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A review by rbcp82
The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro
5.0
Nothing I can write will justify the sublimity of short story art as practiced in this book. So...
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He was scrupulously egalitarian, making it a point not to "snivel," as he said, to anybody, not to kowtow, and not to highhat anybody, either, to behave as if there were no differences. I took the same tack. There were times, later, when I wondered if it was a paralyzing prudence that urged this stand, as much as any finer sentiment, when I wondered if my father and I didn't harbor, in our hearts, intact and unassailable notions of superiority, which my mother and her cousins with their innocent snobbishness could never match.
He knew he had an advantage, and we had reached the point in our marriage where no advantage was given up easily.
Lily said she never let her husband come near her if he had been drinking. Marjorie said since the time she nearly died with a hemorrhage she never let her husband come near her, period. Lily said quickly that it was only when he'd been drinking that he tried anything. I could see that it was a matter of pride not to let your husband come near you, but I couldn't quite believe that "come near" meant "have sex." The idea of Marjorie and Lily being sought out for such purposes seemed grotesque. They had bad teeth, their stomachs sagged, their faces were dull and spotty. I decided to take "come near" literally.
It seems unlikely that on my way to the Turkey Barn, for an hour of gutting turkeys, I should have experienced such a sense of promise and at the same time of perfect, impenetrable mystery in the universe, but I did.
It is in imagining her affair to be a secret that Frances shows, most clearly, a lack of small-town instincts, a trust and recklessness she is unaware of; this is what people mean when they say of her that it sure shows that she has been away.
I joke about her, everybody does, but I defend her too, saying that she is not condemned to living with reservations and withdrawals, long-drawn-out dissatisfactions, inarticulate wavering miseries. Her trust is total, her miseries are sharp, and she survives without visible damage. She doesn't allow for drift or stagnation and the spectacle of her life is not discouraging to me.
That was the only time I talked to him, so far as I can remember. There was something about the direct approach, the slightly clumsy but determined courtesy, my own unexpected, lightened feeling of gratitude, that did connect with his attentions to women later, and his effect on them. I am sure he was always patient, unalarming; successful, appreciative, sincere.
Her children, who all live at a distance, send her beautiful books on subjects they are sure will interest her, but for the most part these books are large and heavy and she can't find a way to look at them comfortably, so she soon relegates them to her bottom shelf. She would not admit it to her children, but her interest has waned, it has waned considerably. They say in their letters that they remember how she taught them about mushrooms; do you remember when we saw the destroying angel in Petrie's Bush when we were living in Logan? Their letters are full of remembering.
The trees came down to the shore, on both sides of the building. Most of them were birch and poplar. The leaves were not quite out here, even though it was May. You could see all the branches with just an impression of green, as if that was the color of the air. Under the trees there were hundreds of white trilliums. The day was cloudy, though the sun had been trying to break through. The water looked bright and cold.
"And I thought, why should I be surprised? Isn't this just what you always hear? How love isn't rational, or in one's best interests, it doesn't have anything to do with normal preferences?"
"Where do you always hear that?" Douglas said.
"It's standard. There's the intelligent sort of love that makes an intelligent choice. That's the kind you're supposed to get married on. Then there's the kind that's anything but intelligent, that's like a possession. And that's the one, that's the one, everybody really values. That's the one nobody wants to have missed out on."
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He was scrupulously egalitarian, making it a point not to "snivel," as he said, to anybody, not to kowtow, and not to highhat anybody, either, to behave as if there were no differences. I took the same tack. There were times, later, when I wondered if it was a paralyzing prudence that urged this stand, as much as any finer sentiment, when I wondered if my father and I didn't harbor, in our hearts, intact and unassailable notions of superiority, which my mother and her cousins with their innocent snobbishness could never match.
He knew he had an advantage, and we had reached the point in our marriage where no advantage was given up easily.
Lily said she never let her husband come near her if he had been drinking. Marjorie said since the time she nearly died with a hemorrhage she never let her husband come near her, period. Lily said quickly that it was only when he'd been drinking that he tried anything. I could see that it was a matter of pride not to let your husband come near you, but I couldn't quite believe that "come near" meant "have sex." The idea of Marjorie and Lily being sought out for such purposes seemed grotesque. They had bad teeth, their stomachs sagged, their faces were dull and spotty. I decided to take "come near" literally.
It seems unlikely that on my way to the Turkey Barn, for an hour of gutting turkeys, I should have experienced such a sense of promise and at the same time of perfect, impenetrable mystery in the universe, but I did.
It is in imagining her affair to be a secret that Frances shows, most clearly, a lack of small-town instincts, a trust and recklessness she is unaware of; this is what people mean when they say of her that it sure shows that she has been away.
I joke about her, everybody does, but I defend her too, saying that she is not condemned to living with reservations and withdrawals, long-drawn-out dissatisfactions, inarticulate wavering miseries. Her trust is total, her miseries are sharp, and she survives without visible damage. She doesn't allow for drift or stagnation and the spectacle of her life is not discouraging to me.
That was the only time I talked to him, so far as I can remember. There was something about the direct approach, the slightly clumsy but determined courtesy, my own unexpected, lightened feeling of gratitude, that did connect with his attentions to women later, and his effect on them. I am sure he was always patient, unalarming; successful, appreciative, sincere.
Her children, who all live at a distance, send her beautiful books on subjects they are sure will interest her, but for the most part these books are large and heavy and she can't find a way to look at them comfortably, so she soon relegates them to her bottom shelf. She would not admit it to her children, but her interest has waned, it has waned considerably. They say in their letters that they remember how she taught them about mushrooms; do you remember when we saw the destroying angel in Petrie's Bush when we were living in Logan? Their letters are full of remembering.
The trees came down to the shore, on both sides of the building. Most of them were birch and poplar. The leaves were not quite out here, even though it was May. You could see all the branches with just an impression of green, as if that was the color of the air. Under the trees there were hundreds of white trilliums. The day was cloudy, though the sun had been trying to break through. The water looked bright and cold.
"And I thought, why should I be surprised? Isn't this just what you always hear? How love isn't rational, or in one's best interests, it doesn't have anything to do with normal preferences?"
"Where do you always hear that?" Douglas said.
"It's standard. There's the intelligent sort of love that makes an intelligent choice. That's the kind you're supposed to get married on. Then there's the kind that's anything but intelligent, that's like a possession. And that's the one, that's the one, everybody really values. That's the one nobody wants to have missed out on."