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#Post#: 229-------------------------------------------------- |
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DEAR LIFE: STORIES by Alice Munro (2012) |
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By: agate Date: March 24, 2014, 8:20 pm |
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DEAR LIFE: STORIES by Alice Munro (2014) |
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A fine collection of stories, including several largely |
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autobiographical pieces at the end. |
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Often the stories--all with a Canadian setting--are told by a |
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woman in the first person, and many of them involve family |
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problems arising from the Depression of the 1930s. Some of the |
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characters have been maimed--one with a lame leg due to polio, |
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for instance. One takes place in a TB hospital. |
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Munro's characters do not have happy lives, and at least one of |
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them, Jackson in "Trained," seems inexplicably detached from |
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people with whom he has had long associations. |
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Munro seems to be presenting the world as she sees it: filled |
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with people whose lives may make no sense, may have very little |
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joy in them, but here they are. She bears witness to those who |
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haven't been able to speak for themselves. |
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In the final autobiographical piece, "Dear Life," we learn that |
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as a child Alice Munro was often beaten by her father--and that |
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the practice was "not uncommon" at the time (the 1930s). With |
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these stories she has shown a few facets of this past time, with |
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its own forms of cruelty and want. |
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