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Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML:WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE© IN LITERATURE 2013 A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction A Best Book of the Year: The Atlantic, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, AV Club In story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro??s unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro??s own childhood. Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary li… (more)
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Of the stories in this collection, I would single out “Amundsen” for its clash of naïveté and self-serving motives, “Haven” for the unflattering portrayal of familial relations, and “Train” for the way it treats a life as iterations in a quest for solidity and peace. But I might just as easily have chosen any of the other stories.
The final four pieces in the collection are grouped together under the title “Finale”. These are, Munro says, “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact.” In them, Munro looks at a few incidents of her childhood that cast her, momentarily, in an unfavourable light. They are, some of them, shameful thoughts or actions that she may be excising. In “Night”, her father reassures her. “People have those kinds of thoughts sometimes.” And it is precisely what she needs to hear in order to overcome her anxiety driven insomnia. Other regrets, such as not attending her mother’s final illness, death, and funeral are not assuaged by the calm comfort of a wise father. “We say of some things that they can’t be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do—we do it all the time.”
Highly recommended.
It is a book full of the sort of insights into the human heart one has come to expect from Munro. It's true, I found the ending to the first story a bit contrived, but when I reflect on it as part of the work as a whole I find it oddly fitting. Perhaps you will as well. Each of Munro's characters (and there's no need for me to provide a list here, the jacket blurb as well as other reviews will do that), are somewhat buffeted by their lives -- aren't we all? -- and yet there is an overall tone of Grace here, a wonder at the fragility of a people's lives, their love, their possibilities.
The last two sentences of the book -- "We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do--we do it all the time." -- will, I suspect be much discussed. Certainly there is not a story in this collection to which that line might not apply. Indeed, just as I think of the title of Carson McCullers' novel, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" as perhaps the perfect title, in that I can't think of a book it wouldn't fit, so I think of Munro's last line. Its simplicity, clarity and profundity (especially so placed) are trademark Munro. It is the sort of writing that makes me proud to be a writer, and to vow to do be a better one.
The stories are steeped in melancholy and the quiet frustrations of ordinary existence. Not necessarily sad stories so much as stories that aren't all tied up into easy resolutions or overly happy, contrived endings. I was vaguely reminded of some of the writings of John Steinbeck, perhaps because, like Steinbeck, Ms. Munro seems to capture the essence of a certain kind of people as they existed in a certain place and time.
Each story concentrates on relating a specific time or event in someone's life when their future is somehow changed, sometimes not great huge events but small choices that inform the direction that will, at some point down the line, eventually result in a change of destination... a wonder of what might have been. These are the kind of stories that stick with the reader long after they've been read.
It's a very good book. It drew me in to the point that the characters became very much alive in my imagination and I found myself at times wanting to yell out to them. To offer some piece of advice or warning about what they were doing, to chastise them for poor decisions, or to comfort them in their moment of sorrow.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys literary fiction. There are adult themes and at least one instance of strong language.
I had a decidedly mixed reaction to this book, which is the first of Munro’s work that I have read. On one hand, the author demonstrates again and again why she is considered to be such a master of her craft. The prose in each of the stories in this volume is concise and emotionally evocative. She does a truly remarkable job of creating a rich, self-contained world within each tale, many of which span decades of a character’s life in a brief amount of space.
On the other hand, though, I also found the subject matter throughout Dear Life to be consistently—relentlessly, in fact—depressing. These are stories of illness, disappointment, and heartbreak, which made them somewhat monotonous to read even if the details changed from one account to the next. Further, the four semi-autobiographical pieces that end the book felt fragmentary and unfinished compared to the rest of the volume. So, while it is easy to appreciate from the quality of the writing how talented Munro really is, the nature of the stories themselves makes it difficult to recommend this book without considerable hesitation.
Munro was born and raised on a “fox and poultry” farm in Ontario and she now lives in Clinton, a little town of approximately 3,000 residents about twenty miles from that farm. Pure and simple, Munro
The stories in Dear Life are not so much plot driven, as they are character driven. They feature strong, but complex, women whose lives are often changed or pushed in entirely new directions by spur of the moment decisions or chance encounters. The reader is reminded that even what appear to be the simplest of lives are not ever so simple to the ones living them.
Strong as the women of Dear Life are, when it comes to men, many of them seem to be attracted to the “bad boy” type – and they usually suffer the consequences. One woman, married and the mother of a little girl, has a sudden fling with a younger man while on a train trip to Toronto to housesit for a friend; a middle-aged woman living alone on remote, broken down farm takes in a soldier who decides to jump off a train near her place; an elderly woman runs off when her husband’s equally elderly old flame re-enters his life; and a rich woman has a long affair with a married man whom she figures out way too late.
In addition, this fourteen-story collection include stories about little girls and one about a confused old woman akin to the kind of tale often found in the classic “Twilight Zone” television series. The collection’s final four stories are set in a separate unit of their own, and are described by the author as “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact.” These four stories are intriguing snapshots of incidents, one must suppose, that are based on something from Munro’s own life, but rather surprisingly, they do not carry the emotional impact of the earlier stories.
Dear Life is an excellent introduction to Alice Munro’s fiction, to her unforgettable characters and the sheer power of her stories. She is not a novelist but, somehow, her best stories read like mini-novels, and they say as much about the human condition as will be found in most full-length novels.
Alice Munro is a true short story master.
Rated at: 4.0
did he mean?
What's really missing is warmth (not to mention humour), so it promises relief when, in the final tales of this collection, Munro turns to more directly autobiographical pieces. But the tone remains: semi-detached, unsympathetic to other family members or herself, portraying the kind of sober and unglamorous lives once associated so readily with Canada.
The stories are all set in familiar Munro territory around Lake Huron and all of them revolve around small incidents in
This is certainly true of the last four pieces which the author introduces with an explanation that these are indeed memoir not stories. They gain an extra poignancy by being avowedly autobiographical, and they add to the sense of valediction. I do hope, however, this is not to be Ms Munro's farewell.
Munro is the 12th woman to win the prize. Some of the noted writers who have taken this most prestigious award include, Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, and Doris Lessing. Reading at least one work by each winner makes an interesting and wide-ranging adventure in fiction.
When I first started reading this collection, I felt a little mystified by the ordinariness of the lives she portrayed. But once I really immersed myself in the stories, I began to see the importance that all lives
have in teaching us about the inner workings of the human mind.
In “Amundsen,” Vivien Hyde has arrived at a school as a new teacher. She is self-conscious about a minor physical deformity and spends most of her time home alone. But she attracts the attention of the headmaster, Dr. Fox, who invites her to his home for dinner. The two gradually develop a bond and he asks Vivien to marry him. They elope, and when they arrive at their destination, Fox says, “I can’t do it,” … ‘He can’t explain it. Only that it is a mistake.” He puts her on a train for home with these words, “Maybe someday you’ll count this as one of the luckiest days of your life.” (63)
Vivien runs into him years later, and he asks if she is happy. Munro continues, “’Good for you.’ It still seemed as if we could make our way out of that crowd, that in a moment we would be together. But just as certain that we would carry on in the way we were going. And so we did. No breathless cry, no hand on my shoulder when I reached the sidewalk. Just that flash I had seen in an instant,” … “For me, I was feeling something the same as when I left Amundsen, the train carrying me still dazed and full of disbelief. Nothing changes really about love.” Munro gives the reader powerless, helpless characters who carry on their lives with quiet dignity.
Yet, somehow, I find these stories anything but depressing. I find myself cheering for these men and women, hoping beyond hope they will succeed and triumph in the end.
I found some passages of Alice Munro’s Dear Life rather confusing, and only after several attempts could I untangle the relationships and emotions of these characters. One story in particular, “Gravel,” is narrated by a young girl who suffers the loss of a sibling who drowned while attempting to save the family dog. The conversations between her older sister, Caro, and her step-father Neal required a lot of extra effort. Overall, Munro is a wonderful writer with lots of interesting characters and a fine narrative eye. 4 stars
--Jim, 11/2/13