Another Katherine Mansfield Post

 This one from The Brisbane Times, ‘Queen of the short story’: After 100 years, this fearless writer finds new fans, I thought might be interesting, since Mansfield is from New Zealand.

Jane Sullivan writes:

Well, no writing is perfect, but on recently rereading her story The Doll’s House, I’m convinced it’s about as perfect as a short story can be. Everything is there, clear and accessible, yet not obvious, in the shortest possible space. It’s moving, even tragic, but it ends on a surprising note of hope.

This year is the centenary of her death, and we’re seeing an ongoing reappraisal of her work that began in the 1980s, fuelled by feminism and the desire to liberate her from the colonial bias against a writer from “a little land with no history”. My 1988 edition of Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and the Writer, by fellow Kiwi Gillian Boddy, describes this interest as “Mansfield mania”.

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The subtitle of the book is apt because for all her doubts and worries, Mansfield was a risk-taker, both in art and in life. “Risk! Risk anything!” she said. “Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” Here was a writer of extraordinary courage, and we should celebrate her for that.

I have read her. She is remarkable enough to live up the hype. If I had time to really work at the short story, as if I had not wasted the past 40 years, I would read Mansfield, Alice Munro, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, and George Saunders in depth.

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