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alwaysanna13's review against another edition
3.0
This collection of short stories (and slightly longer ones) was beautifully written - Munro knows how to make language paint a picture! That said, I didn't love the collection - it was a little slow, and I found it hard to connect to the characters.
sdoncolo's review against another edition
5.0
Read for "Reading as a Writer" at Lighthouse. I know one is *supposed* to find Alice Munro amazing, and I did. I loved the stories, I loved reading intensely literary stories that were about women and that also felt "normal," about daily life and times rather than extravagant strangeness, while at the same time slipping some extravagant strangeness in there. And the more I keep digging into these stories, the more I see that their astonishing quality of writing is, as in all the best writing, disguised in the way the astonishment is not necessarily instantly apparent (except, perhaps, in "Runaway").
jamichalski's review against another edition
5.0
I don’t think it’s an overreaction to say Alice Munro is one of the greatest short story writers I’ve ever read. Almost every story in this collection ranks among the greatest short stories I’ve ever read (Chance; Soon; Silence; Trespasses; Passion; Tricks; Powers). The only one I didn’t care a whole lot for was the title story, Runaway. Munro is a master of the medium.
The stories in this collection are about the lives and relationships of lower/middle-class Canadian women. The relationships are about lovers, companions, friends, husbands/wives, mentors/mentees, mothers/fathers/children; common themes are independence, fear, loneliness, social/cultural constraints on women, how people change, and how they really don’t change at all. They are not very optimistic stories, in general. People fall into the same old self-defeating patterns, people are abandoned, they age, they divorce, they miss opportunities, etc.
Memory and time’s passing are two themes coursing through the best of these stories. Munro likes to build up characters at young ages and then quickly jump forward decades in their lives. We first see them young and vitalized, swept up in dramas of youth (money, marriage, status, possessions). Then, we see them much later, with so many hopes disappointed and dreams unfulfilled. The reader is left with an aching for these characters’ lost potential selves, futures that never arrived, roads once open and now closed off forever. These themes are extremely potent and universal and I’m honestly surprised more writers don’t focus on them. Who among us does not mourn for that which never came about? I know at times I feel really bereaved for the missed potentialities of my life, for the chances at relationships with other people and places that never happened and never will, that now exist only in my memory. It’s a lonely, bitter thing.
I’m totally awed by Munro’s stories: carefully composed, utterly human, always relevant. She’s worth reading, I promise.
A great quote from Powers: “Life is always so full. Getting and spending we lay waste out powers. Why do we let ourselves be so busy and miss doing the things we should have, or would have, liked to do?”
The stories in this collection are about the lives and relationships of lower/middle-class Canadian women. The relationships are about lovers, companions, friends, husbands/wives, mentors/mentees, mothers/fathers/children; common themes are independence, fear, loneliness, social/cultural constraints on women, how people change, and how they really don’t change at all. They are not very optimistic stories, in general. People fall into the same old self-defeating patterns, people are abandoned, they age, they divorce, they miss opportunities, etc.
Memory and time’s passing are two themes coursing through the best of these stories. Munro likes to build up characters at young ages and then quickly jump forward decades in their lives. We first see them young and vitalized, swept up in dramas of youth (money, marriage, status, possessions). Then, we see them much later, with so many hopes disappointed and dreams unfulfilled. The reader is left with an aching for these characters’ lost potential selves, futures that never arrived, roads once open and now closed off forever. These themes are extremely potent and universal and I’m honestly surprised more writers don’t focus on them. Who among us does not mourn for that which never came about? I know at times I feel really bereaved for the missed potentialities of my life, for the chances at relationships with other people and places that never happened and never will, that now exist only in my memory. It’s a lonely, bitter thing.
I’m totally awed by Munro’s stories: carefully composed, utterly human, always relevant. She’s worth reading, I promise.
A great quote from Powers: “Life is always so full. Getting and spending we lay waste out powers. Why do we let ourselves be so busy and miss doing the things we should have, or would have, liked to do?”
maplover's review against another edition
NYT review of author reveals ignored abuse which was too disturbing to fathom.
janae126's review against another edition
4.0
I preferred some stories over others, as one does with a collection of short stories. I enjoyed how each had an underlying reality of the sadness that life often does. I enjoyed the style that a few stories started with two or so pages of something that took place near the end of the story, that made more sense once the reader was about finished with the story. I also enjoyed the significant time jumps that most stories, or in the case with Juilet's stories took place across all three, that the reader was able to learn about the happenings much further in the characters' lives, and how things continued to unfold for them. Each story left a feeling of "nothing is ever quite as simple, or cut and dry as it seems." These were stories mostly about people who were just so common, that they were beautiful.
mtshuffman's review against another edition
4.0
When I put this book on my to-read list, I kind of knew I would love Alice Munro's writing. It was just a feeling based on what I had read, and overall, the feeling was spot on. But Runaway is, for me, so close to my personal version of an ideal book that I got a little picky when things didn't go quite the way I wanted.
I liked how the characters were drawn and developed, the understated force of her writing style and how she stitched all the threads of the stories together. I liked the collection together and each story on its own, saving the last one, Powers, which didn't quite come together for me on the character or plot level and was clunky in the way it switched writing formats.
In the end, the big thing that held my heart back from really loving this collection was the overtone of sadness in all the stories. Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the feeling that Munro is one of those authors who equates sadness with seriousness and feels the need to make all her stories sad to be considered serious literature. The general dreariness was reinforced with these unusual plot points (the goat's death, Penelope's cult, the fate of Neil, the Lauren plot twist) that felt a little contrived so overall the effect is kind of a forced sadness.
I liked how the characters were drawn and developed, the understated force of her writing style and how she stitched all the threads of the stories together. I liked the collection together and each story on its own, saving the last one, Powers, which didn't quite come together for me on the character or plot level and was clunky in the way it switched writing formats.
In the end, the big thing that held my heart back from really loving this collection was the overtone of sadness in all the stories. Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the feeling that Munro is one of those authors who equates sadness with seriousness and feels the need to make all her stories sad to be considered serious literature. The general dreariness was reinforced with these unusual plot points (the goat's death, Penelope's cult, the fate of Neil, the Lauren plot twist) that felt a little contrived so overall the effect is kind of a forced sadness.
creekhiker's review against another edition
5.0
Reread for teaching an undergraduate/graduate Craft of Fiction class. Class was in total agreement that her plot and sentences are beautiful, but her characters were all rather the same and rather depressing. Which, I will concur, they are in this collection - every story is about a woman trapped in her life. But she writes it so very well!
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Reread for my thesis (October 2008). Alice Munro truly is a master of short stories. Her craft is impeccable, and her ability to show the drama in ordinary lives is amazing.
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Reread for my thesis (October 2008). Alice Munro truly is a master of short stories. Her craft is impeccable, and her ability to show the drama in ordinary lives is amazing.
johnjohnston's review against another edition
4.0
My second read of these stories was some what disjoined due to real life. Too disjointed to have any serious thought.
mlefever1's review against another edition
3.0
Of course she's an excellent writer. I felt like I had a very good image of each character. Overall I didn't care for most of the stories. The repeated theme of the lead woman trying to overcome her station in life with some dignity, though relevant, got old for me.