Customer Reviews

Selected Stories

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alice Munro is rightfully considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the English-speaking world. Certainly a story like "The Progress of Love," in this volume--a rich, poignantly ironic delineation of the selectivity of memory--is proof enough that Munro is as great as her reputation would have it, and that she is one of the few living writers who deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as Chekhov. Nevertheless, plowing through her Selected Stories is like gorging on a box of chocolates; you'd be a lot better off savoring just one or two at a time. The maiin problem is that Munro's subject range is narrow. How many stories can you read in one sitting about women from impoverished small-town Ontario, who are misunderstood and often brutalized by their families, boyfriends and husbands? (The reviewers who called Munro's women weak are misreading the stories severely; these women could have hauled the wounded Titanic to port, 2,000 passengers and all, single-handedly. They have the clemency of the very strong, which unfortunately means that weaker, more spiteful souls can walk all over them.) Yet within each story, Munro's elegant, lucid prose style and encyclopedic knowledge of the human mind and heart make themselves felt. I will reread stories such as "Material," "Chaddeleys and Flemings," "Dulse," "The Turkey Season" and "The Beggar Maid" with joy and admiration for their perfect artistry. But I'll have to wait to reread stories such as "Labor Day Dinner," which after an unrelieved diet of Munro stories can almost seem like a parody of the author. Do yourself a favor; buy this wonderful book, but savor its delights sparingly, as you would a box of Godivas.

I was thoroughly entranced and mesmerized by these stories. Ms. Munro accomplishes what has to be the most beautiful and difficult task in fiction--illuminating the darkest corners of human nature. I don't mean dark as necessarily evil, but dark as in the sides of oneself no one talks about, or even knows is there. "Fits" is a perfect example of this. I read the stories out of order, which produced an interesting effect. They do have a chronology. The opening pieces are very different from the ones at the end.

Alice Munro's collection of short stories embodies over 25 of her finest works. Within the text, she deals with issues of family, friends, betrayal, and the creation of art--sometimes all at once. Her writing is powerful, and she controls it with unimaginable skill. A must-read for anyone truly interested in the art of fiction.

Alice Munro gives us a quick and sometimes fleeting glimpse into the inner workings of the stories' characters and lives. This is one of the most literary short-story collections I've ever read. All of the stories in this collection are powerful and intense. Munro has the ability to add tremendous depth in a short story. It isn't easy to have precise characterization and story development in short stories, but Munro does a brilliant work in creating memorable characters and compelling tale in just a few pages. I can't recommend this wonderful collection enough.

Alice Munro is among the few great writers who have chosen the story (short and long) for her/his primary genre of expression. Almost every one of the stories in this collection is as rich and rewarding as a novel of 400 pages by a lesser artist. I give the collection 4 stars rather than 5 because I firmly believe that each of the selected stories was richer and more satisfying in its original context,i.e. in the volume in which it was first published. The Beggar Maid, for instance, one of Munro's earlier storybooks, lists ten titles. Each of the tales, to my mind, is analogous to a subplot in a sprawling novel, but clarified and intensified by isolation. No awkward transitions, no fillers! The whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts. Read one of the storybooks first, before you accept some editor's cherry-picking. If you've never read Munro, start with The Moons of Jupiter. You have a lot of reading thrills to look forward to.

My primary complaint about this collection of short stories is the characters. Each of them is so richly drawn in such a short span of pages, that just as you feel you've gotten to know them and are looking forward to what they'll do next -- POOF! -- they're gone, and you're on to the next batch.

Alice Munro's insight into the human experience, especially the realm of relationships, is sometimes spooky. I kept seeing my own thoughts, many of them heretofore unarticulated, being subtly coaxed out and examined.

Many of the stories held me captive as I was reading them, but the one that will continue to haunt me in the future is "Fits," the story of a woman who visits a neighbor's house only to find a scene of unspeakable horror. The revelation at the very end is chilling and thought-provoking, and I couldn't help but wonder what i would have done in the same situation.

Munro is a very very good writer. Is she however as many of her readers seem to believe in the same league as Chekhov? I cannot answer that. I can say she is a very tough and realistic writer, one who provides detailed descriptions of complex characters and settings. She seems to specialize in women who know great disappointments and men who are by and large cruel jerks. But saying that I know it is too simplistic. She has many interesting male characters. And in fact her descriptions of character, her ability to create interesting characters is one of her real strengths. What I missed in reading this work was any sense of joy and exuberance. Great Literature for me is the Literature which makes me love life more. Her world of small- town characters who have known mostly hard times is not a world which yields a great deal of beauty and joy. It does however it seems to me yield a great deal of realistic truthfulness. This means there are very few if any happy endings in her stories. She is a master of showing how people miss and mess up each other , are cruel to each other in sometimes inexplicable ways. She does too have a landscape and world of her own one largely my guess is unfamiliar to most of her readers. There is an Alice Munro country.
With all this my own feeling is her work is very very good but perhaps not great.

I am a big Alice Munro fan--I have probably read through this book 3 times. My favorite stories are The Progress of Love, Royal Beatings, the Albanian Virgin, and especially Friend of My Youth. Not all the stories are first rate. There are definitely some duds--like "Labor Day Dinner"; man do I HATE that story. I read it in an anthology in college and I wish she would have left it out of this book. It is like the one black mark on her otherwise distinguished career-- Pretentious style, dialogue that doesn't ring true, too many characters for a short story. Still, no one writes about family dynamics like Alice Munro. Her stories always make me reflect back on my own family. I also recommend "Hateship, Friendship"... and any of her earlier collections. "Runaway" and "Love of a Good Woman" aren't worth your time.

Munro is one of the greatest writers of short stories of our time--perhaps of all time. There's not a dud in the collection. I have read some of the strories--Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You, The Beggar Maid, The Albanian Virgin--several times and find something new each time. I cannot reccommend this book enough

The collection never settles into a single genre of short story. Ms. Munro is a master of them all. The collection mixes and matches so the reader remains vulnerable. Just when you begin to feel that it is getting repetitive, you are blind-sided. I never settled into this large volume, but was unable to leave it.

Life is stranger than fiction, and these tales ride perilously close to being life, but never lose their credibility. There is often the reaction of, "That is one strange story, but yes, I guess it could have happened. Weird but real."

She lacks Toni Morrison's turn of phrase, but is peerles for the ease with which she twists and turns the plots and sub-plots.

An outstanding read.