Alice Munro

[Bill Chance]

I finished Alice Munro's latest collection of short stories Too Much Happiness, and this book has reinforced my belief that she is the best short story writer working today, if not of all time.

 

Reading the Amazon reviews of her novel I find a number of people think her work is too grotesque and her plots too "literary." I can see that, her genius is subtle and her writing needs to be read closely.

 

Am I being too much of a fanboy? What do y'all think of her? Have you read any Alice Munro? and if not, why are you reading a short story discussion board? (kidding, sort of).

 

Later,

Bill

Edited July 30, 2011 by Chrissy
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[Kylie]

I have The View from Castle Rock on my TBR pile but haven't read anything else by Munro. Do you have any particular favourites that you would recommendation?

 

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

[woolf woolf]

I've recently read "Dear Life", a collection of short-stories from 2012. I really enjoyed it. The stories are about mundane moments, nostalgic memories, and life as being something brief, that in retrospective has less weight or importance than in the given moment. I found it reassuring, because people can be bound and even troubled for choosing the wrong persons or the wrong way. This book kind of says that everything'll be alright, not in a sense that everything can be surpassed, but that at least I feel a terrible pressure about studies, work, family, friends and the book tells so many stories with bad moments that turned alright. Many of those moments weren't that bad, it's just how I perceive them and how I feel that the world would fall if I provoked them. But it's not the end of the world, it's just life. I don't know if it's something that comes with age, but I felt refreshed to look at life through a different prism.