Alice MunroDance of the Happy Shades

I'm binge-reading Allice Munro's works. One story after another is delightful, but I'm having troubling distinguishing one from another. The same tone. The same rhythm. Extraordinary three-dimensional characters that hold my interest and empathy, but I can't tell one from another, can't remember their names. These people are like classmates of mine from elementary school -- I can see them in my mind's eye, but I forget far more than I remember. Maybe I need to reread these stories, maybe read them more than twice.I love the way she describes scenes, people, and situations. Here are a few samples:"the street is shaded, in some place, by maple tree whose root have cracked and heaved the sidewalk and spread out ike crocodiles into the bare yards. p. 1"And Mary found herself exploring her neighbour's life as she had once explored the lives of grandmothers and aunts -- b pretending to know less than she did, asking for some story she had heard before; this way, remembered episodes emerged each time with slight differences of content, meaning, colour, yet with a pure reality that usually attaches to things which are at least part legend. p. 19"... I pictured the current as something separate from the water, just as the wind was separate from the air and had its own invading shape. p. 37"The tree trunks had rings around them, a curious dark space like the warmth you make with your breath." p. 39"They were like children in a medieval painting, they were like small figures carved of wood, for worship or magic, with faces smooth and aged, and meekly, cryptically uncommunicative." p.101"But we grew cunning, unfailing in cold solicitude; we took away from her our anger and impatience a disgust, took all emotion away from our dealings with her, as you might take away meat from a prisoner to weaken him, till he died." p. 199

I hadn't read any Munro before this collection of stories and hadn't read short fiction in a long while and had therefore forgotten just how enjoyable it is. Not a word is superfluous. Not a word is innocent. Every story is a palimpsest and can be read and re-read over and over. I am now a fan. Munro is the business!

I decided to buy books by Alice Munro, when I read a Chinese article mentioning about how great her stories are. Honestly speaking, as I started to read the first story, I got quite disappointed. The stories seem so far away from our daily life. I used to read stories quite familiar to me like those by Jojo Moyes. Munro's storeis, as stated by Sunday Times 'are about the farms and semi-rural towns, dealing with the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence'. 'Walker Brothers Cowboy', 'The Shining Houses' and 'Images' are all about the old-age farmland, which is quite difficult for the modern people to catch the scene and to understand its meaning, above all, the kind of languages she used to write is more like a farmers talking slans.Nevertheless, I finished reading the first story of hers despite the kind of language she used. It made me starte to think and to think over. The whole story seems then make sense. It is like a tedious story but meaningful. It describes how life changes a man's as well as a woman's life. How grownups try their bests to support the family and to lead a life of their own.As Munro wrote mostly only short stores, those stores are good for bed time, mentioned by others. I took the book to my bedroom. 'The shining houses', the second story, seems just a description of how people in a small village dealing with strange neighbors. However in the end it shows how the narrator does care about the life of her neighbors. The life is not just about themselves, the life is also about the wish of the neighbors. Sadly some of them only cares about their own. Munro didn't give us this lesson, but reading her story, we do get that.With thoese hidling meanings, I started to like reading her stories. The 'Images' tells us how a sick person lives his life. 'Thanks for the ride' shows how a poor girl desperate for a decent friendship and respect. 'The office', how a woman dealing with discrimination in the search of her own career; 'An Ounce of Cure', how a little gir get over her first heartbreak with love from her parents and her friends during her over drinkign; 'The time of death', how a family deals with the lost of beloved baby and how a girl changes her life with unfairness. 'Days of the Butterfly' - how school children get along with each other with different family backgrounds. 'Boys and Girls' - How boys and girls are raised in a traditional family and how they actually turn up to be with two vivid personality in a typical family life. 'Postcard', a first-person experience tells the real popular drama all over the world.Till now I couldn't stop reading her stores. Thanks God, I still have three of them in one order for me to read through. Most of us don't give second thought of our daily life. All of us want something big, something important. We watch the movie with the unique stories. We read news with something unexpected. We chase things we don't see or we don't encounter every day. Alice Munro, she wrote the daily stories happen every minute around us, but with deep meanings. Thanks those stories by Munro, we take the time to think over.

わたしは、個人的に、この作家のファンです。文体に、強烈な個性があります。カナダ人の文学・・などと、総括的に述べてよいはずはないのですが、独特の風土を感じさせ、アメリカの文学とは明らかに異質の個性を持っています。どんよりと曇ったくらい、うんざりする雪に閉じ込められた冬の世界カナダ。その閉鎖的、隔絶的な冬の世界を、広大な自然が背景にあるにもかかわらず、彼女はひたすら少女の内面に向かって内向する。どこかに、オリエンタル的、ノスタルジックな要素を持った作家で、この短編集のように、少女時代の記憶の断片のワンシーンをカットして鮮明に浮かび上がらせるような小説は、日本の私小説的なジャンルと似たにおいをもっていて親しみやすく共感できました。50年以上前の風物詩的な情緒を表現していますが、人間の心理にさほど深く踏み込んだ描写がないにもかかわらず、きちんと人物を描き切っています。そのあたりがノーベル賞の要因なのかもしれませんが、なんといっても、やっぱり、文章が巧い！単語は、わたしは、ある程度、辞書をひかねば、わからないものが多く、さっさと読破できませんでしたが、読みにくさは感じません。嫌味なエリート臭が一切ないが、素朴というわけではなく、特有のプライドを持った作家さんです。

Allice Munro is a highly skilled, acclaimed short story writer. Some of her stories are little gems and overall the book, which I believe was her first, is a good read. The people about whom she writes, however, are on a fairly narrow stage of Canada and it seemed to constrict my ability to get into their lives and characters.