Hello
Gentle Reader
There
is something about a collection of stories reading: ‘selected stories,’ or ‘the
best of,’ or ‘the collected stories of [ author ],’ is always reminiscent of a
greatest hits album of some has been band or aged pop star—that final and
desperate step of revitalizing a career, which has since expired. Often a
selection or the collected stories of author, often reads the same way. These
stories often feel commissioned or half-hearted attempts at novels since
abandoned, or worst: simple and poor writing exercises. Then again, what is to
be expected of short stories? They are not grand. They are not epic. They are not
larger than life. They lack the soap opera dramatics. Action generally takes
place off stage. The characters are only brief passerby’s, existing solely in
the existential peripheral. Short stories are therefore often considered
children’s play. They are the stepping stones, and the basic scaffolding for
novels. Bad short stories, and their writers, often lead the genre to getting
its pubescent reputation. Yet, there are writers who are capable of taking the
short story beyond its perceived limitations and creating a piece of work,
which retorts and refuses to be classified as juvenile in composition and
nature; and rivals the novel.
Despite
my personal love for the short story genre (when it is done correctly), the one
aspect the short story collection often lacks is: a sense of unity, or complete
connectedness. At times the stories appear to be disconnected planets residing
in isolated orbits in the solar system, tracing and retracing their
trajectories as they circle a distant sun. Now these short stories do not need
to share characters or a common narrative strand; but a common unifying theme
explored, constructed, and deconstructed, through varying lens of the
characters, which experience, perceive and ponder the theme presented to them. “Selected
Stories,” or “Collected Stories,” can and never will offer the sense of
independence for each story, but a unified thread or concept connecting them
all.
Alice
Munro once said: “I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things
that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t been time for. But what there is
time for is looking out the window.” This quote describes the world, writings,
and perspectives of Alice Munro, a view which finds the extraordinary in the
ordinary, the complex in the mundane. Her view is that everyone leads and lives
their own adventure, riddled with personal dramas, betrayals, romances, heart
breaks, suspense and tragedies. In this regard, Alice Munro has built a long
but understated career on probing the internal life of everyday people. Her
career as a writer was not met with immediate appreciation. Her first
collection of short stories was met with praise, even going on to win the
Governor Generals Award. However, Alice Munro was considered a housewife first,
and as her literary career began she was often deemed a housewife before a
writer. Yet as Munro has said, housework did not bother her; what bothered her,
was the fact it was expected to be her life. As she points out in another
quote: “[ . . . ] when you’re a housewife, you are constantly interrupted. You
have no space in your life. It isn’t the fact that you do the laundry.”
Alice
Munro has always been that ‘housewife,’ writer. She was not an academic, like
Margaret Atwood or Anne Carson. Munro by contrast was someone who was convicted
and sentenced to the obligations and societal conventions of her time. She did
spend time studying English and journalism at the University of Western
Ontario, on a two-year scholarship. After the two years the scholarship had run
out, and Munro had no further financial options in which to continue her
studies. During this time she met her first husband James Munro. Eventually the
young couple moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where they opened Munro’s
Books. The marriage ended in divorce after twenty years. During this time,
Munro published her first collection of short stories: “Dance of the Happy
Shades,” which would go on and win the Governor’s General Award, and would mark
the beginning of a rather understated and quiet career, of a ‘housewife,’
turned writer, who through the course of four decades would release fourteen
collections of short stories; as well as another seven collected and selected
stories. She announced her retirement in two-thousand and twelve, with her
final collection of short stories: “Dear Life.” A year later, she was announced
as the Nobel Laureate in Literature, with the citation: “Contemporary Master of
the Short Story.”
“Family
Furnishings,” is guide through the later stories and career of Alice Munro. The
stories range from the complex to the minimal and understated. The subject
matter varies from story to story, the quiet tragedies of daily life and the
personal dramas; but it all unfolds with Munro’s particular perspective, always
moving away from the epicenter of the dramatic event, and instead focuses on
the peripherals of the action, whereupon she depicts the perspectives and
responses the individuals and characters have towards the event. A prime of
this backstage and side stage focus is her short story “Dimension,” from her
short story collection: “Too Much Happiness.”
“Dimensions,”
opens with Munro’s renowned simplicity and matter of fact decryption. It
describes Doree (or Fleur) on a journey which requires her to take three buses,
before casually cutting away to discuss her job as a Chambermaid at an inn. She
enjoys her job, preoccupies her mind. Her older co-workers encourage her to
seek training, she’s young enough she could work behind the desk. Yet, she
declines—she doesn’t want to talk to people. In the next paragraph however,
Alice Munro casually welcomes the reader to take a fleeting glimpse at the
shadow which haunts Doree:
“None
of the people she worked with knew what had happened. Or, if they did, they
didn’t let on. Her picture had been in the paper—they’d used the photo he took
of her with all three kids, the new baby, Dimitri, in her arms, and Barbara Ann
and Sasha on either side, looking on. Her hair had been long and wavy and brown
then, natural in curl and color, as he liked it, and her face bashful and
soft—a reflection less of the way she was than of the way he wanted to see her.”
[.
. . ]
“Since
then, she had cut her hair short and bleached and spiked it, and she had lost a
lot of weight. And she went by her second name now: Fleur. Also, the job they
had found for her was in a town a good distance away from where she used to
live.”
It
immediately becomes clear: Doree had experienced personal trauma, which also
shocked and bewildered the community. Munro continues her slow excavation into
the past and psyche of her character throughout her bus trip. How she attempts
to remain calm, as she edges ever closer to the destination to see: him. She
admires the landscape with bemused causality, while also observing her fellow
passengers with vacant and distant curiosity.
One
of Alice Munro’s signature moves with the short story is playing with the
linearity of time, and “Dimension,” showcases the casual talent by how Munro
further goes back into Doree’s life, and in a few brief sketches describes the
defining moments which lead to her current situation: how she met the orderly
Lloyd, the death of her mother by an embolism, her marriage at seventeen, the
birth of her first child and the subsequent two to follow; and the beginning
signs of a marriage crack and just beginning to unravel at the seams. Through
flashback and present moment; through conversations with a Mrs. Sands, we are
eventually led to the defining moment which changed Doree into ‘Fleur.’ Lloyd
was a man of a troubled mindset, and his manic episodes had gotten the better
hand of him; when Doree had walked out on him one night, he killed the
children. He was deemed criminally insane and therefore unfit for trial, and
sent to a secure psychiatric institution.
When
I had first read “Dimension,” in “Too Much Happiness,” the narrative had left
me cold. It was an uncomfortable story, riddled with insanity, naivety, and of
course the death and murder of children. The causality and understated prose
was ice through the veins. Yet upon reflection and re-reading the story, one
sees Alice Munro’s charm and talent come through. She deals with the subject
matter by circling around it, only gradually insinuating at a grander and
darker narrative, which she finally gets to. Though in the grander collection,
“Dimension,” is one of those much later stories of Munro’s career, where she
has further refined her characteristically understated narratives, into more
brief flashes and sketches, providing minimalistic
By
contrast, “The Love of a Good Woman,”
showcases Alice Munro shaping the short story genre, into a complex
format, often defying linear narratives and chronological storytelling; and
shows her ability to rival and even trump novelists in the amount of detail she
can grasp in fifty or so pages, which takes others five hundred or more to make
clear. The story opens with a discussion of a new museum in Walley which houses
old butter churns, horse harnesses, archaic apple peelers, among other outdated
curiosities—a throwback so to speak, to the: ‘simpler times.’ Among the
collection, a red box of optometrist equipment stands out:
“[.
. . ] D. M. WILLENS, OPTOMETRIST Printed on it; and a note beside it, say,
“This box of optometrist’s instruments though not very old has considerable
local significance, since it belonged to MR. D. M. Willens, who drowned in the
Peregrine River, 1951. It escaped the catastrophe and was found, presumably by
the anonymous donor, who dispatched it to be a feature of our collection.”
Mr.
(or Doctor) Willens is a shadow throughout the story. His medical instruments
used in the diagnosis and prescription remedies for eyes, maybe casually
described and displayed at the Walley museum, as a contemporary curiosity in
relation to its more distant neighbours. These medical mundanities, however,
stirred a community and usurped lives with deathbed confessions, concealed
guilt, regrettable grief, and everyone’s greatest desire to maintain normalcy
while: keeping up appearances.
“Part
I Jutland,” was perhaps my favourite part of the story. Munro describes the
conventions and realities of small town life in way which makes it emphatically
and relatable—coming from a small town, its quick and easy to discern the
non-regulated social principles and ways of behavior, such as:
“Men
didn’t bother greeting boys by name, ever if they knew well. They called them
“boys,” or “young fellows,” or, occasionally, “sirs.”
“Good day to you sirs.”
“You boys going straight home now?”
“What monkey business do you young
fellows been up to this morning?”’
This
quick discussion and sketch solidifies with concrete assurance the atmosphere
and reality these people live in. It’s a community engrained in traditions,
conventions, and a false sense of moral superiority; one in in which Munro
often satirizes and criticizes. Alice has described these small town ideals of
being: humbleness, modesty, and never rebel or revolt; or the worst crime of
all: call attention to oneself. The expectation is to be sheepish and to fit into
the approved roles and boundaries which have already setup for them. In such
community’s alienation, ostracisation, and exile can be quickly passed and
enforced.
With
her usual lightness of touch, Munro quickly showcases the small town realities,
as well as introduces the unfortunate ghost who haunts and lingers the story.
‘The boys,’ Cece Ferns, Bud Salter, Jimmy Box, are three boys who pass time the
best way they know how. Admittedly too old for former childhood games, they’ve
now set their sights on the adult world and its tantalizing freedom. As they
move further away from town they imagine what they can scrounge up and make use
of. A recent and yearly flood always scavenges and brings to light the
discarded, disposed of, and lost. They boys envision their lives with budding
and growing maturity. They think of building a makeshift raft or shed; they
consider the tools they need and the items ideally to scavenge. Muskrat traps
become the most desirable commodity. They envision an entire business venture,
revolving around pelts, the money, the independence, the freedom and the life.
They would relieve themselves of their societal yokes and the indignities
placed on them because of their age, they would be respected and equal. Despite
their lives and expectations already set out for them, due to their
circumstances, family life, and living situations. For now though they were
free. Yet their agency has an expiration date. But their trip out the flood
plains leaves them to discover a unfortunate incident, which inevitably shakes
their quiet community, and disrupts the order conventional peace.
The
boys discover Mr. (Doctor) Willens ‘Austin,’ car and body in the flooded
plains. Needless to say: he was dead. This discovery ties them together; as if
they were partners in crime; or members of a cult blood bound and obligated to
uphold the order, in its corruption and defiled sanctity. They each agree they
need to inform the authorities of their unfortunate discovery—though, more
unfortunate as it is not old barn wood, or muskrat traps, the practical
equipment of their independent dreams.
From
there, Alice Munro offers us three windows into the lives of: Cece Ferns, Bud
Salter, and Jimmy Box. Of the three, Cece Ferns is the one who attracts the
greatest sympathy. An only child, with derelict parents; a mother whose mental
constitution may or may not be frayed, as well as a drunkard father, a
slobbering, aggressive, and vicious man with neither sense or wits about him.
Yet, Cece has matured fast and has become appropriate and practical in handling
of his situation. He takes care of the cooking, as it is implied his mother is
not capable of completing or doing the chores, due to mental or existential
exhaustion, or perhaps a physical ailment. Regardless, Cece has become—through necessity—functional
and proficient in the kitchen. This proficiency is disdained by his father; who
would, will, has made such remarks as making a fellow (of homosexual nature) a
dandy wife. Of course such sarcasm and off-handed comments were reserved if the
old man was in a good mood. The opposite was even more dangerous. As Munro
describes:
“’Smart
bugger aren’t you? Well, all I got to say to you is better watch out.”
Then if Cece looked back at him, or
maybe if he didn’t look back, or if he dropped the egg lift or set down with a
clatter—or even if he was sliding around being extra cautious about not
dropping anything and not making a noise—his father was apt to start showing
his teeth and snarling like a dog. It ould have been ridiculous—it was
ridiculous—except that he meant business. A minute later the food and the
dishes might be on the floor, and it the table overturned and he might be
chasing Cece around the room yelling how he was going to get him this time,
flatten his face on the hot burner, how he would like that?”
Every
town appears to have that ‘Cece,’ and his father. The old man, getting drunk in
the bar; the mother barely keeping the house together, as it verges closer and
closer to the edge and implosion. There is pity and sympathy but little else.
Some keep their phones close and others keep their doors open. They offer
sympathetic advice, and touching counsel, always staying clear from being
abrupt or too assertive in their frustrations.
Bud
Salter’s family sits in the majority of the town: exhausted parents and
squabbling siblings. The usual rowdy house riddled with what many call: family
life. Jimmy Box’s home and family, is at the front untraditional, and riddled
with generations, but it contains manners, but also the slight inconveniences of
economic disparity (micro and macro), as well as the lack of personal space or
corner of possession to call one’s own.
These
first parts and pages only set the scene for the entire story, which revolves
around Enid as she coaxes, comforts, and assists the terminally ill to their
eventual expiration. Its gruesome work, and would not be considered a
flirtatious selling feature, or polite to mention. Yet it’s rewarding and
adheres to the strict conventions of modesty and retaining humble appearances.
After all, what could be more humbling then the charitable natured work of
accompanying those dying to death? However, her current patient—a Mrs. Quinn—whose
young life is coming to, what many would call: its premature end. Dying young
with wasted potential is a miserable reality, evoking the sense one has
committed a shameful—if unavoidable—crime. For this Mrs. Quinn, like many who
are dying, finds herself resentful, bitter, and scathingly aggrieved. The brunt
of her last vitriol is always Enid. Who else is there? Again it’s the nature of
a charitable and humbling job.
Mrs.
Quinn and her husband, Rupert, know quite a bit about the fate of Mr. (Dr.)
Willens, and how he ended up in his car and in the water, dead and all alone.
In her profession, Enid is accustomed to confessions, concessions, and
acknowledgements of guilt and regret. With Mrs. Quinn its different. She
expresses the regret and guilt, but finds the situation more humorous, and with
the apathy of someone who has completely accepted their fate, with no fear of
mortal laws and consequences. As for Enid the entire care and devotion to the
Quinn’s was difficult. She grew up with Rupert, and through her care of his
ailing and dying wife, grew attached and fond towards Rupert. All Enid can
offer and provide is the love of a good woman, but that’s all. Her business
requires her to be devoted and compassionate, blind with kindness, and thick
skinned from the agitated assaults of the dying, who are less interested in
love and care, and more interested in getting it over and done with.
She
may not have the poetic precision of Herta Müller, or the poetic adventure of
J.M.G Le Clezio; but much like Patrick Modiano, Alice Munro is well adapt at depicting,
describing, analyzing a particular place and time. Munro
understands the unique cultures of the small town Canadian community, one
steeped in its religious doctrine of modesty and humbleness, where one is
expected to conform and never bring unwanted—or any—attention to themselves. She
understands the narrow and myopic perspective, and the gossiping politics of
the community. In this Munro is able to depict an air of oppression, reminiscent
of Müller’s “Nadirs,” or the willful amnesia of Modiano’s Paris. Just like her
fellow Nobel Laureates, Munro’s characters rebel, confront, runaway and
desperately seek an escape from these small communities and their rigid constitutions.
Their lives, however, are not always fairytale or ending happily. Sometimes they
end in murder, or premature death, stillborn babies, abject poverty, and
societal isolation and humiliation. Others may make it, they make a difference
in their lives, though they are still not without their own hiccups and slight
tragedies, and even, when they return these same runaway and wayward children
now come to the defense of their parents and their families from outsiders who
are quick to criticize and penalize their lives. The world of Alice Munro is
one riddled with family furnishings; some are tainted, some are cheap, some are
heirlooms, and others antiques. But their world is their own and in it, we each
find something that slightly reminds us of home or some distant relation or
family member.
“Family
Furnsihings,” is a lovely mixed bag of a collection of short stories,
showcasing Munro’s penchant for location and its population; it has her
lightness of touch and her unique blend of storytelling. In all: a splendid,
final curtain call of a collection of her short stories which truly showcase
her breadth of style and scope, while magnifying her talents.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
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