That Summer In Paris John Glassco Analysis

Much like Callaghan struggled to redeem control from under Parisian and Hemingway’s influences, John Glassco in Memoirs of Montparnasse endeavored to find and regain power over his narrative. Memoirs of Montparnasse was a delicate attempt to define himself and proclaim his Canadian identity amongst the modernist project in Canada. In Memoirs of Montparnasse, Glassco offers his readers an unconventional history of modernism with other opportunities in the ongoing battle to establish the ground for Canadian identity. Therefore, Memoirs of Montparnasse are a unique construction that takes important place in the Canadian literary tradition with its affiliations to gender, sexuality, and nationality in Canadian writing. Glassco’s memoir of youth belong to Montreal as much as Paris. Even though there is only a …show more content…
This is due to the fact that Callaghan identified Toronto as a secluded city. Because Toronto was far away from the noise of famous cities such as Paris, New York, London, etc. it empowered his writing abilities and consequently was the superior choice of inhabitance. In chapter 17 of That Summer in Paris, Callaghan met James Joyce, whom he considered “the greatest writer of [his] time” (Callaghan 117). Right along side Joyce, Callaghan met his wife Nora. Later on in his memoir, while conversing with Nora Joyce, Callaghan validates his return to Toronto by implying that James Joyce would have been a superior writer if he returned home to Ireland. “The French writers stayed at home and exiled themselves in their own dreams. Then what would [Callaghan’s] own fantasy be? […] [He] might have to forge [his] own vision in secret spiritual isolation in [his] native city. Joyce in exile had gone deeply, too deeply, into himself. But what if he had stayed in Dublin?” (Callaghan