"Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories -
and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories." (
Alice Munro)
This is the second
of the short story collections I've read
of the Nobel laureate, and apparently her first ever short story collection published. Munro first published this
collection in 1968.
These stories are set either in a bleak environment- either freezing cold,
either desolate as a grave yard, or even when it's get crowded never more than a small town where every one knows everyone.
Most of it is based in Jubilee (wherever
that is - I think Jubilee is featured
high in "Runaway" too . ) The
title of the book is a misnomer, since happy shades are very few and far
between in this collection. I am not in
anyway inferring it is sad collection of stories, but the subtle descriptions,
the episodes either tragic, either inevitable,
and even when it is happy (comparatively - I could identify three, when I was very label with the label
), the overall mood of melancholy is weighty - it is as if an unbearable content of overnight dew is making
the leaves wilt - a phenomenon that leaves are addressed by nature to
handle ). Munro is never afraid to show
the vey human ugliness at it's worst. Even when there is reason not have a
feeing of despair bound with the stories, they come out as a victory after a
struggle , or from a gory set back. Apparently Munro, hails from Huron County
where her father raised foxes (and later Turkey ) and to her it was a most
interesting of places. Huron county is deeply embedded in her stories that it
is even referred to as Munro County. Some of the ingredients of these stories
are from the Wingham (where she grew up ), and the people are not exactly
pleased, detecting traces of their lives in it.
(Summary of the tales with hardly any
"spoilers" ) Here we find husbands finding temporary solace in old
flames, and the children concurring with their father, for they comprehend what
the father has to bear with the mother - we come across daughters who had fled from ailing mothers
trying to save themselves, but unable
to, despite their efforts - we find ourselves party to a modern and
new set of neighbours who plot to drive
out the last old neighbour with
her old fashion ways and methods ( or
rather the lack of it ) - there are girls with cool stares whose love &
hate for their grandmothers could wish them dead, and yet congratulate granny
for her steel, in death - poverty stricken families, in which the girls are
"available" , and they on their part can do nothing more than show
sarcasm - the sudden pace with which a tomboy turns to a proper girl ( one of
the more pleasant stories here, despite the gory background ) - the unbearable weight of an accidental death of a child, on his
sibling - how the mind of a child reacts to an illness (
and death ) of a friend, albeit an insignificant one - coming to terms with
parents with whom an adolescent has hitherto been uncomfortable, an
appreciating them (another happy tale - see I've been very generous) - the slow revelation of the mind of a weird
man to his lady tenant, whom he stalks
- how an "almost"
engagement broken unceremoniously becomes news in a small town, and how
the injured party reacts to it - how a once respected piano teacher attempts to
sustain her societal place despite her change of her fortune, going an extra
mile at her own cost - and how an adolescent's first raw experience with drink,
serves up to be a cure for her in a small town, despite all the temporary fuss.
Through these
stories, the reader becomes a resident of Huron County, with all it's
bleakness, the cold, the loneliness, the beauty of grass fields, the barns, the
creeks . It is simultaneously beautiful to imagine, but too cold and lonesome
to bear (If anyone is contemplating migrating to Canada, they may think twice
). Most incidents which work as the
core, are nothing more than an a mere happening in a provincial town - it is
the author's ability to bring herself to become a character around that core
happening, narrating it in first person, capturing the nuances, the moods, the
weather , the smell of the barns, the darkness in the shaded living rooms, the
grind of the gravel as they walk along the creek, the subtle hopelessness, the
animosity, the paranoia of these friends, relations etc. which make this collection so organic. In all of these stories Munro doesn't fail to
highlight the human aspect, mostly through its' failings, in these every day
characters. We can relate to these human
failings, the human natures which make this a wholly rewarding read.
If you love subtle,
unrushed, organic narrations with the challenges that humans face-people of all
walks of life, from little girls to the ailing old presented as if you were
party to these characters, don't miss out on this. I am tempted to break my resolution of
keeping to my Reading plan, and starting forsaking such masters as Camus, Dostoevsky and
Eagleton with whom I've already started on a journey, to live another a week or so in cold, desolate Huron County
with Alice Munro.
(Pictures : Munro's childhood home in the outskirts of Wingham ; Munro walking along the Huron ; Book Cover )
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