336 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2012 by McClelland & Stewart.
With her peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but spacious and timeless stories, Alice Munro illumines the moment a life is shaped -- the moment a dream, or sex, or perhaps a simple twist of fate turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into another way of being. Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these stories (set in the world Munro has made her own: the countryside and towns around Lake Huron) about departures and beginnings, accidents, dangers, and homecomings both virtual and real, paint a vivid and lasting portrait of how strange, dangerous, and extraordinary the ordinary life can be.
I enjoyed this collection of short stories, but they did not quite hit the high notes of much of her previous work.
I started reading Munro in my 20s with Who Do You Think You Are? and loved her depictions of a full, jumbled internal life. back then, she wrote about me and most stories held the me part in sympathy (or was that just my perception / bias). now that we are both older, she still writes for the me I am now (or will become in 10-20 years), and I still love her for that. but she hasn't given up entirely on writing younger characters... and in that framing I see myself, often times unflattering. could it be that she always had that aspect but I never saw it because, in my youth, I didn't think it applied to me - and thought it never would.
I should go back to that first book and see how this 45 year old reacts...
in this particular collection, I most enjoyed 'Dolly' …
I started reading Munro in my 20s with Who Do You Think You Are? and loved her depictions of a full, jumbled internal life. back then, she wrote about me and most stories held the me part in sympathy (or was that just my perception / bias). now that we are both older, she still writes for the me I am now (or will become in 10-20 years), and I still love her for that. but she hasn't given up entirely on writing younger characters... and in that framing I see myself, often times unflattering. could it be that she always had that aspect but I never saw it because, in my youth, I didn't think it applied to me - and thought it never would.
I should go back to that first book and see how this 45 year old reacts...
in this particular collection, I most enjoyed 'Dolly' in that it implied that petty jealousies and irrational impulses belong not only to the youth, but all of us. I like that. I like to think that there's still room for surprise, for possession, when we are older, no matter our comfortable groove.
From what I remember, Jonathan Frantzen is a fan of Alice Munro. If you don't have enough time to read a novel, read a story by Alice Munro -- that's his advice as I understood it. And that's what I did and enjoyed. A story reads in three hours, ideal for a slow afternoon in the park at the weekend.
There is probably a deep analysis, or even several, to each story. I'm not going to try to analyse the stories here in this review now. What I like, what I admire, is how Munro manages to take me out of the role of reader. The stories touch me.
I read "Dear Life" and "Too Much Happiness" in parallel. Some stories I have read several times: "Train", "Dimensions", "In Sight of the Lake" (inside?).
These books will certainly stay on my shelf and I will pull them out from time …
From what I remember, Jonathan Frantzen is a fan of Alice Munro. If you don't have enough time to read a novel, read a story by Alice Munro -- that's his advice as I understood it. And that's what I did and enjoyed. A story reads in three hours, ideal for a slow afternoon in the park at the weekend.
There is probably a deep analysis, or even several, to each story. I'm not going to try to analyse the stories here in this review now. What I like, what I admire, is how Munro manages to take me out of the role of reader. The stories touch me.
I read "Dear Life" and "Too Much Happiness" in parallel. Some stories I have read several times: "Train", "Dimensions", "In Sight of the Lake" (inside?).
These books will certainly stay on my shelf and I will pull them out from time to time.
