry Lapwing while they are both graduate students in France. Lapwing and his wife, Edie, and Burnet and his wife, Lily, become a social unit, attending dinners and parties together. The concert party of the story’s title is given by a man named Watt Chadwick, a novelist who is trying to figure out a way to socially elevate his nineteen-year-old, part-time gardener, David Ogdoad, a pianist, to the position of being his lover.
The situation at the party becomes complicated when David is attracted to Lily, and another Canadian named Fergus Bray, a playwright, is attracted to Lapwing’s wife, Edie. During the party, Bray invites Edie to leave Lapwing and come to live with him in Madrid. When Lapwing humiliates Edie at the party, she decides to go. In a parallel action, Lily goes off to London with David.
Burnet knows that he romanticized the experience in France. If he had said that Lily had left for Detroit and Edie for Moose Jaw, leaving him and Lapwing stranded in a motel, they would have seemed foolish. However, the words “Madrid” and “London” and the fact that the event involved a musician, a playwright, and a novelist tinges the story with fiction and gives it an alien glow, making him and Lapwing appear as actors in a Technicolor film. However, he recognizes that the story is really that of men’s humiliation, “bleached and toneless.”
Bibliography
Canadian Fiction Magazine 28 (1978). Special issue on Mavis Gallant.
Essays in Canadian Writing 42 (Winter, 1990). Special issue on Mavis Gallant.
Gadpaille, Michelle. “Mavis Gallant.” In The Canadian Short Story. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Grant, Judith Skleton. “Mavis Gallant.” In Canadian Writers and Their Works, edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
Keith, William John. “Mavis Gallant.” In A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada. Toronto: ECW Press, 1988.
Kulyk Keefer, Janice. Reading Mavis Gallant. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Schaub, Danielle. Mavis Gallant. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Simmons, Diane. “Remittance Men: Exile and Identity in the Short Stories of Mavis Gallant.” In Canadian Women Writing Fiction, edited by Mickey Pearlman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.
Smythe, Karen. Gallant, Munro, and the Poetics of Elegy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992.