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A review by tangleroot_eli
The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose by Alice Munro
4.0
Alice Munro never puts a needless word on the page, so there's no skimming with this one. Each phrase of each sentence must be carefully considered. So it's sometimes a slow read, but it always rewards a reader's patience.
The people, places, and events of these stories are so inescapably real. The details are relentless, like actually being in the world, bombarded with sensory input and not always able to separate the important details from the trivial. And Munro jumps her characters, and us with them, around in time in the jerky, unpredictable way of real thought. Above all, these are unpleasant people, subject to the pettiness and prejudices of their time and place, miserable, fake, afraid--and yet Munro makes me care deeply for every single one of them, even as I loathed them.
The people, places, and events of these stories are so inescapably real. The details are relentless, like actually being in the world, bombarded with sensory input and not always able to separate the important details from the trivial. And Munro jumps her characters, and us with them, around in time in the jerky, unpredictable way of real thought. Above all, these are unpleasant people, subject to the pettiness and prejudices of their time and place, miserable, fake, afraid--and yet Munro makes me care deeply for every single one of them, even as I loathed them.