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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Even though it was short stories the stories were uneventful, un meaningful and boring
one of those books that traffics in utter mundanity, in quietly resonant details & subtext. entirely focused on the nature of wifely, motherly, daughterly, nursely, or otherwise feminine “duties.” it is hard to distill this series of 8 stories into a single review, but it is so striking that munro did it all while enabling the abuse of her own daughter too? so not slay but very strange to consider that fact in the same life context as alice imagining & writing these stories, which all in some way or another undermine the concept of the traditional feminine. i guess the stories’ recurring motifs are sorta bad mothers!
after the age of judith B & simone ofc, but interesting to see how the theory percolates!
“To me it seems that it was only then that I became female. I know that the matter was decided long before I was born and was plain to everybody else since the beginning of my life, but I believe that it was only at the moment when I decided to come back, when I gave up the fight against my mother (which must have been a fight for something like her total surrender) and when in fact I chose survival over victory (death would have been victory), that I took on my female nature.
And to some extent Jill took on hers. Sobered and grateful, not even able to risk thinking about what she'd just escaped, she took on loving me, because the alternative to loving was disaster.” 337
after the age of judith B & simone ofc, but interesting to see how the theory percolates!
“To me it seems that it was only then that I became female. I know that the matter was decided long before I was born and was plain to everybody else since the beginning of my life, but I believe that it was only at the moment when I decided to come back, when I gave up the fight against my mother (which must have been a fight for something like her total surrender) and when in fact I chose survival over victory (death would have been victory), that I took on my female nature.
And to some extent Jill took on hers. Sobered and grateful, not even able to risk thinking about what she'd just escaped, she took on loving me, because the alternative to loving was disaster.” 337
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Masterful writing just not my cup of tea.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Terminal illness, Abortion
Je ne suis pas certaine que ma note rende justice au livre ; j'ai l'impression que ma lecture a souffert d'un effet de saturation et du moment (fin de mois d'août complètement folle). J'ai tout de même beaucoup apprécié certaines des nouvelles, mais je dois avouer en avoir lu quelques-unes un peu en diagonale.
I didn't find the stories in this as compelling or as complete as some of the others I've read by her, but I still found myself swept up in many, and her ability to reveal character traits and plot points slowly as a story progresses. Favorites were The Children Stay, My Mother's Dream and the title story.
Ich habe zwei der 4 Kurzgeschichten gelesen. Es ist leider nicht mein Genre, aber ich denke, ich habe einen kleinen Eindruck in ihr Schreiben bekommen. Ich bin nicht abgeneigt in Zukunft mehr von ihr zu lesen.
I met Alice Munro. She was the lady who, for one glorious Sunday School term, taught us Creative Writing.
I didn't know she was a writer, nor that she was famous. I just looked forward to Sunday School in a way I never had before or since.
Later, of course, I read several of her short stories and her novel Lives of Girls and Women, which isn't so much a novel as a collection of short stories about one awkward young girl growing up in a small Ontario town. Munro was a master of describing and distilling the acute embarrassment of adolescence, just as she was later to put a merciless finger on the disappointments of middle life and old age.
I don't know how autobiographical her stories are. I suspect Lives of Girls and Women probably is. They don't reflect my experience of life exactly - thank goodness - but they are uncomfortably familiar and certain images and phrases stab at me.
The latest prickle-fest I've been reading is The Love of a Good Woman, a short story collection published in 1998. It just showed up when I was spring-cleaning; I have no recollection of how it got into the house. The titular story and one called "Save the Reaper" are both creepy and border on being horror stories or thrillers - we're left hanging.
The rest are pure Munro: very Canadian and melancholic. (Munro can be very funny; an early story, first published in 1961, called "A Ounce of Cure" is one of my favourites.) They are set in places I have been and peopled with characters I haven't met, but recognize. I reach the end of a story and am startled; each one reads like a novel.
I can't really say I like one over another; I rarely "like" a Munro tale, but they do resonate, rather painfully.
I didn't know she was a writer, nor that she was famous. I just looked forward to Sunday School in a way I never had before or since.
Later, of course, I read several of her short stories and her novel Lives of Girls and Women, which isn't so much a novel as a collection of short stories about one awkward young girl growing up in a small Ontario town. Munro was a master of describing and distilling the acute embarrassment of adolescence, just as she was later to put a merciless finger on the disappointments of middle life and old age.
I don't know how autobiographical her stories are. I suspect Lives of Girls and Women probably is. They don't reflect my experience of life exactly - thank goodness - but they are uncomfortably familiar and certain images and phrases stab at me.
The latest prickle-fest I've been reading is The Love of a Good Woman, a short story collection published in 1998. It just showed up when I was spring-cleaning; I have no recollection of how it got into the house. The titular story and one called "Save the Reaper" are both creepy and border on being horror stories or thrillers - we're left hanging.
The rest are pure Munro: very Canadian and melancholic. (Munro can be very funny; an early story, first published in 1961, called "A Ounce of Cure" is one of my favourites.) They are set in places I have been and peopled with characters I haven't met, but recognize. I reach the end of a story and am startled; each one reads like a novel.
I can't really say I like one over another; I rarely "like" a Munro tale, but they do resonate, rather painfully.
reflective
medium-paced
Alice Munro is one of my favorite Author and here are my thoughts about her: https://khnebulishvili.wixsite.com/my-site-1/post/my-thoughts-about-alice-munro