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But why would I go to all this trouble to win over a woman I did not like and who did not like me? Why even bother to imagine another meeting? Better to put her out of my mind, forget her. Were I to encounter her again, the best response would be to walk the other way. And yet, my imagination wouldn’t let it go.
    Woman in a Red Raincoat (Clellan Coe, July 10, 2024, American Scholar)
I've been haunted by this essay for two months now since I first read it. The author goes on to discuss William Trevor's short story, A Meeting in Middle Age, about two lonely incomplete people who are thrust together in an awkward situation and proceed to claw at each other like harpies although a moment late in the tale suggests that a certain commonality might have helped them bond had they only discovered it before the damage was done. From the essay:
During the evening, someone makes a wrong comment, someone is impatient, someone is rude, and, little by little, anger builds, bickering erupts, and personal remarks are made by these two strangers. They insult each other. Through the night it continues. Facing each other the next day in an empty carriage of the train, it goes on. Mrs. da Tanka taunts him with his solitary life. “When you die, Mr. Mileson, have you a preference for the flowers on your coffin? It is a question I ask because I might send you off a wreath. That lonely wreath. From ugly, frightful Mrs. da Tanka.”

Mr. Mileson, who has tried on other occasions to imagine his funeral, is taken off guard and answers. “Cow-parsley, I suppose.”

“Cow-parsley?” she echoes. She is surprised. She remembers cow-parsley from her happy childhood days. She remembers sitting in the sun amid bunches of it. “Why did you say cow-parsley?” she asks him, twice. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t answer. She tries to say something, but after the night they have passed, she can find no words that fit. She looks at him, imagining a different outcome to their meeting. She pictures them strolling out of the hotel, arm-in-arm, discussing and agreeing which direction to turn. On the train, he senses something and wants to speak, but his suspicion of her is too strong, and the words die on his lips. The two go on in silence.
As is the way with such things, a series of stories, novels and poems all returned my thoughts to this essay, as people who could have connected failed to, whether for not trying or by imagining that they ought wait for "true love" to strike. See, I'm not just not a romantic but am actively hostile to the notion of romantic love. I genuinely believe that we are summoned to "Love one another" precisely because it is possible to do so. What is asked of us is that we make the effort. The characters in this story are tragic because they fail to do so and so it is all too easy to imagine that they go from middle age to old age to the grave alone, when they could have been happy together. So too could Ms Coe and the stranger have been friendly had they just interacted in a different manner. Only connect.


(Reviewed:)

Grade: (A+)


Websites:

See also:

Short Stories
William Trevor Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: William Trevor
    -PUBLISHER PAGE: William Trevor (Penguin Random House)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: William Trevor (IMDB)
    -ENTRY: William Trevor (Royal Society of Literature)
    -ENTRY: William Trevor (British Council: Literature)
    -ENTRY: William Trevor Irish writer (Encyclopedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: Trevor, William (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: William Trevor (Read Ireland)
    -ENTRY: William Trevor (Booker Prizes)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (NY Times)
    -PAPERS: William Trevor Collection: Home (University College Cork)
    -REVIEW INDEX: William Trevor (Kirkus)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (The New Yorker)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (Internet Archive)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (The Guardian)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (LitHub)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (The Hudson Review)
    -INDEX: William Trevor (Narrative)
    -OBITUARY: William Trevor obituary: Novelist, playwright and one of the greatest short-story writers of his generation (Peter Porter, 21 Nov 2016, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, eminent Irish author of the darkly humorous, dies at 88 (Harrison Smith, November 21, 2016, The Washington Post)
    -OBIT: William Trevor obituary: Triple Whitbread Prize-winning Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer (Independent, 22 November 2016)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, one of Ireland's great novelists, dies at 88 (Robert Barr, Nov. 21, 2016, LA Times)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, watchful master of the short story, dies aged 88 : Writers pay tribute to three-time winner of the Whitbread prize who was ‘at his best the equal of Chekhov’ (Sian Cain, 21 Nov 2016, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, award-winning writer, dies at the age of 88: Writer was born in Mitchelstown in Co Cork and educated at Trinity College Dublin (Elaine Edwards, Nov 21 2016, The Irish Times)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, Irish writer – obituary (Te Telegraph, 21 November 2016)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, novelist and short story writer, dies aged 88 (BBC, 21 November 2016)
    -OBIT: William Trevor, Writer Who Evoked the Struggles of Ordinary Life, Is Dead at 88 (William Grimes, 11/21/16, NY Times)
    -TRIBUTE: Remembering William Trevor: One of our greatest short story writers (Emily Temple, November 22, 2016, Lit Hub)
    -TRIBUTE: William Trevor explored the fictional possibilities of every type of person but himself (Scott Bradfield, Nov. 23, 2016, LA Times)
    -TRIBUTE: William Trevor, Spare Chronicler of Diminished Lives (Charles McGrath, Nov. 23, 2016, NY Times Book Review)
    -TRIBUTE: 7 Writers Share Their Favorite William Trevor Story: Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li, Norman Rush and More on the Master of Short Fiction (Literary Hub, May 15, 2018)
    -TRIBUTE: William Trevor, my father: ‘Writing was what kept him going’: Son of the late author on how his father worked in the morning, gardened in the afternoon and hosted some huge parties at the weekends (Dominic Cox, Thu May 24 201, Irish Times)
    -TRIBUTE: William Trevor in America: Patrick Cox on his father's travels across the USA (Patrick Cox, May 15, 2018, LitHub)
    -ETEXT: Selected Stories by William Trevor [pdf]
    -ESSAY: Field of Battle: The marriage of parents is almost always mysterious. (William Trevor, May 9, 1993, The New Yorker)
    -STORY: A Bit on the Side (William Trevor, May 2003, Literary Review)
    -AUDIO STORY: Joseph O'Connor reads 'Another Christmas' by William Trevor (St Columba's College - ART'S WEEK 2017)
    -AUDIO STORY: "The PianoTuner's Wives" by William Trevor (Kate Black-Spence)
    -AUDIO: A Bit on the Side: Stories by William Trevor · Audiobook preview (Google Play Books)
    -AUDIO STORY: A Bit on the Side by William Trevor (Great stories you’ll love)
    -VIDEO: William Trevor, Hidden Ground (1990 BBC NI documentary)
    -AUDIO STORY: Bravado read by Elizabeth Strout (New Yorker Fiction Podcast)
    -AUDIO STORY: Jhumpa Lahiri reads the short story "A Day," by William Trevor (New Yorker Fiction Podcast)
    -AUDIO STORY: Yiyun Li reads William Trevor’s ‘Three People’, a short story which moved her to write a story in reply, ‘Gold Boy, Emerald Girl’ (Guarduan Culture Podcast)
    -STORY: Taking Mr Ravenswood: A Short Story from William Trevor's Last Stories By William Trevor
    -STORY: Another Christmas (William Trevor, Narrative)
    -STORY: Two More Gallants (William Trevor, Narrative)
    -REVIEW: of Of a Certain Age By Naim Attallah (William Trevor, Literary Review)
    INTERVIEW: William Trevor, The Art of Fiction No. 108 (Interviewed by Mira Stout, Issue 110, Spring 1989, Paris Review)
    -PROFILE: William Trevor: the keen-eyed chronicler: The author, widely believed to be the most astute observer of the human condition currently writing in fiction, is up for his fifth Booker Prize shortlist at the age of 81. Will he finally be given the recognition he deserves? (Tim Adams, 1 Aug 2009, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Talking with William Trevor: ‘It all comes naturally now’ (Constanza del Río-Álvaro, University of Zaragoza, Spain | Published: 15 March, 2006, Estudios Irlandeses)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: John Tusa talks to novelist William Trevor (The John Tusa Interviews, 12 Jun 2005, BBC)
    -VIDEO: William Trevor (92Y Readings)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Mark Lawson talks to William Trevor in a special edition of Front Row where the writer reflects on his career as a novelist, short story writer and sculptor. (Front Row, 31/08/2009, BBC))
   
-PROFILE: William Trevor: A Sculptor of Words (Frank Shouldice, October 2009, Irish America)
    -STORY: A Meeting in Middle Age (William Trevor, Autumn 1964, The Transatlantic Review)
    -ESSAY: Woman in a Red Raincoat (Clellan Coe, July 10, 2024, American Scholar)
    -ESSAY: ‘A Meeting In Middle Age’ by William Trevor (Short Story Magic Tricks)
    -ESSAY: The William Trevor Reader: “A Meeting in Middle Age” (Adam O’Fallon Price September 28, 2021, The Millions)
    -ESSAY: Categorized In Sin: “A Meeting in Middle Age” from The Collected Stories (Center for Excellence in Preaching)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: On Reading William Trevor's “A Meeting in Middle Age” (Steven Stam, 11/28/16, Writing and Running Through Life)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: A Meeting in Middle Age (The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews)
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-STUDY GUIDE: William Trevor's 'A Meeting in Middle Age' and Romantic Irony (William Trevor Cox, eNotes)
    -ESSAY INDEX: The William Trevor Reader: An Introduction: Welcome to the William Trevor Reader! Here’s the plan: once a week, every week, I will read one story from William Trevor’s The Collected Stories and write about it. (Adam O’Fallon Price, September 21, 2021, The Millions)
    -LECTURE: William Trevor at school (Julian Girdham, May 24, 2020)
    -ESSAY: William Trevor’s Felicia’s Journey: Inherited Dissent or Fresh Departure from Tradition? (Constanza del Río-Álvaro, University of Zaragoza, Spain | Published: 15 March, 2007, Estudios Irlandeses)
    -ESSAY: Between Hagiography and Insanity: Refracting Political Violence in William Trevor’s Elegiac Fiction (Angelo Monaco, University of Pisa, Italy | Published: 17 March, 2019, Estudios Irlandeses)
    -ESSAY: Elizabeth Strout on William Trevor: ‘He taught me that the writer’s voice can be quiet’: The author of Oh William!, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, explains what she has learnt from William Trevor, including how to be compassionate to her characters (Elizabeth Strout, September 26, 2022, Booker Prizes)
    -ESSAY: Telling T elling Tales: The Fictions of William T ales: The Fictions of William Trevor (Robert Tracy, September 2002, Colby Quarterly)
    -CHAPTER: 3 William Trevor’s Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel: The lonely voice (Denis Sampson, May 2016, The Found Voice)
    -ESSAY: Getting Lost in William Trevor’s Private World: D. Wystan Owen on the Haunting Intimacy of Trevor's Short Fiction (D. Wystan Owen, December 16, 2016, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: "In Love With Ariadne": In the details (Adam O'Fallon Price, Jul 21, 2023, The Millions)
    -ESSAY: The Room | William Trevor #IRLshortstory (This Reading Life, 1/20/23)
    -ESSAY: The William Trevor Reader: “Flights of Fancy” (Adam O’Fallon Price, October 11, 2022, The Millions)
    -ESSAY: A brief survey of the short story part 39: William Trevor: Trevor's greatest skill is seamless characterisation: words that appear authorial are actually those of his protagonists (Chris Power, 20 Mar 2012, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: On Reading William Trevor's The General’s Day Out (Steven Stam, 12/06//16, Writing and Running Through Life)
    -ESSAY: The Short Stories of William Trevor (Mark Mortimer, 1984, Parcourir les collections)
    -ESSAY: William Trevor’s Quiet Explosions (Marissa Silver, Nov. 23rd, 2016, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: Appreciation: The Fiction of William Trevor — A Mixture of Compassion and Horror (Roberta Silman, January 25, 2017, ArtsFuse)
    -ESSAY: William Trevor (The Greatest Literature of All Time)
    -ESSAY: The Master of Short Fiction? 10 William Trevor Short Stories (a Useful Fiction, June 18, 2020)
    -ESSAY: William Trevor – One of My Favorite Fiction Writers (Tony's Book World)
    -ESSAY: Against Romance and Passion as Social and Literary Constructs: Ron Rosenbaum on the Integral Role of Love in Literature and in Life (Ron Rosenbaum, September 19, 2024, LitHub)
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-VIDEO ARCHIVES: William Trevor (YouTube)
    -ARCHIVES: William Trevor (Estudios Irlandeses)
    -REVIEW INDEX: William Trevor Stories (The Des Lewis Gestalt Real-Time Reviews)
    -REVIEW INDEX: A year with William Trevor (Reading Matters Blog)
    -REVIEW: of William Trevor Collected Stories (Chicago Tribune)
    -REVIEW: of Collected Stories (Sudipta Datta, The Hindu)
    -REVIEW: of Collected Stories (Dan Schneider, Cosmoetica)
    -REVIEW: of Collected Stories (Richard Tillinghast, New Criterion)
    -REVIEW: of The Day We Got Drunk on Cake and Other Stories by William Trevor (Percy D. Westbrook, Studies in Short Fiction)
    -REVIEW: of The Ballroom of Romance by William Trevor (Anatole Broyard, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Last Stories by William Trevor (Julian Barnes, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Last Stories (Robert Allen Papinchak, LA Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Last Stories (Anne Chiholm, Literary Review)
    -REVIEW: of Last Stories (we can read it for you wholesale)
    -REVIEW: of Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor (Lelia Ruckenstein, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Cheating at Canasta (Cressida Connolly, Literary Review)
    -REVIEW: of Cheating at Canasta (Constanza del Río-Álvaro, University of Zaragoza, Spain, Estudios Irlandeses)
    -REVIEW: of A Bit on the Side by William Trevor (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of A Bit on the Side (MIchael Dirda, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of Family Sins by William Trevor (Rosemary Stoyle, Literary Review)
    -REVIEW: of After Rain by William Trevor (Radhika's Reading Retreat)

FILM/TV

    -FILMOGRAPHY: William Trevor (IMDB)
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-TV EPISODE: The Blue Dress by William Trevor
    -TV EPISODE: Mrs Acland's Ghosts - by William Trevor
    -TV EPISODE: The Children of Dynmouth< by William Trevor/a> (Screen Two)
   
-TV EPISODE: The General's Day (1972) by William Trevor & John Gorrie (Play For Today)
    -TV EPISODE: Access to the Children (1972) by William Trevor & Philip Saville (Play For Today)
    -TV EPISODE: The Fifty Seventh Saturday (1968) by William Trevor & Alan Clarke (Half Hour Story)
    -RADIO PLAY: The Blue Dress by William Trevor (Sixty Minute Theatre )
    -ESSAY: Play for Today at 50: Part #2 – ‘O Fat White Woman’ (1971) (Opening Negotiations)
    -TV REVIEW: O Fat White Woman (BBC Play for Today, 1971) (Stage to Stage, 5/18/2014)

Book-related and General Links:

    -ESSAY: The Social Recession: By the Numbers: Fewer friends, relationships on the decline, delayed adulthood, trust at an all-time low, and many diseases of despair. The prognosis is not great. (Anton Cebalo, Oct 23, 2022, Novum)
    -