He says that his method of creation is to think and keep thinking about his basic idea, until it takes form and becomes visible to him; whereupon he begins to feel, and continues to do so, more and more intensely, until the whole subject is so nearly complete that practically all it needs is transmission to paper. The following out of a formula, as a chemist might fill a prescription, appears grotesque to him. Art, he feels, is simplicity itself. All of which of course is all very well, if one is born an artist; and, equally of course, no method would be of the least use if one is not. Such poise invests him that he never seems bewildered and, though he prefers a non-turbulent environment when engaged at his work, he can produce it under the stress of some confusion.
“To feel so intensely that the thing writes itself,” such have been more or less his words, “would seem to indicate that writing in this way is not a manifestation of the intellect. But when one remembers that all this feeling is the fruit of thought, the thought that has gradually been assembling the various factors in the story, then it will be recognized after all as an intellectual piece of work.”
His elasticity of mind is such that, without losing the thread of his thought, he can temporarily put it aside, greet an interruption, deal with it with full adequacy, and then return or not to the original theme according to what seems most expedient. In the course or a particularly eloquent exposition of the difficulties of the modern writing in keeping up, or keeping on, he will stop for a few good-night words with his little son Michael, a lad with the eyes of a Raphael cherub, and eyelashes that would turn a Hollywood beauty green with envy. Comes the final embrace with the little feet pattering off to bed, while the author will resume telling of the incessant necessity of constantly bettering one’s own record, if popularity is to be retained.
These then are some of the qualities that compose that remarkable person, Morley Callaghan, born in Toronto only thirty-one years ago. An extraordinary lack of self-consciousness, with its corresponding humility, an intransigeant honesty, a sense of justice; together with a ready friendliness toward the whole world, an imagination never allowed to run riot, a fine sense of proportion; also an abhorrence of the personally spectacular, a taste very nearly impeccable without the least fastidiousness, and a good-humour frequently expressed by a short laugh almost like the chuckle of a school boy. He reconciles a profound knowledge of the world and a mature youthfulness with an apparently artless ingenuousness and young wisdom, and exercises keen critical ability with seeming carelessness. In other words, he embodies equipoise, balance, sanity.
Altogether a distinguished figure, albeit quite unpreoccupied with dignity or distinction (which are the greater for it), an already brilliant son of Canada destined for still far greater brilliance, of whom the Dominion may boast with all due pride.
Questions for Discussion and Essays
1. In his Editor’s Notes to Volume One of Morley Callaghan’s Complete Stories, Barry Callaghan remarks that Morley Callaghan “has that delicacy so much more important than verbal delicacy, the delicacy of accumulated perceptions, which brings the sense in the end to a grasp of recognition.” What is the difference between “verbal delicacy” and “accumulated perceptions?” How are accumulated perceptions used in a story such as “The Shining Red Apple”? How do these perceptions accumulate and lead to the resolution of the action of the story’s final paragraph?
2. Morley Callaghan (and contemporaries such as Ernest Hemingway) came of age in the first half of the 20th century with a style devoid of metaphor and often described as “plain talk.” And yet, despite their plain-speaking style, Callaghan’s stories are meticulously constructed. What devices does Callaghan employ to create a sense of “plain speak”?
3. Does this “plain talk” style evoke any broad social or literary attitudes of the era in which the stories are written? If so, what keeps them relevant today?
4. In many of these stories, ordinary objects desired, purchased, or owned by the characters carry intense symbolic meaning. What is the role of the stockings in “Silk Stockings,” and “Timothy Harshaw’s Flute”? Do these objects perform the same role as the pony in “The White Pony”?
5. Morley Callaghan told an interviewer that it was never his practice to “carry out a theme.” Rather, he said, it was his job to “catch the tempo, the stream, the feel, the way people live and think in their time, quite aside from any intellectual matters.” This set him apart from ideological writers, the Marxists or orthodox Catholics, of the thirties, because in his stories the meaning was not imposed from without; the action, limited and small as it might seem, was the meaning. Discuss.
6. For Callaghan, the real tragedy of the Depression years lay not in economic collapse itself, but the number of lives undone and left uncompleted, and the number of stories told that were cynical, stories of inevitable defeat. Callaghan said that he was listening all through these years for “a lustier crowing,” for signs of passion, for signs of yearning and a hope that could not be broken, even by poverty. Discuss.
7. Each of Callaghan’s stories moves toward an epiphany – that is, a moment when not only the reader comes to a sudden realization of the deep moral meaning of what has happened to the characters, but the characters themselves come to such an awareness. Only a writer of deep religious sensibility could believe in the possibility of such epiphanies. Discuss Callaghan as a religious writer.
8. One of Callaghan’s characters says, “There is a unity of life on earth, and it will reveal itself if I stop passing judgment on other people, and forget about myself, and let myself look at the world with whatever goodness there is in me.” Is it true that most of Callaghan’s characters are disinterestedly and even compassionately presented, regardless of class or criminality? Does Callaghan live up to his claim that as a storyteller he wanted to be as compassionate and as anonymous as the stone carvers of the cathedral at Chartres?
Selected Books by Morley Callaghan
Callaghan, Morley. The Complete Stories, Volumes 1-4.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2003.
Callaghan, Morley. It’s Never Over.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2004.
Callaghan, Morley. A Literary Life. Reflections and Reminiscences,
1928 - 1990 (non fiction).
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2008.
Callaghan, Morley. The New Yorker Stories.
Toronto: Exile Editions Classics Series, 2008.
Callaghan, Morley. Strange Fugitive.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2004.
Callaghan, Morley. That Summer in Paris.
Toronto: Exile Editions Classics Series, 2006.
Callaghan, Morley. A Time for Judas.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2005.
Callaghan, Morley. The Vow.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2005.
Related Reading
Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. Introduced by Malcolm
Cowley. New Edition.
New York: Milestone Editions, 1960.
Callaghan, Morley. A Literary Life. Reflections and Reminiscences,
1928 - 1990 (non fiction).
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2008.
Conron, Brandon. Morley Callaghan.
New York: Twayne, 1966.
Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.
Farrell, James T. Studs Lonigan (A Trilogy). Pete Hamill (editor).
New York: Library of America, 1998.
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Margaret Cohen (editor).
New York: Norton Critical Editions, 1998.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998.
de Maupassant, Guy. The Complete Short Stories of Guy de
Maupassant, 1955. Artine Artinian (editor).
London: Penguin, 1995.
Joyce, James. The Dubliners.
London: Penguin, 1999.
Websites of Interest
http://www.athabascau.ca/
writers/mcallaghan.html
http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/callaghan.htm
http://www.editoreric.com/greatlit/authors/Callaghan.html
http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/morley.callaghan.asp
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0001178
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9018691/Morley-Callaghan
http://www.track0.com/ogwc/authors/callaghan_m.html
http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Callaghan_Morley.html
Table of Contents
COVER
CONTENTS
PREFACE
ALL THE YEARS OF HER LIFE
DAY BY DAY
THE SNOB
SILK STOCKINGS
THE WHITE PONY
AN ESCAPADE
ELLEN
THEIR MOTHER’S PURSE
THE SHINING RED APPLE
ONE SPRING NIGHT
TIMOTHY HARSHAW’S FLUTE
YOUNGER BROTHER
THE FAITHFUL WIFE
THE RED HAT
THE DUEL
ABSOLUTION
THE VOYAGE OUT
THE BRIDE
THE CHISELER
LUNCH COUNTER
THE REJECTED ONE
TORONTO’S CALLAGHAN
Questions for Discussion and Essays Selected Books by Morley Callaghan
Related Reading
Websites of Interest
Guide
Cover
Contents
The New Yorker Stories Page 13
