( My Dearest Gentle Reader: Due to some unforeseen circumstances -- in regards to personal illness, I was unable to post these past few weeks. I greatly apologize, and plan on getting back to the usual routine. In honour of Alice Munro's Nobel Lecture I post this review of her latest and possibly last short story collection: "Dear Life." )
Hello Gentle Reader
The title of the new Nobel Laureate in Literature, Alice Munro’s, latest and possibly last collection, brings to mind, two thoughts: an exasperated burst of resentment of one’s own life of regret. On the other hand, the title brings to mind, a formal letter one would write to their own life – a letter that one may write, and tuck away for years, only to come back to it, later and look back on it. When Alice Munro was announced as the Nobel Laureate in Literature, there was no sarcastic “who?” or complaint, that the Swedish Academy is Eurocentric. With Alice Munro, the Swedish Academy had awarded the prize to a Canadian – the first time the accolade, was given to a Canadian writer; but also a woman. However, to say that Alice Munro achieved the accolade, solely because she was a Canadian and a woman would be patronizing. Mrs. Alice Munro won the award on her own merit. Alice’s career spans six decades; and is comprised completely of short stories. A form often looked down upon. It is often seen as the poor cousin or compatriot of the novel; which is something that more serious authors write. However Alice Munro has shown the capacity for the short story to reflect on the human condition. The only difference between the short story and novel is length. Alice’s stories share the same breadth, as the novel. The only difference is that they are paired down, and stripped of unessential ornamentation, and get to the point in the most essential details. What is not necessary is implied. Along with Chekhov, Munro has shown her ability to reflect, and understand the human condition. Focusing her stories on epiphany moments, Munro shows the extraordinary in the mundane lives of people, trapped in small backwater communities, of south eastern Ontario. These people do their best to navigate their lives. Their lives are riddled with mistakes, missed opportunities and regrets. Yet their lives are theirs alone; and for that, they are left to navigate them alone.
The stories in the collection “Dear Life,” are the stories of women. The stories of men revolve around women. This is not a slight on Alice Munro’s part. She herself empathises with the lives of girls and women, as that is the life she herself has lived. One often writes about what they know. However do not expect to find Alice Munro in the romance section of some bookstore. She’s not a sentimental author. She does not gush or idealise the world her characters inhabit. She does not write of passion. Sex and love, happens like a daily occurrence; much like peeling potatoes or chopping carrots. Romance and sex, is simply the trajectory of the lives of the characters. However Alice Munro is not interested in romance or sex as intimate communication. Munro is far more interested in human companionship. Infidelity and heartbreak happens. But they happen like breaking a dish. It’s an unfortunate occurrence, which one just quickly picks up the large pieces, before sweeping up the shards and fragments.
The stories of “Dear Life,” are pared down. Many critics have praised Alice Munro’s past work, for their long, detailed naturalist style. The work of “Dear Life,” is far more expressionist in their style. Backstories are sketched, if necessary – leaving a lot for the reader to ponder and theorize. The stories are also built with abrupt departures, reversals, and moments of poor judgement and coincidence. Like Greta whose lapse in judgement allowed her to leave her daughter sleeping alone in train carriage, while she slipped off for tryst with a stranger. The outcome makes our stomachs slightly lurch, and our minds believe that such actions have consequences. Yet despite the pared down, style of these stories; as readers, each of us gets quite comfortable with our strange and shadowy travelers. They sit next to us on the train; or the bus. These people sit on the bus stop bench with us. We walk away from them in the morning. We stand behind them at the till in the evening. They quietly read their newspaper, or their book. Perhaps they play Sudoku. They mind themselves; as we keep to ourselves. Still their ordinary; if a bit banal lives, are just as extraordinary as any other. Theirs stories of past family indiscretions. How a child born out of wedlock, was given to an aunt, or distant relative to be raised; and be ignorant and unaware of its origins. Secret youthful engagements; when we thought we could love not another; only to be turned down at the last minute. These are our secrets. They are the secrets of fellow passengers, and our own. Each of us keeps to ourselves, out of politeness and a secret desire to be invisible. In these regards, we become shadows, faceless and transparent. When our stops arrive, each of us gets up. Our eyes are downcast as each of us get off at the designated stop. Yet one amongst us – Alice Munro; see’s the secrets of our lives, and turns them into her stories. That is why Alice Munro stories are cherished and loved by so many. She writes of the mundane and the banal; but also the secrets that tie each of us together. Hidden transgressions, which we would rather, not reveal even to ourselves. This is what makes Alice Munro a finely tuned story teller. She can write about the ordinary; but make it appealing and interesting; and on the flip side; she can make the extraordinary tame; putting it in its place, amongst the cutlery, the dishes or the inherited china.
Though Munro often could be seen as reusing her material continuously – and therefore would be called a master of variations on the same theme; it does appear to work for her. Each story holds the weight of the sliver of a life we are observing. At the same time, the story, tell us of the different paths and variations the story could have gone. Just like how Greta’s husband Peter and his mother “Too Reach Japan,” escape Soviet Occupied Czechoslovakia. Though Greta cannot remember the name of the mountains that Peter was carried over, it shows the ambiguity of life itself, and how decisions birth or destroy our futures:
‘“I’ve read stories like that,” Greta said, when Peter first told her about this. She explained how in the stories the baby would start to cry and invariably had to be smothered or strangled so that the noise did not endanger the whole illegal party.”
Though Peter states he never heard such stories, and cannot believe his mother would do such an act; it goes to prove that if such stories did exist, the act itself, would have meant children like Peter would not have survived; and therefore would not go on to marry Greta. Greta then would have found another – or perhaps she would not have married at all. What would come of their daughter Katy then? It is these unanswered questions these variations, these bends and forks in the roads that Munro thrives on.
“Amundsen,” is one of my personal favourites. The title itself, made me think of some small community or village in the Netherlands. Curiously enough it also brought to mind Knut Hamsun to mind as well. Still both thoughts were completely irrelevant, and based solely on the title. However the description that Alice gives, to match this strange world, that our heroine is about to enter, shows the brutality of the weather of the countryside; as well as World War II haunting behind the story itself.
“Then there was silence, the air like ice. Brittle-looking birch trees with black marks on their white bark, and some kind of small untidy evergreens rolled up like sleepy bears. The frozen lake not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves had turned to ice in the act of falling.”
“Leaving Maverley,” is one such story that Alice Munro has a male characters story orbit around a woman. It is a story of a police officer, who cares for his ailing wife – and becomes obsessed with a religiously obsessed young woman; who in tragic circumstances goes missing in a blizzard. This woman becomes the man’s obsession. By happenstance or extraordinary circumstances, when our police officer, now working as a janitor in a hospital he once again encounters the lost blizzard bible clutching girl. Once again Munro focuses on companionship between men and women that appear to transcend time itself. That being said, Munro is not an author who makes her punches bold and aware. The drama of these stories creeps up and slips by. Munro is a poet of the understatement, and completely, makes sure nothing appears campy or over the top. Everything comes and falls down, and settles; like snow in place.
The last four pieces of this work are perhaps the most enlightening and interesting. As Alice points out to us in the short forward:
“The final four works in this book are not quite stories. They form a separate unit, one that is autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact. I believe they are the first and last—and the closest—things I have to say about my own life.”
These following reflections, at the end of this book, are revelatory but at the same time inhabit a land in fiction, not entirely truthful, and not entirely fictitious. They are reflections, from memory that through process, went through the imagination – though not explicitly so. In the one memory fragment “Dear Life,” we see the protestant moral code of conduct take center stage. Alice, our reflective narrator, informs us, of how she went to another school – after war had been declared on Germany, and the old school house, where she was tormented, and threatened with being beaten up, and her lunch stolen. There she meets Diane; someone who would have become a friend. When Alice’s mother finds out where her daughter was, she honks the horn to summon her from the house. When Diane’s grandmother waves, Alice’s does not return the gesture. It is revealed that yes Diane’s mother was dead. But she was a prostitute; a crime that most likely haunted Diane through her more aware years. Alice’s mother in turn – much like all the others; we presume, shuns this house, and the daughter. They wish to keep their own children away from something tainted – or what they think is tainted, by immoral behaviour. Yet there are other more odd and gothic descriptions within “Dear Life,” the fragment. Such as the deranged and poor mad Mrs. Netterfield; who in some form or another always haunted Alice, ever since she spooked her own mother.
The fragments are some of Alice’s most tender writing, carefully constructed, and reflected upon. Their memories, are almost poetic, and their first person narration, offer that slight empathetic feeling of one’s ability to comprehend the world in which Alice has come from, and how much has changed since then.
In the beginning of Alice’s career, her work was often feared because it was ‘rough,’ for a women writer. The language was often seen as violent for the time; and even vulgar. That perception has changed a lot. As the years rolled on, Alice came be to seen more as a writer of lives lived, but lives filled with regrets and guilt. These were the lives, much like our own, full of naturalist storytelling and acute psychological realism; all written in a simple and clear way. As the age old prudishness has died down and died away, Alice’s stories showed themselves for being gentle in their depiction of sad and hardened lives, and the resilient nature of the people that live them. In person she is proper, quiet and much like her stories understated. It is this humility and modesty – and even shyness that makes, Munro a fascinating author, as well as person. When the Nobel was announced there was a collective sigh of relief of finally, and great cheers of excitement and happiness. The award will bring her attention to newer readers, who will travel down the back gravel roads of Huron County Ontario; sit in country stations waiting for the train or tram to come – and it may never come. They will see old farmsteads falling down; barns crumbling away; after such hard work had been put into it. Empty fields and bitter snowstorms. This is the world Alice inhabits; as well as her characters. They come from genteel poverty or lower middle class at best. Their communities are stifled with protestant morality. It’s a provincial and unique world all her own; and in those same regards, Alice Munro has brought them to the attention of the world.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
