The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro

Alice Munro was introduced to me by a book worm friend, and my first exposure to her was through the audiobook version of "Runaway", her 11th collection from 2011. I loved the book so much, that not only did I make it a point to "escalate her" from the audio book category to my usual reading slots, I made it a point to read one collection of hers' every year since. As such this is the 6th book of hers' I've read, and she will continue to have an annual slot in my reading plans.

However of the 6 collections I've read, this is a relatively mixed bag of short stories - a first, and it was bound to happen. Hitherto all her collections have been excellent ones, and this is the first one in which I found that some of the short stories, a little meandering. Yet, the best stories here can stand alongside the best ones from the other collections I've read so far.

A fair share of the short stories are broadly on the theme mid like crises, especially over relationships. We find women separated from their husbands, the children having started life on their own, looking, and at times desperate for company (i.e. Dulse, Bardon Bus , Prue, Labor Day dinner) in their middle ages. The worries of the men leaving them, old attachments causing concern, and dwindling looks, as well as trying to understand Love with all its limitation, are some of the main themes here.

 There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can’t know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you’ve reached it. I believe this.
(Bardon Bus)
Alice Munro. The Moons of Jupiter (Kindle Locations 2226-2229). Vintage. Kindle Edition.

Flabby armpits—how can you exercise the armpits? What is to be done? Now the payment is due, and what for? For vanity. Hardly even for that. Just for having those pleasing surfaces once, and letting them speak for you; just for allowing an arrangement of hair and shoulders and breasts to have its effect. You don’t stop in time, don’t know what to do instead; you lay yourself open to humiliation. So thinks Roberta, with self-pity—what she knows to be self-pity—rising and sloshing around in her like bitter bile. ( Labor Day Dinner )
Alice Munro. The Moons of Jupiter (Kindle Locations 2383-2386). Vintage. Kindle Edition.

Connection, is about the Chaddeley family - the cousins who've made it and the one who married, settled and had children. There is reference to in a meandering way of their connection in England, from where their common ancestor has come from. The second short story , a kind of a sequel to the first, titled. The stone in the field is more centered on the Flemings - they being our narrator's fathers' side. The main theme that both these stories highlight, just like it had done repeatedly in her other stories is the life in the out lands of Canada. For example the details of the life styles of the Flemmings sisters - where six of them lived together, unmarried, and farm work defined their life day in day out, and conversation was rare.

They always carried the feed to the horses, pail by pail. In the winter, when the horses were in the stalls. So my father took the notion to carry it to them in the wheelbarrow. Naturally it was a lot quicker. But he got beat. For laziness. That was the way they were, you know. Any change of any kind was a bad thing. Efficiency was just laziness, to them. That’s the peasant thinking for you.”

Alice Munro. The Moons of Jupiter (Kindle Location 609-612). Vintage. Kindle Edition.

The best short story in this collection is possibly, Accident, which touches on the hypocrisy of hard headed ideology, a tragic circumstance that of a child and adultery. One of the themes that Munro touches repeatedly is the control of the various churches in daily life. Munro doesn't stop on exposing the unfair hand of religion, but goes on to show how the ideologist will not hesitate to use others for his ideology's sake, in essence being a hypocrite.

Hard-Luck stories is built over a chance encounter with two friends with a man whom they meet at a conference. One of the women complain about the lack of luck she's had in love, despite being married. Her complain is that all her "Adventures" had ended up in rather a spoiled state. Julie, goes on to analyze love, and attachments.

 There’s the intelligent sort of love that makes an intelligent choice. That’s the kind you’re supposed to get married on. Then there’s the kind that’s anything but intelligent, that’s like a possession. And that’s the one, that’s the one, everybody really values. That’s the one nobody wants to have missed out on.
Alice Munro. The Moons of Jupiter (Kindle Locations 3364-3366). Vintage. Kindle Edition.

As previously stated, I found that this particular short story collection a little laboured, and it took me a longer time to read this. At times, the details made the experience unstimulating. This book, published in 1982, possibly may have found Munro herself in her middle age ( and possibly those whom she associate), and as such the themes as well as the deep analysis in most short stories of that particular stage in one's life. Despite the relative slow monotony of the book, its negatives aren't strong enough to discourage me from returning to her next work in sequence, when it comes to "Munro time" in 2020.