Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 4,691 ratings · 482 reviews

In the nine breathtaking stories that make up her celebrated tenth collection, Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.
A tough-minded housekeeper jettisons the habits of a lifetime because of a teenager’s practical joke. A college student visi...more

Paperback, 323 pages

Published October 8th 2002 by Vintage (first published 2001)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Collections of Short Stories

63rd out of 1,186 books — 879 voters

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Stories For Book Lovers

240th out of 676 books — 2,018 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Oct 03, 2012 S©aP rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, racconti, letteratura-canadese, 2000

Una caleidoscopia dell'intimo, principalmente femminile. Nove racconti soffusi; splendidi. Eccellente tratto d'autore; tanto garbato e naturale da risultare perentorio. Più che su un banale risentimento di "ruolo", qui tutto ruota intorno al mistero della "percezione del sé", centrale al punto da togliere importanza, con progressione inavvertibile, alle vicende, volutamente ordinarie, di cui si narra con ariosa tranquillità descrittiva. Ciò che all'inizio della lettura appare come una sorta di m...more Una caleidoscopia dell'intimo, principalmente femminile. Nove racconti soffusi; splendidi. Eccellente tratto d'autore; tanto garbato e naturale da risultare perentorio. Più che su un banale risentimento di "ruolo", qui tutto ruota intorno al mistero della "percezione del sé", centrale al punto da togliere importanza, con progressione inavvertibile, alle vicende, volutamente ordinarie, di cui si narra con ariosa tranquillità descrittiva. Ciò che all'inizio della lettura appare come una sorta di minimalismo estetico, si rivela essere la misura esatta dell'Arte di questa grande scrittrice. Non è l'avvenimento eclatante a modificare la nostra esistenza, quanto piuttosto la determinazione che abbiamo a essere noi stessi. Non il paragone frustrato con gli altri, ma l'improvvisa complicità con lo specchio; la franchezza del dialogo interiore; fino alla determinazione, spesso taciuta, che prelude i fatti. La magia ineffabile della consapevolezza è quindi cardine narrativo; sospensione; attesa e, infine, meraviglia lasciata al lettore, in quel vuoto che segue il punto finale. Ogni volta. Il tutto in un tessuto di tagli sapienti; andate e ritorni tra realtà, ricordo, e aspettative che costruiscono il dramma. Per lasciare spazio al lettore, ma non lasciargli scampo. Nessun elogio è sprecato.

POSTILLA.(Dedicata agli amici e a chiunque, oltre il commento, desideri riflettere su qualcosa in più. Avendo il tempo per farlo).

Μίμησις βίου (Imitazione della vita).
Leggendo altri commenti a questo capolavoro, mi hanno colpito due aspetti: il paragone con alcuni maestri della letteratura di ogni tempo (Checov e James, per dirne due) e la diversità, in qualche caso manichea, di reazioni e di gradimento alla lettura.
Una delle idee che ha sempre guidato la poetica greca, da Omero ai tragici, è che la parola possa suscitare piacevolezza, diletto (hedonè), sull'uditorio. Seppure parlando di poesia, ma riferendosi più in generale all'Arte, il filosofo Gorgia, già nel V sec. a.C., diceva: «Tutta la poesia io considero e definisco discorso in forma metrica. In chi l'ascolta s'insinua un brivido di paura e una compassione che induce al pianto; e un desiderio intenso che tende al dolore, dinanzi alla sorte felice o avversa di persone estranee. A opera della parola, l'anima prova come proprie le altrui emozioni... L'incanto divino della parola desta il piacere e allontana il dolore: immedesimandosi con l'opinione dell'anima, il potere di incantamento la ammalia, la persuade e la trasforma con la sua magia». Circa un secolo dopo, Aristotele avrebbe scritto: «Il poeta (tragico) deve procurare per mezzo della mimesi il piacere che destano la pietà e il timore...», ove per Mimesi s'intenda l'imitazione della forma ideale della realtà, da parte dell'arte.
Nella poetica della Mimesi, vera e propria estetica dell'esecuzione, l'orizzonte di attesa dell'uditorio è quindi una componente primaria. Oggi, trascorso qualche anno da queste formulazioni, l'orizzonte di attesa dell'uditorio è un po' cambiato. Le forme della rappresentazione sono infinitamente più complesse e incisive, così come l'abitudine dell'uditorio stesso a una meraviglia sempre nuova. E sempre più distratta. Nel tempo, l'evasione dalla realtà si è sostituita all'ancestrale necessità di comprensione. Le componenti oniriche e fantastiche, che un tempo risolvevano questioni imperscrutabili, oggi sono richieste come additivo; indispensabili alla percezione di svago.
Comprensibile quindi, seppure insolita da osservare, la diversità di reazioni nei commenti, riguardo a questo libro. Chi cerchi nella lettura una distrazione, un trasporto di fantasia, per legittimamente evadere dal proprio intimo intrico quotidiano, qui non trova sollievo, bensì reiterazione di peso. Chi invece senta ancora l'urgenza di intellegere la realtà che sta vivendo; di confrontare la propria percezione con l'altrui, e da ciò tragga sollievo, piacevolezza, diletto e ispirazione, qui trova uno specchio accuratissimo delle dinamiche interiori. Nessuna meraviglia che molte donne, riconoscendosi nude tra queste righe, non amino proseguire la lettura.
Ritengo che la formazione classica della Munro, evidente da alcuni riferimenti in questi stessi racconti, abbia avuto un peso preponderante nella sua scelta artistica. Il suo garbo, tutto anglosassone, ricorda sì, lontanamente, l'allusiva impudicizia di H.James, condita da un'altissima sensibilità sociale; ed è vero che si fa un uso quasi estremo del reale, proprio della lezione di Checov. Tuttavia mi sento di dire che la misura dell'Arte (perché - finalmente un contemporaneo - di Arte qui si tratta) della signora Munro vada piuttosto ascritta a un geniale, perché semplice, recupero di un canone classico, seppure trasposto su un piano intellettivo di maggiore attualità. Quale terreno migliore, a questo scopo, del piccolo quotidiano esistere?
Una noticina sulla traduzione.
Si tratta di una buona traduzione, rispettosa e lucida. E' un vero peccato, tuttavia, percepire qua e là tra le righe una "fretta" commerciale, propria solo della nostra editoria, cui anche il traduttore più bravo, suo malgrado, è obbligato a soggiacere. Il mercato, ahimè, governa solo la fretta, e in questo travolge quel poco di arte che andrebbe trattato con maggiore rispetto, per seminare un futuro diverso dal vuoto.
Ma, come sempre, è un'opinione personale.(less)

15 likes · like · see review

Oct 08, 2012 Orsodimondo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canada, racconti

LA NORMALITÀ È PIENA DI MISTERO
Arrivato alla terza raccolta di Alice Munro, potrei aver già detto tutto. Ma credo che non sia così, con una scrittrice di questa bravura si trova sempre qualcosa di nuovo.

"Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" che la traduzione italiana sintetizza in "Nemico, amico, amante…" (e a me sembra che a entrambe le versioni manchi la parola ‘Betrayal’) contiene i più bei racconti di Munro che ho letto finora, dei piccoli grandi capolavori: Mobili di famigli...more

14 likes · like · see review

Sep 11, 2007 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people old enough to understand it

These short stories seem much simplier than they are; they come from a special ability to note (and glory in) small details that echo throughout one's life. I checked this book out because "The Bear Went Over the Mountain," the last story in the collection, is the basis of a movie with Julie Christie that is just out. But I started with the first story and haven't gotten to the Bear yet. I would love to be able to write such clear, complicated and subtle prose fiction as Munroe does. In a way, s...more

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 24, 2012 Gattalucy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

poesia, poesia, sembra che non ci sia...

La Munro è capace di trasformare la più noiosa routine dei miei giorni in letteratura. capace di trascrivere tutti gli strati delle emozioni, dei pensieri, delle insoddisfazioni, e della noia che si nascondono nella mia quotidianità e farne, con poche frasi,un'esperienza collettiva e condivisa.

Lorna e Polly e i bambini raggiunsero la spiaggia in autobus, cambiando due volte vettura, cariche di asciugamani, giochi, pannolini, cibo e il delfino gonfiabi...more

3 likes · like · see review

May 12, 2011 Emily added it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011

I sometimes get into conversations with people who have a hard time connecting with the short-story format; they say that they hardly have time to muster an emotional involvement in the characters and events, before the story is over. To those readers I might recommend Alice Munro. True, I have only experienced one of her collections, but the stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage are nothing if not emotionally affecting—or "crushingly tragic," I suppose, if you want to g...more I sometimes get into conversations with people who have a hard time connecting with the short-story format; they say that they hardly have time to muster an emotional involvement in the characters and events, before the story is over. To those readers I might recommend Alice Munro. True, I have only experienced one of her collections, but the stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage are nothing if not emotionally affecting—or "crushingly tragic," I suppose, if you want to get specific about the thing. Indeed, the understated yet unrelenting tragedy of small unkindnesses built up over decades and lifetimes; of the inevitable disappointments and compromises that result when people do their best and their best is not very good; of the human tendency to feel pride in one's flaws and shame in one's strengths: all this is the lifeblood of Munro's collection, and there's no denying that it's more bitter than sweet. At times, the bitterness becomes overpowering. At other times, Munro strikes a compelling balance between the deep sadness in all her characters (particularly her female characters) and the moments of true connection they manage to glean from the world around them, often at unexpected moments.

Munro, it should be stressed, is a magnificent craftsman. One of the reasons these stories, at 20 or 30 pages, feel like whole super-condensed novels, is their author's extreme economy of language, her ability to establish whole histories with one or two well-chosen words, which often occur in a paragraph seemingly devoted to another task entirely. In the story "Post and Beam," for example, the graduate student Lionel contemplates the married life of his professor and the professor's wife, a couple he has come to socialize with on occasion:

He came to see them in the evenings, when the children were in bed. The slight intrusions of domestic life—the cry of the baby reaching them through an open window, the scolding Brendan sometimes had to give Lorna about toys left lying on the grass, instead of being put back in the sandbox, the call from the kitchen asking if she had remembered to buy limes for the gin and tonic—all seemed to cause a shiver, a tightening of Lionel's tall, narrow body and intent, distrustful face.

Not only do we get a portrait of a summer evening here, the ambient twilight stimuli as the adults have a drink together, but we also get Lionel's aversion to the everyday accouterments of married life (he comes after the children are in bed, shivers at Lorna and Brendan's everyday interactions). We also get a solid idea of the dynamic between Lorna and Brendan: their marriage follows traditional gender roles in that she is the one expected to take responsibility for cleaning up the children's toys and doing the shopping; if she slips up, Brendan not just allowed but obliged ("had to") to give her a scolding about it. That "had to" might indicate, since we are in his head at the moment, Lionel's point of view, his acceptance of the standard husband/wife hierarchy—although the rest of the story gives the impression that none of these characters would object to the phrase, even as the lack of equality and human understanding in her marriage is making Lorna actively unhappy. Even the addition of "remembered" ("the call from the kitchen asking if she had remembered to buy limes for the gin and tonic") adds to multiple aspects of the marital portrait. On the one hand, it speaks to the familiarity of husband and wife: probably everyone who has shared a household has yelled this type of question at one time or another. On the other hand, combined with Brendan's disconnection from his children and scolding of his wife, his phrasing adds to the picture of his domineering nature. This is not a man who goes to the store to buy limes himself, but tasks his wife with buying them, and then calls from the kitchen to ask if she remembered his request, rather than walking into the other room to ask her or (heaven forbid) looking for the limes himself. One can understand why Lionel might not be jumping on board with the whole marriage proposition, if Lorna and Brendan are his role models.

And in fact, Brendan is largely representative of the male characters in Munro's book. If I have a complaint about the collection, it's this uniformity of male callousness: although we occasionally see a long-married couple who are genuinely caring toward one another (if mutually deeply flawed), or a pair of total strangers who manage to achieve a moment of unfettered connection, for the most part Munro's men are controlling, unfaithful jerks, taking the women around them for granted and generally acting like petulant toddlers. And I don't mean to suggest that Munro does not evoke this character type with great skill and sensitivity, because she absolutely does—and in fact, many of these male characters, in her hands, end up eliciting some degree of sympathy in the reader's mind: quite a feat considering their collective behavior. Munro's analysis of the gender roles in these stories acknowledges that the mainstream culture of the 1950s and 60s set up young men to be the assholes they sometimes turned out, just as those same decades socialized women to be submissive and self-denigrating, simultaneously responsible for raising children and reduced to a child-like state themselves. In the excellent story "What is Remembered," one of the highlights of the collection for me, the narrator writes:

Young husbands were stern, in those days. Just a short time before, they had been suitors, almost figures of fun, knock-kneed and desperate in their sexual agonies. Now, bedded down, they turned resolute and disapproving. Off to work every morning, clean-shaven, youthful necks in knotted ties, days spent in unknown labors, home again at suppertime to take a critical glance at the evening meal and to shake out the newspaper, hold it up between themselves and the muddle of the kitchen, the ailments and emotions, the babies. What a lot they had to learn. How to kowtow to bosses and how to manage wives.

So the men don't have a roadmap for how to live, any more than the women do. They, too, are working to conform to certain societal expectations. Yes.

Even so, I've known a good number of men from this generation (or slightly older: my grandparents' generation), and most of them were not domineering, not unkind to their wives or dismissive of their wives' opinions. True, I didn't know them when they were young men. Munro's older characters are significantly gentler with each other than her younger ones, albeit sometimes oddly so. To some degree even the younger characters are not being unkind given their social context: they assume it's the simple truth that a husband's role is to dictate and a wife's is to obey. This is a systemic problem more than a fault of individuals. Still. Munro's bone of contention got a bit monotonous at times, as much as I agree with her insights. The sameness of male/female relationships in the collection dulled the impact of stories which, individually or in more varied company, would have all packed the same kind of punch as the first few did.

In addition to said bones, though, this collection offers lots of meat. It will be rewarding to return to individual stories in the future, which I think will be a more palatable way of appreciating Munro than reading a collection of hers cover to cover. And there is plenty here to appreciate: the role of memory throughout these stories, for example, and how we mold our recollections to fill the functions we need them to, forgetting or imagining where it is convenient. Or how Munro so cleanly and expertly handles shifts in time, quietly moving the reader forward and backward in a given history with no unnecessary apparatus and hardly a hiccup in the narrative flow. It's not a Woolfian vision of simultaneity; while the characters often recollect their pasts, the past is not present to them as it is to Clarissa Dalloway or Peter Walsh—but the narrative engine is so weightless and nimble that it can position the reader neatly at any desired perspective point vis-à-vis the action, and whisk them to a different one with no fuss at all, with absolute clarity. (The opening paragraphs of "Family Furnishings" are excellent at this, and the titular story shows a similar character-based flexibility in its use of a roving limited third-person narrator.)

Munro is not comfort reading, in other words, but in small doses I will definitely be returning to her hard, occasionally tender, lying world.(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Oct 10, 2012 Lucrezia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Fra pochi anni , chiunque vorrà parlare di un bellissimo racconto , o di una sottile accortezza narrativa , o di una visione del mondo tanto ricca quanto inafferrabile, dirà: "Mi ricorda un libro di Alice Munro .Lo leggerò subito " (Piero Citati )

Ma è mai possibile che ultimamente debba imbattermi in un giudizio di quest' uomo su qualsiasi libro io legga? Sarà che abbiamo gli stessi gusti ...

In questo periodo mi sono fissata con i racconti. Non è che di solito sia diverso, ma in questo periodo...more "Fra pochi anni , chiunque vorrà parlare di un bellissimo racconto , o di una sottile accortezza narrativa , o di una visione del mondo tanto ricca quanto inafferrabile, dirà: "Mi ricorda un libro di Alice Munro .Lo leggerò subito " (Piero Citati )

Ma è mai possibile che ultimamente debba imbattermi in un giudizio di quest' uomo su qualsiasi libro io legga? Sarà che abbiamo gli stessi gusti ...

In questo periodo mi sono fissata con i racconti. Non è che di solito sia diverso, ma in questo periodo ne divoro una raccolta dopo l' altra, non mi sazio mai, e guarda caso sono tutte scrittrici. Ho sempre constatato , leggendo , che se uno scrittore scrive dei bei racconti, ma non passabili , belli; allora si rivelerà ,molto probabilmente, un gran bravo scrittore approfondendo la sua opera. Ritengo il racconto uno dei parametri fondamentali per definire uno scrittore.

Passando più nello specifico ad Alice Munro, bene lei è un Scrittrice (con la S maiuscola sì!).Questi nove racconti sono autentici capolavori. La Munro è fra le scrittrici che meglio hanno scandagliato l' animo femminile. La sua narrazione è fluida, nei suoi racconti non sono presenti elementi fuori dal comune o anormali, o , ancora meglio, che esulano dal quotidiano. Tutte le cose sono al posto giusto, tutto è ordinato , normalissimo, banale . Diresti quasi che stia descrivendo cose che puoi osservare ogni giorno, guardando qualsiasi comune persona incontrata per strada ( se non fosse che sono ambientati in Canada), e invece... Ad un certo punto dalla visione generale , dai normali accadimenti quotidiani , ecco che ti spalanca un mondo, un mondo di cui sai benissimo l' esistenza perché è in ognuno di noi, ma che fino ad allora non avevi preso minimamente in considerazione , ecco che inizia a svelarti i retroscena di vicende apparente banali e quotidiane, e allora tu leggi e contemporaneamente comprendi , e pensi: "Ma è così vero!".
Se poi sei una donna, beh , anche meglio!
E poi potrebbe capitarti (come è successo a me)di trovarti in una situazioni delle più comuni e quotidiane (perché tali sono le situazioni presenti nel libro) e ti ritrovi a pensare per citazioni: " Ma ne ho letto proprio ieri sera in un racconto di Alice! E aspetta!! Aspetta poi lì cosa succedeva??"E cosi ti ritrovi a sovrapporre la tua personale interiorità con il personaggio di cui poi hai letto in quel dato racconto... Strano, ma bello, e dire che non mi era mai successo prima ...

(less)

7 likes · like · see review

Mar 23, 2011 rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, 2011

Loved loved "Family Furnishings." It made me think all night about what's lost when desire, passion, and truth are repressed, which is always something I personally need a kick in the pants about. (Though, don't most people?) Even better getting that kick from a good book.

For me, the collection as a whole is good, very good, but maybe not so far as great. It seemed like it might be something I'd call great in the beginning, when Munro's precision in describing the peculiarities of lust and lonel...more

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 21, 2010 Stella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-classics, 2010

This collection of short stories was my introduction to Alice Munro's world and writing. It is not light reading material, not ideal if you seek some fluffy escapism, but each novella will stay long with you and make you think. Her short stories are like snapshots of the lives of her characters, this was something that I personally don't like: I prefer a story to have a beginning, a middle and an ending, it bothered me that I didn't get a glipmse of what would happen to the characters after the...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 30, 2008 Erik rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my pick of late great 2007, which is timely because Sarah Polley's new film Away From Her is actually based on "The Bear Came Over the Mountain"--the last story in this volume...

These stories are rich and imaginative accounts of private selves elevating moments of the isolated, individual mind ranging from the workaday to the [actually frequently] moribund. In writing what she knows, Munro's characters are typically writers, members of academia in some form, or at least obviously educate...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 08, 2007 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was our first book club selection; it's a collection of 9 short stories. We met Wednesday night. Amy's comment: "Relentlessly realistic. Could I get some unrealsitic happiness, please?" Fran's comment: "I know she writes about women, but do you think she likes them?" Lynne's comment: "Of course she likes us. She knows how we think, and she's not afraid to put that out there. She does that so we can all feel better about feeling exactly the same way."

Overall, some stories were more of a hit...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 09, 2011 Mia - rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mi sono piaciuti questi racconti di Alice Munro.

Più di una volta, leggendo, mi è venuto in mente Carver, per la scelta delle ambientazioni,la vita quotidiana, per la resa schietta e asciutta dello svolgimento dei fatti.
Certo, la Munro scrive molto di più da donna e sulle donne (niente retorica femminista, però, e nemmeno nessun angelo del focolare), e sicuramente è molto ma molto più descrittiva.

Ha una scrittura asciutta, precisa, si intuisce un gran lavoro di pulizia e sottrazione. Una struttur...more

like · see review

Jan 29, 2011 Tancredi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadesi

Dicono la Munro sia la più grande narratrice nordamericana, che possieda una capacità straordinaria nello scavare nell'animo umano. Ne ho sempre sentito parlare benissimo, e mi ha sempre incuriosito molto. E ora che finalmente ho letto qualcosa di suo, com'è cocente ed incomprensibile la delusione.
Certo, è assolutamente innegabile la Munro abbia dalla sua uno stile ricco e complesso, ma in questi racconti non mi è sembrato affatto sostenuto da una narrazione, trama e personaggi adatti. La altrim...more

like · see review

Jan 04, 2010 Karen Powell added it

Munro's short stories in this volume often revolve with either an event or a person that changes the protagonist's life. The first story is by far the best, with its honest portrayal of a woman on the cusp of spinsterhood who is the butt of a mean prank by some teen girls, a prank which does not go as expected. Other stories concern a larger-than-life female family member that appeared so dynamic when the story's protagonist was a child, but lost that appeal when the protagonist entered womanhoo...more

like · see review

Dec 05, 2012 Billy rated it 4 of 5 stars

My ambivalence about Alice Munro is reflected well in the fact that I've been reading this book (which contains no more than nine stories, averaging 30-40 pages each) off and on for something like six years, and only just this late afternoon finished it. On the one hand, her stories seem like such weak tea to me - so little happens, the characters are never more than gently amusing, it's all so dull, mundane, Ontarian. When I take one up in a reading mood that's hungry for escape and speedy exci...more

like · see review

Nov 24, 2012 Marcos rated it 5 of 5 stars

After four months of reading this wonderful collection off and on, I have finally finished this amazing collection from the master of the form. Like her collections "Too Much Happiness" and "The Love of a Good Woman", Ms. Munro never ceases to amaze and surprise me of how daring her stories are set amidst the simplistic backdrops she often fleshes them out in. In this collection, characters yearning for love, recognition, and acceptance make up the fabric of "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Lov...more

like · see review

Nov 04, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

So it’s something of an admission to confess I’d never read a full collection of Alice Munro’s stories before now. The thing is - as faithful readers will know - I dislike short stories, even (or maybe especially?) short stories by brilliant authors. Before this collection I’d read one of Munro’s stories (“Boys and Girls”) for a class I taught, and really enjoyed it, but all the same resisted reading a full collection because, as with all short story collections, I feel (violently) opposed to th...more So it’s something of an admission to confess I’d never read a full collection of Alice Munro’s stories before now. The thing is - as faithful readers will know - I dislike short stories, even (or maybe especially?) short stories by brilliant authors. Before this collection I’d read one of Munro’s stories (“Boys and Girls”) for a class I taught, and really enjoyed it, but all the same resisted reading a full collection because, as with all short story collections, I feel (violently) opposed to the brief introduction to characters, which must inevitably end too early. I appreciate the short story as a compressed form, one which achieves great thematic feats in a short space, and yet all the same, I can’t help feel cheated by what I’ll never find out about characters (this from someone who writes her own - shoddy - short stories).

In any case, this collection (poorly named, I think - far too many ships) almost makes up for the failings of the form by introducing brilliant characters and having some long (novella length?) stories. I even took the new e-reader into the tub because I couldn’t wait to finish a story (new splash bag for the reader comes this week, have no fear).

I will say that amid the triumph of rendering nuanced and hopelessly believable characters in heart-breaking situations, I loved the collection, but didn’t always like it. I felt that after another hopeless ending where things don’t quite work out, or people aren’t reunited, or are miserable, or find their lives are not the lives they ought to be, that I could do with an ending where things work out. And maybe Munro’s talent is in capturing the reality of lives - the impossibility, the failure, the absence, the missed connections - and perhaps I ought to turn to another author if I want to read stories were things feel resolved, but all the same, I wouldn’t have minded a couple of stories to pick me up along the way, to restore some faint sense of hope in humanity. L. suggested that I might read one Munro story a month rather than a whole collection at once, and perhaps she’s right (but there’s no time for that kind of spacing in a year of 100 books…). Maybe I can only handle a confrontation with what is true in small, once a month doses. A complaint about me then, I suppose. Me and my desire - my commitment? my faith? my hope? - for a happy ending needs monthly dosing with Munro. Maybe all of us need monthly Munro to help us find out about others and to remind us that we are, all of us, after all, always in some kind of ‘ship,’ always colliding with others. (less)

like · see review

Sep 06, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: racconti

"Fra pochi anni, chiunque vorrà parlare di un bellissimo racconto, o di una sottile accortezza narrativa, o di una visione del mondo tanto ricca quanto inafferrabile, dirà: Mi ricorda un libro di Alice Munro. Lo leggerò subito". (Pietro Citati)

"I racconti contenuti in Nemico, amico, amante... sono tutti bellissimi, e Quello che si ricorda è, a mio parere, il piú bello dei bellissimi. Con una straordinaria parsimonia di mezzi, la Munro descrive il passaggio dalla passione al tranquillo tran tran...more "Fra pochi anni, chiunque vorrà parlare di un bellissimo racconto, o di una sottile accortezza narrativa, o di una visione del mondo tanto ricca quanto inafferrabile, dirà: Mi ricorda un libro di Alice Munro. Lo leggerò subito". (Pietro Citati)

"I racconti contenuti in Nemico, amico, amante... sono tutti bellissimi, e Quello che si ricorda è, a mio parere, il piú bello dei bellissimi. Con una straordinaria parsimonia di mezzi, la Munro descrive il passaggio dalla passione al tranquillo tran tran coniugale, il sorgere imprevisto dell'attrazione sessuale, il cedere ad essa, il ricordo che resta nitido per un'intera vita. C'è tutto, basta leggerlo." (Margherita Oggero)"

Così recita la quarta di copertina di questo libro, consigliatomi da un utente di aNobii. Beh, forse trovo i commenti un poco esagerati, come trovo esagerato il possibile Nobel per la letteratura che si vocifera le possa venire assegnato. Però, è sicuramente buona letteratura.

Alice Munro, autrice che non conoscevo, ha scelto come mezzo espressivo il "racconto" o "short novel" che di si voglia ed è indubbio che lo sappia gestire con grande maestria. In questa raccolta, a parte, forse, l'ultimo racconto, il punto di vista è tutto femminile, ma con una grande "complicità" con l'altro sesso. Non accade mai nulla di eclatante da un punto di vista dei "fatti", ma molto accade invece dal punto di vista psicologico ed emotivo, poichè l'intensità con cui le donne di queste storie vivono e, soprattutto, ricordano gli accadimenti narrati in queste pagine ne fanno momenti unici e singolari quasi quanto un grande evento storico.

La scrittura è molto curata, ricca di particolari. E vi è quasi, direi, un sottofondo di suspense, benchè, ripeto, non si giunga mai ad alcun "culmine" drammatico. Bene o male che la storia finisca, si ha sempre l'impressione di aver a che fare con persone estremamente reali e realistiche. "Si cambia", sembra dirci la Munro e, cambiando, si continua a vivere, anche se perderemo ciò che amiamo, anche se non troveremo la felicità laddove speravamo di trovarla, anche se credevamo che le cose stessero in un modo ed invece stanno in un altro.

In particolare, mi è piaciuto molto Ortiche, con i suoi ricordi d'infanzia ed il piacere inaspettato di un incontro fortuito. Ed anche Quello che si ricorda, ove le immagini del passato si rimodellano a seconda delle necessità.

Una gradevole lettura, se vi capiterà di imbattervicisi. :-)

(less)

2 likes · like · see review

May 27, 2012 capobanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Non ci si aspetti di trovare qui echi di quelle “scritture di donne” lievi e tremanti come ali di farfalla impigliata negli ascosi recessi dell’anima;
e non ci si aspetti di trovare qui tracce di Figlie Devote, Belles Dames sans Merci, Vittime Designate, Angeli Scesi a Miracol Mostrare, Dame Ricci e Capricci, Zitelle Acide, Innamorate Perse, Dark Ladies, Madri Esemplari, Fanciulle Fragili, Ragazze Terribili o Gigli Infranti.

Me se le donne vi interessano, se non siete di quelli che non devono chie...more

8 likes · like · see review

Mar 03, 2012 Julia J rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: march-2012

These are very, very strange (the first is my favourite). There seems to be a recurring theme of age - of younger women married to older men, especially. But the characters are shown in such depth that they're actually rather diverse, and the detail (and how realistic each is) lends the stories the touch of a memoir, even. I have people comment that Alice Munro makes them think, but for me this isn't the case; no complaints, though, as the language is beautiful and so engaging and mysterious and...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 22, 2012 Abeer Hoque rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-recommend

I read my first Alice Munro short story last year in a bookstore in London. I picked up her latest collection, thought I'd read the first page and finished the entire story standing, rapt. So when I saw "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" in a used bookstore in Northampton, I bought it without a second thought and read it in a week, which for me is really fast.

The amazing thing about Ms. Munro's stories is how simultaneously easy they are to read and how deep and thoughtful. S...more I read my first Alice Munro short story last year in a bookstore in London. I picked up her latest collection, thought I'd read the first page and finished the entire story standing, rapt. So when I saw "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" in a used bookstore in Northampton, I bought it without a second thought and read it in a week, which for me is really fast.

The amazing thing about Ms. Munro's stories is how simultaneously easy they are to read and how deep and thoughtful. She introduces characters with Dickensian genius - sometimes their physical attributes, but most often, their precise and conflicted internal geographies. Take the first line from the first story in HFCLM (also the title story):

"Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair came into the railway station and inquired about shipping furniture."

The setting of HFCLM ranges from Ontario to the British Columbia coast in Canada, and with vivid detail. Though the stories are set in the past, the human conditions that she is so good at describing are not. From adolescent angst to teenage cruelties to adult treacheries to the end games of the elderly - she doesn't sound a false note once.

Here are some lovely excerpts, although Ms. Munro's real talent is in how she creates whole worlds out of nothing and everything:

"Young husbands were stern, in those days. Just a short time before, they had been suitors, almost figures of fun, knock-kneed and desperate in their sexual agonies. Now, bedded down, they turned resolute and disapproving." - What Is Remembered (and one of my favourite stories in the book)

"Now was the time, when we were drenched and safe and confronted with radiance." - Nettles (another amazing story)

She saw the van detach itself from its place on the curb and make its way down the street. It was a light-blue, shimmery, sickening color." - "Floating Bridge"

"There on the sidewalk in the world's view. Kissing like mad." - What Is Remembered

My only peeves with HFCLM is Ms. Munro's monoracial/monocultural bent (white Canadians everywhere), and the fact that she has terrible titles for her stories - not just unimaginative and workhorsey, but sometimes not even apt. But don't let that stop you from reading this book. It's more than worthy. (less)

like · see review

Nov 17, 2011 Ms. Burleson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: top-ten-reads-ever

I truly enjoyed this anthology of short stories by a long-favorite author of mine. I discovered Alice Munro in third year university upon the recommendation of my third year Honors English professor, Dr. Jenkins. He suggested that I read Munro for her sophisticated, articulate style.

Still today, I admire Munro's writing style, but now, it is her characters that resonate. Ordinary individuals in everyday situations are made to seem extraordinary and fascinating. Munros gets beneath the skin of...more

like · see review

Aug 05, 2011 Erin M. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian, short-stories

I read the first two stories a couple of years ago, then must have gotten distracted and started reading something else. I'm glad I came back to this book, because it is really excellent, especially considering the stories are only thirty or forty pages long each.

When I started over with the first two stories again, it turned out I remembered them as clearly as if I had read them yesterday.

The characters are not fantastical or over-dramatized; they could be any one of us. The situations and sett...more

like · see review

Jun 03, 2011 Nikitabanana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Alice Munro is one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories today, and her collection “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” is just as deep, dark and unique as her other acclaimed writings, blazing a beautiful originality out of her seemingly commonplace subjects. The women in this book, much like the men in the fiction of John Updike, find themselves perpetually torn between domesticity and independence; between familial roots and freedom; between a connection with...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 28, 2010 Kaara rated it 2 of 5 stars

I know Alice Munro is one of the most celebrated contemporary authors around. I'd read a short story or two and had been meaning to read this collection for a while. I hated it.

To a one, the women unpleasant, narrow, either narcissistic and selfish or ignorant and pliant, and oppressed, my god, so oppressed by the absolute pricks in their lives that I wanted to run around the block screaming just to prove to myself it wasn't me trapped in that miserable existence. And the men, idiot jerks all of...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 17, 2010 Chantal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not a review so much as a consideration of the flashback:

“Avoid flashbacks whenever possible,” was the advice I once received from a writing teacher. This advice came in the form of a lecture to the entire class, after an early story of mine was read aloud and found to contain a flashback within a flashback within -- yet another -- flashback. The experience left me humbled, and nervous, about tense: past tense and more particularly flashbacks.
Yet, try as I might I can’t avoid them. Flashbacks...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 17, 2009 Louis rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book after seeing the movie "Away from her" with that great, subtle performance by Julie Christie. The movie is based on Munro's short story, "The bear came over the mountain", part of this collection.

It took me a while to read this collection. I read "The bear..." right away but then put the book in my large to-be-read-whenever pile. To be honest, Munro's storywriting is not the kind that makes you want to race to pick up the book. Her gift is writing the kind of prose that gives y...more

like · see review

Jan 28, 2013 Deena rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The buffers made a scuffing noise and the sandpaper wheel made a rasp and the emery stone on a tool's edge sang high like a mechanical insect and the sewing machine punched the leather in an earnest industrial rhythm." -p.25

"After Mrs. Willets her heart had been dry, and she had considered it might always be so. And now such a warm commotion, such busy love." -p.53

"And now that it was suddenly emptied, it made her think of when she first walked into the house, straight from her parents' split-l...more "The buffers made a scuffing noise and the sandpaper wheel made a rasp and the emery stone on a tool's edge sang high like a mechanical insect and the sewing machine punched the leather in an earnest industrial rhythm." -p.25

"After Mrs. Willets her heart had been dry, and she had considered it might always be so. And now such a warm commotion, such busy love." -p.53

"And now that it was suddenly emptied, it made her think of when she first walked into the house, straight from her parents' split-level with the swag curtains, and thought of all those shelves filled with books, wooden shutters on the windows, and those beautiful Middle Eastern rugs she always forgot the name of, on the varnished floor." -p.59

"The bushes and trees would turn black, once the lights were on. There would just be black clumps along the road and the black mass of trees crowding in behind them, instead of, as now, the individual still identifiable spruce and cedar and feathery tamarack and the jewelweed with its flowers like winking bits of fire. It seemed close enough to touch, and they were going slowly. She put her hand out." -p.81

"The slight movement of the bridge made her imagine that all the trees and the reed beds were set on saucers of earth and the road was a floating ribbon of earth and underneath it all was water. And the water seemed so still, but it count not really be still because if you tried to keep your eye on one reflected star, you saw how it winked and changed shape and slid from sight. Then it was back again--but maybe not the same one." -p.84

"After I had walked for a while, my stomach did not feel so heavy. I made a vow not to eat anything for the next twenty-four hours. I walked north and west, north and west, on the streets of the tidily rectangular small city. On a Sunday afternoon there was hardly any traffic, except on the main thoroughfares. Sometimes my route coincided with a bus route for a few blocks. A bus might go by with only two or three people in it. People I did not know and who did not know me. What a blessing." -p.119

"She got the box open and put her hand into the cooling ashes and tossed or dropped them--with other tiny recalcitrant bits of the body--among those roadside plants. Doing his was like wading and then throwing yourself into the lake for the first icy swim, in June. A sickening shock at first, then amazement that you were still moving, lifted up on a stream of steely devotion--calm above the surface of your life, surviving, though the pain of the cold continued to wash into your body." -p.155(less)

like · see review

Nov 04, 2012 arcobaleno rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: letteraturastraniera, racconti

Ho scoperto la Munro strada facendo, pagina dopo pagina. Sembra rappresentare realtà e personaggi banali, ma colpisce il modo assolutamente disinvolto con cui tratteggia spaccati di vita quotidiana attraverso la lente femminile. Non ho ancora letto tutti i racconti. ‘Conforto’ ha cominciato a parlarmi, ‘Ortiche’ mi ha travolto di emozioni. Già questi basterebbero a dar valore a tutta la raccolta.

1 like · like · see review

Jul 24, 2011 Allison rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If this book had been a novel, I would have put it down after the first 50 pages. However, because it is a collection of short stories, I convinced myself that maybe the next story would be more interesting; if I didn't keep reading, I might not be giving Munro a fair chance.

Alas, I reached the end of the book and felt nothing but relief--relief that it was over. Munro is a lovely writer, with a good command of language, but her choice of subject matter, story development, and characters was uni

...more

like · see review

Feb 07, 2009 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had read this once before, but just re-read most of the stories after seeing Away from Her, which is based on the final story in the collection. The movie was decent, but lacked subtlety in a few scenes. I've enjoyed almost all of the Munro collections I've read. Her characters seem very real and I enjoy how most of the stories, in one way or another, span the characters' entire lives. I would highly recommend this and a number of Munro's other collections (Runaway, Friend of My Youth, the lov...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (31)

More editions...

Genres

Short Stories

249 users

Cultural > Canada

52 users

Book Club

22 users

Contemporary

10 users

Literature > Canadian Literature

7 users

Literature

7 users

Adult

6 users

Womens

5 users

Literary Fiction

4 users

Adult Fiction

4 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Alice Munro

Alice Ann Munro, née Laidlaw (born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short-story writer who is widely considered one of the world's premier fiction writers. Munro is a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction. Her stories focus on human relationships looked at through the lens of daily life. She has thus been referred to as "the Canadian Chekhov."

More about Alice Munro...

Books by Alice Munro

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Hateship, Friends...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Hateship, Friendship, ...

“A fight like this was stunning, revealing not just how much he was on the lookout for enemies, but how she too was unable to abandon argument which escalated into rage. Neither of them would back off, they held bitterly to principles.

Can't you tolerate people being different, why is this so important?
If this isn't important, nothing is.

The air seemed to grow thick with loathing. All over a matter that could never be resolved. They went to bed speechless, parted speechless the next morning, and during the day were overtaken by fear - hers that he would never come home, his that when he did she would not be there. Their luck held, however. They came together in the late afternoon pale with contrition, shaking with love, like people who had narrowly escaped an earthquake and had been walking around in naked desolation.” — 5 people liked it

“And now such a warm commotion, such busy love.” — 4 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
avg rating	preview: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories Goodreads rating: 4.12 (4691 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111126.Hateship_Friendship_Courtship_Loveship_Marriage?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320469931l/111126.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111126.Hateship_Friendship_Courtship_Loveship_Marriage?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories by Alice Munro[/url]

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website