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A review by dllh
Dear Life by Alice Munro
5.0
This was a really solid collection. I continue to marvel at how serene and just exactly right her prose feels even when her subject matter doesn't especially inspire me.
It occurred to me while reading this collection that I read Munro much as I've often read Frost -- as someone who on the surface seems by and large wholesome and pastoral but in whose writing can be found much darkness once you've shaken that easy sense of the pastoral or provincial.
It kind of made me sad to see that the last four pieces in this book are offered as generally more autobiographical than fictional. They have a brief preface titled "Finale" in which Munro says these are the first and probably the last things she'll say about her own life. I don't believe the author ought to be expected to tell us more about her life, but I do worry that this means Munro is somehow figuring her work is coming to an end (she is not a young woman).
It occurred to me while reading this collection that I read Munro much as I've often read Frost -- as someone who on the surface seems by and large wholesome and pastoral but in whose writing can be found much darkness once you've shaken that easy sense of the pastoral or provincial.
It kind of made me sad to see that the last four pieces in this book are offered as generally more autobiographical than fictional. They have a brief preface titled "Finale" in which Munro says these are the first and probably the last things she'll say about her own life. I don't believe the author ought to be expected to tell us more about her life, but I do worry that this means Munro is somehow figuring her work is coming to an end (she is not a young woman).