What this? I’m writing about someone who isn’t Jane Austen?
Yes. It does happen.
Was Katherine Mansfield an independent, strong willed lady? Most definitely!
But why has it taken me so long to discover her? I don’t mean as in who was she (a New Zealand short story writer who was born in 1888, before moving to Britain and becoming a friend of Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence to name a few…) Yes, I knew of her I’d just never actually read anything by her.
As an English teacher for many years I should have – hence my confession now.
Or rather let me explain, I’d read several extracts from her short stories, they’re popular as comprehension passages in exam papers but it isn’t the same.
She’s a fascinating lady.
You can read this statement in two ways. Either in relation to her life or in relation to her crisp, succinct writing. I thought Muriel Spark’s style was deliciously tight, Katherine Mansfield is even more so, albeit in a different way. Then again, they’re working in different mediums. I’ve read some of Chekhov and Nabokov’s short stories and I enjoy that illusive, at times whimsical tone, but with Mansfield she has the ability to absolutely nail a moment. Unforgivingly. Hence me reaching for my laptop and wanting to share my discovery with you.
Katherine Mansfield lead no ordinary or boring life. I’ve been reading a biography of her and it feels as if she lived each moment for its full effect, rather than thinking about any consequences that her actions and words had. (I wonder if that level of intensity that she experienced in the here and now would have made her a great actress?)
Her personal life is complicated. She loved both women and men, falling in love many times; often intensely. Meanwhile her mother appears to have been quite a cold person. There is a debate as to whether she knew that her daughter was pregnant, but what we do know is that she whisked Katherine away to Germany soon after she arrived in Britain and then left Katherine alone, where she unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. This then lead to a love affair with a man who probably gave her gonorrhoea and well.. all I can say is that she lived her short life to the full.
She won the friendship, warmth and respect of Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, who may well have used her, or certainly some of her life as ideas behind some of his characters. She also caught the interest of Bertrand Russell, who was, by the time she knew him – how shall I put it?… Quite a game old gentleman… (In this biography I’ve discovered quite a different side to him, having only read his The Conquest of Happiness – which I’d also recommend).
But I’m leaving her personal life there. I don’t think you can pin too much of it onto her writing. Yes, writers draw on their experiences, and yes, it does appear that she writes about some of the people she knew in her stories, but it’s her eye for detail and the way she applies it that makes her a great writer.
There are two short stories that I could happily bore you about but the one that I read first, the one that left me reeling, that one that is so short and yet so evocative is The Fly. If you can read it. Do. As I said it’s short and it’s definitely worth it.
It starts not long after WWI with two men; Woodifield visiting his old boss. Woodifield says that ‘the girls were in Belgium last week having a look at poor Reggie’s grave, and they happened to come across your boy’s. They’re quite near each other, it seems.”
The story is sad and simple enough. Woodifield finishes the conversation and leaves. His boss thinks about his son who died six years ago…before noticing a fly which is fallen into his ink pot.
What follows is harrowing. On the surface it’s an incident between the boss and a fly. That’s all. And yet the way Mansfield portrays the boss’s pain and repression is staggering.
Mansfield not only describes the fly with an acute awareness but she makes us feel for the fly as it’s rescued out of the ink well.
We are now emotionally involved with the fly.
Then the symbolism starts to be layered on, literally drop by painful drop (I don’t want to give away too much).
Finally, it launches into the protagonist’s psychological state as we reach the end of the story.
All with one inky fly. How? How does she do it? In one of her other stories she mentions a fly cleaning itself from having had cream (or was it milk) splashed onto it and then there is her story about a lady and her pet canary, both showing the same carefully crafted detail and emotion. She has an awareness like an actor, that feeling of immediacy, which she is able to capture in a moment within her writing. But to take this and then use the animal or insect as a symbol to drive the emotional current of her protagonist, as well as the plot – I can’t believe that I’ve only just started reading her.
Which takes me back to those extracts that I’ve read many times while teaching. Always a description, always some nice, well written passage. These made her appear safe, almost twee. No moments of psychological torture. Why not? Why not show her for all her worth – for my god can she write!
