The short stories of Katherine Mansfield in The Garden Party are perfect renderings of moments in life that seem simple and even mundane but turn out to be significant in their implications.  In her stories, written quietly and without any sentimentality or overstatement, we see the truths of the world: all lives are painfully rich; fulfillment is just at the tips of our fingers or has passed by long ago; anticipation is the joy of life but also agony; and our desires and our loves are imperfect, impossible, and necessary. Mansfield wrote her stories in the early part of the twentieth century but her characters’ placement — how they see themselves — is as modern and  relevant, and as moving, as they were when first published.

There is little plot or action in Mansfield’s stories but there is a depth of human understanding that made me reel with empathy. The fact that she wrote these stories before the age of thirty-four, when she died in 1923, is amazing. She packs so much into so little: she is quiet yet acute, and brings her readers immediately into the moment, wholly in tune with the characters and caught up in their deliberations to find a moment of happiness, love, peace, satisfaction: none succeed but their efforts are a beautiful elegy to the human spirit.  Mansfield is a genius at depicting the heart and brain behind all our strivings, and at how these strivings are riven by our own, unique circumstances.  We are each of us dreadfully alone but it is our struggle to not be alone, that defines our humanity.

I was struck by Mansfield’s particularly sharp and sympathetic perception of the burden borne by men in society.  Her husbands and lovers and fathers are outwardly men of their own making, respected and well-made, but inwardly they harbor frustrations and fears, and long for affection.

My favorite story of the collection, “Marriage A La Mode”, is hypnotic in showing the fracture between a man and his wife, and its irreparability.  Another favorite, “At the Bay”, manages to invoke every family dysfunction known to man while appearing to be a simple description of a happy summer spent at the shore.

The only slightly sentimental story is the “Life of Old Ma Parker”: she is weary of existence and burdened with sorrows.  All she wants is a place to cry quietly and in peace:  but “there was nowhere.“  It is not an overstatement, there is no relief for the old woman, and we are struck silent by the truth of it.  Mansfield’s stories strike us so deeply because they are so truthful, even when the truth hurts.  Even at a garden party, death lurks and unhappiness waits patiently.  The beauty of nature (so well-described and used by Mansfield in all her stories) and our moments of human contact, are all that we have for comfort.  But Mansfield is no pessimist: moments of beauty and of connection are the best we can hope for, and enough.