Customer Reviews

The Love of a Good Woman

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

We all know that there are quite a lot of people who believe that Alice Munro is one of the greatest short story writers alive, and I could not agree with them more. But let me say what I particularly like about Alice Munro, what distinguishes her from other great writers.

First of all, there is a unique impression of authenticity. There are certain conventions in fiction about what is regarded as important or interesting; Alice Munro ignores them. She knows that tiny incidents can be the defining ones. She knows that spending a weekend with one's own daughter can be an unbearable challange which almost drives you mad. These stories do not gloss over the mundane aspects of life we have to struggle with most.

Second, Alice Munro's stories believe in human dignity and choice. Hers is a moral universe. It's not just the title story which shows us a person making a choice. We tend to just let things happen to us and pretend we cannot do anything about them; these stories show that sometimes we can (but they do not deny that very often we cannot). There is also a great story, "Jakarta", which implies that such choices are not valid forever; it's not enough to decide against betraying your husband today. The decision may feel momentous, but if you decide otherwise tomorrow it doesn't matter all that much. The problem is, however, and the story shows that too, that when you take those decisions you are very often incapable of feeling their impact.

Read these stories! This is a book for grown-ups. It will help you understand the world.

I have been reading Munro's stories for years and even the profound admiration I had for her work could not prepare me for the force of this collection. It is literally impossible to find a better book. Each one of Munro's stories is worth hundreds of lesser works. The prose is gorgeous, the vision expansive yet percise and humane. Read, "Save the Reaper" last. It is a reworking of American fable and Flannery O'Connor that shows Munro has surpassed even that great American writer.

In the title story of this collection, Enid, the self-sacrificing practical nurse, is transformed into someone else after she has the sickly and evil Mrs. Quinn as a patient before Mrs. Quinn dies. Without warning, Mrs. Quinn confesses conspiring with her husband to conceal a murder.Up to then, Enid thought of Rupert Quinn as a good man and devoted husband. Does "the love of a good woman" have the power of redemption:? Read the story to get Alice Munro's always astonishing perspective on the subject of goodness.

In another fine story from this collection, "Before the Change", a young woman uses an abortion to test her father and her lover and they both come up short.

In "Jakarta", my personal favorite, Sonje is such a good woman that she takes on the care of her lover's blind mother while Cottar continues a traveling, leftist journalist. But Sonje is not a fool though she may be a saint as her old friend Kent discovers.

The collection contains such thought-provoking studies that it could influence the way you live your life.

Alice Munro is able to convey in twenty pages more character and depth than many people understand about themselves or their loved ones in a lifetime. She allows us to embrace our flaws and accept them with grace and understanding. She is an amazing writer and a voice of humanity to be admired.

I loved this book. It really makes you think about the underlying motives and loyalties that exist in people. Alice Munro examines the everyday sort of person who must make certain choices and live with it. In reading this book I found myself asking questions and feeling slightly disturbed by my lack of certainty on many issues this book addresses. I love the way she uses language and her use of detail is superb. It will make you think and wonder and imagine all at the same time. What a wonderful writer she is!

This must be some of the most beautiful prose I have encountered. I cannot say enough about the way Munro turns a phrase, takes the commonplace to an extraordinary place, uses language. This is not a book to take to the beach -- rather, this is work to be savord for the nuance, the subtlety and the ordinariness-turned-on-its-ear. Buy the book.

First, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Munro. Let me say that "Open Secrets" is THE book (okay, one of the books) I recommend to people for books that I love. And most of her early stuff ain't bad either. Let me say that as a way to lighten my negative opinion about this book. I think this book can be summed up by one of the characters in the first story (I'm paraphrasing) who's thinking about how as she got older she realized that life took more than she had and left her with less. (Something to that effect.) These stories read as if this were Munro's problem too, as if she's given her best and now she's still got to give more and she's out of gas. The stories seem tired. Case in point: she replaces the brilliant connections and observations she used to make in a paragraph with ten-fifteen pages of incidentals. So much seems like padding. Anyone has a hard time topping themselves as they get older, granted. And I think it would be hard for any mortal to write a book like "Open Secrets" in the first place, and I think it's doubly tough to try and top that. Frankly, I think she didn't top it this time or get very close. And I don't know if she's trying so hard. Since "Open Secrets" she's had a "Best of", this collection and the National Book Award. After reading these stories I think the award was given for the body of work she's created and not for the book itself. "The Love of.." feels like a book written to capitalize on someone's reputation and not to capitalize on what lies ahead. And who knows? Maybe she has another "Open Secrets" in her to share. I hope so.

Get this collection simply for The Children Stay, one of the
most effective evocations of ache and regret ever set down on paper (and then, because she is Alice Munro, she quickly shows us how ultimately meaningless regret can become in an individual life, given time). In her stories, there are no right or wrong choices, there is no fate, and the stories often extend long past the consequences of her characters' actions, for better or worse, often, whatever they've done, however extreme, they are not punished nor rewarded. They are not saved. The moments of recognition or realization are sterling, perhaps, but not permanent in her characters' lives. They go on.

I have a hard time reading short stories sometimes, but these were excellent. The first one, which titles the book, is almost a novella, very well crafted. With a murder at the center of the story, you read about how this death has affected different characters, and their take on it. My second favorite story is My Mother's Dream, a very vivid account of family dynamics at a time of loss and happiness.

Each one of these stories left me satisfied, with a sense of completion, and that is something i often miss when reading short stories. I highly recommend this excellent work by Alice Munro.

Alice Munro was recommended to me as a master of the short story form and I was not disappointed. This collection is wonderfully deep and complex - simple and ordinary on the surface but seething with subtle passion beneath.

Her ability to shift time and viewpoint is effective and powerful.

Highly recommended.