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Too Much Happiness

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 4,907 ratings · 919 reviews

Ten superb new stories by one of our most beloved and admired writers—the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize.

In the first story a young wife and mother receives release from the unbearable pain of losing her three children from a most surprising source. In another, a young woman, in the aftermath of an unusual and humiliating seduction, reacts in a clever i...more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published November 17th 2009 by Knopf (first published 2009)

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Best Books of 2009

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Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

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Nov 29, 2012 Rakhi Dalal rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Rakhi by: s.penkevich

Shelves: favorites

“We live in time - it holds us and molds us - but I never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it d...more

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

Shelves: favorites, racconti, america, storie-di-donne

Suprema semplicità

”Io sono diventata adulta, poi vecchia.”
Così Alice Munro compendia una intera vita; ed è con frasi come questa, abbaglianti nella loro spietata ovvietà, che questa straordinaria narratrice accende, conclude, risolve e sconvolge le sue storie.
Nei racconti inclusi in questa bellissima raccolta si avverte chiaramente l'impronta dell'età: il tempo, trascorso così veloce e implacabile, sembra ammantare i ricordi di un velo di nostalgia, anche quando si tratti di ricordi tristi; e...more Suprema semplicità

”Io sono diventata adulta, poi vecchia.”
Così Alice Munro compendia una intera vita; ed è con frasi come questa, abbaglianti nella loro spietata ovvietà, che questa straordinaria narratrice accende, conclude, risolve e sconvolge le sue storie.
Nei racconti inclusi in questa bellissima raccolta si avverte chiaramente l'impronta dell'età: il tempo, trascorso così veloce e implacabile, sembra ammantare i ricordi di un velo di nostalgia, anche quando si tratti di ricordi tristi; e la valutazione dei fatti , sia lieti che infausti, appare come filtrata attraverso una sorta di saggezza "superiore" che deriva dall'esperienza.
Lo sguardo acuto e disincantato della scrittrice come al solito si appunta principalmente sull'universo femminile: sui rapporti sentimentali e familiari, sulle relazioni quotidiane e sui moti più intimi e segreti dell'animo in rapporto al vissuto personale.
Rispetto al passato, tuttavia, spesso intervengono episodi luttuosi o addirittura cruenti a interrompere la linearità delle vite ordinarie di queste persone comuni. L'evento straordinario, però, viene come relegato a margine, costituendo un mero pretesto per dare rilievo alla complessità del mondo interiore del singolo individuo.
In tal modo anche l'esistenza più anonima si colora di originalità, di unicità, e al tempo stesso si fa portatrice di un messaggio universale di consapevolezza, di indipendenza e di "verità".
Senza enfasi o presunzione, però, perché l'autrice ha il dono dell'umiltà e della semplicità.
La sua prosa cristallina non mira a "rivelare" o "insegnare" nulla, ma unicamente a "raccontare" e lo fa con tanto acume e sensibilità da suscitare nel lettore emozioni, interrogativi e risposte che lo guidano a comprendere con maggiore chiarezza anche la propria vita.

Chi avesse ipotizzato che questa scrittrice avesse raggiunto una maturità artistica ormai statica e che nulla di nuovo potesse ancora stupirci nella sua pur egregiamente collaudata tecnica narrativa, è senz’altro costretto a ricredersi di fronte a questo libro.
Vi si riscontra, infatti, uno sviluppo inatteso di temi già trattati in precedenza, situazioni che ritornano, ma sezionate con più graffiante vigore di ribellione e portate ad un epilogo che scava fino all'estremo abisso dell'animo umano.
Grandissima Munro, come sempre e più di sempre.
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Dec 22, 2009 Teresa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Five of these stories I'd read before (online at the New Yorker) and it was a pleasure to read them again, even to note a few subtle changes that had been made, in particular, with the one I think is my favorite ("Face"). This pleasure in reading Munro, I think, comes not from her characters or her plots, though she obviously is very talented in those facets, but from the themes of the stories, some of which need to be teased out. I especially felt this way with a story ("Wood") that I didn't ev...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Paola rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa, imprescindibili

Brava, brava, brava, la Munro, ma proprio tanto. (una delle mie scrittrici preferite, Strout, Oates e Munro la triade delle migliori)
E’ con reverenza che si posa a fine lettura questo libro, con reverenza e gratitudine per le ore di piacevolissima e arricchente lettura.
In questi racconti le donne sono ancora protagoniste, quella annientata dal dolore per l’uccisione dei figli, bambine crudeli con qualcuno di diverso, (Bambinate, il mio preferito), donne abbandonate, tradite che trovano la forza...more

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Mar 02, 2013 TD rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, short-stories

--spoilers--

"...a sort of magic" is how Ali Smith describes Munro's stories on the jacket of my edition, and I don't think there is a better way to describe the pieces collected here. The stories in 'Too Much Happiness' draw in the reader the way only the very best fiction does; but what is astounding is that Munro achieves this with all ten stories. It's not immediately obvious how she does so, although what is clear is that her pacing and the overall shape of her pieces are brilliant; no story...more

--spoilers--

"...a sort of magic" is how Ali Smith describes Munro's stories on the jacket of my edition, and I don't think there is a better way to describe the pieces collected here. The stories in 'Too Much Happiness' draw in the reader the way only the very best fiction does; but what is astounding is that Munro achieves this with all ten stories. It's not immediately obvious how she does so, although what is clear is that her pacing and the overall shape of her pieces are brilliant; no story here is anything less than its own irreducible experience.

I've seen her described as "our Chekhov", which is the sort of glib comparison that doesn't really pin down anything, but then it's not completely wide of the mark either. For as in Chekhov, Munro's stories are never about what they are most obviously about; meanings shimmer around the edges of the narratives and blur them, and she is content to leave things as such. This means that she can get away with an almost tabloid-esque litany of themes: triple-homicide, murderous children, child killers, sexual perversion, suicide. And I have to admit that after reading the first paint-stripper of a story, 'Dimensions', I was feeling a bit wary. However, Munro exerts such control over her narratives that as unnerving or even repulsive as whatever is being recounted may be, it never overwhelms the subtle sub-text she is working us toward. Be that as it may, I personally found her more mundane framings the more affecting, such as 'Wood', which begins by playing on a simple inversion of an aphorism, but which then uses this play to gesture toward something far more vital contained in the relationship between husband and wife; and also the truly masterful 'Deep-holes', which devastatingly abandons the reader in the isolation at the heart of an ostensibly forthright and all too recognisable family.

This Chekhovian streak also makes summary rather difficult, but infused in these stories are concerns with temporality, guilt and deferred remorse, and the ways in which people adapt to the improbable and often shaming circumstances they suddenly find themselves having to confront. They are all also stories about story-telling, although this is far from a Coetzeean meta-fictional endeavour. The stories the characters tell themselves and each other stew in the juice of the fiction, and are largely damaging and distorting to the characters' lives. In 'Dimensions', Doree's murderous husband sends her letters from prison with stories of spiritual salvation so as to lure her back to him. In 'Fiction' Joyce reads the short story of her ex-husband's second wife's daughter, who she chanced to teach years back in the local primary school - the story is about the girl's recollection of Joyce, and although the story affords Joyce a brief moment of recognition and affirmation, Munro's story ends with her protagonist having been dispossessed of her own past. There are many others: imagined far off islands, or an uneasy complicity about what was never really an accident. Only in the final, long title story about the mathematician Sofia Kovalevsky does the novel that Sofia has written, and the idealised past contained in it, provide her with some comfort while she lays dying. But then, that is perhaps what stories have always been for.

Munro is amazing, and I'm an instant convert.

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Dec 23, 2009 brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

is there another living writer of fiction who, while reading, produces as many of these: 'yes! exactly! a tiny but revelatory detail i've never considered in such a light... and never so precisely expressed!' -- no. there isn't. alice munro is chimney-smoke smell and end-of-day melancholy. the goal is to read everything she's written.

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May 03, 2013 Leajk rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

"Every one of us will be forgotten, Sophia though but did not say, because of the tender sensibilities of men - particularly of a young man - on this point."

This quote is not only my favourite quote of the book, it summarizes some of Munro's writing qualities quite nicely. She is as above sometimes witty and almost always cynical, slightly bitter and an acute observer. Four very fine qualities in a writer, yet for me there is something missing in most of the stories. Something of a more forgiving tone perhaps. Something to counterbalance all the follies and pure menace of humanity described.

Time after time Munro is brutally honest about human nature, people deceive each other, leave each other, murder loved ones, and yet perhaps the worst flaws to read about are the smaller ones, the general lack of empathy and understanding, as the woman's indifference to her student in "Fiction" or Marlene's detest for Verna in "Child's Play" or the simple misunderstanding, never repaired in "Face". Though the flaws might be as acutely observed as in the aforementioned quote, for some reason it hits a little too close to home for me, especially while leaving me without any suggestion for redemption from Munro.

I wish I was a more refined person, needing less assurance from the author, but I prefer some type of humor or distracting beauty to sweeten the very bitter medicine. I guess I'm simply not superhuman enough to appreciate all the cynicism of Munro at the moment.

What I do appreciate about the book is that it is clearly written by someone who have lived a full life and has the luxury of looking back with some perspective. Someone who knows that life goes on no matter what, regardless of how broken a heart is or how terrible life becomes, life will prevail unless death enters. Yet there are no cliché descriptions of people once glowing now broken down and faded away (with the exception of Sofia's sister in the last story). Instead people are simply a bit more jaded and perhaps cynical as they grow older, but every bit as alive as before.

I also appreciate the last story. I've previously read short mentions about Sofia Kovalevskaya, the first female university professor in mathematics, and in Munro's story I feel very close to her. Her journey through Europe with the language and norm barriers and description of the Swedish stiffness felt spot on.

I read this book with my book circle and before reading it my expectations were sky high, which often is a set up for disappointment. Almost no one in the circle liked it, some had simply stopped after the two first (and perhaps darkest) stories. I was among the most positive, and clearly I'm not a huge fan excepting perhaps one and a half stories. Still I did feel the need to defend Munro from the accusation of drawing only on her own life in the stories. One person felt that the descriptions were too real to be made up, which I think might be one of the finest compliments one could give to an author.

Munro might be one of the stoutest observers of human flaws I've read, I would love to read what she thinks of our strengths.

------

Ps. I almost forgot: what's the deal with the cover (see the Vintage edition)??? Why would anyone even consider this horrible chick-lit cover after having read even the first two sentences in Munro's book? It makes me think of this article by Meg Wolitzer about 'The second shelf' (how covers on 'women's books' differs from those written by men). This also, by extension, makes me think of the latest Wikipedia debacle where one editor moved all female writers into a separate 'woman author' category, while he left all men in the category simply called 'author', see here .(less)

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May 11, 2012 Dani Peloquin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Usually, it takes a lot for me to take a chance on short stories. I typically find them to be either too short (and I want a novel-length more) or too long (and I wonder why it bothered being a story at all). However, Munro is a master! She gives the reader just enough to keep you intrigued and unable to put the book down. Yet, each story feels complete and you can walk away from the collection feeling satisified.

I enjoyed this collection a great deal because the stories dealt with some heavy is...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Rosalba rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Io riesco solo a ricordare agli altri qualcosa su cui nessuno può soffermare il pensiero.

Una felice scoperta casuale . Racconti quasi tutti al femminile in cui emergono ricordi e si affrontano situazioni imprevedibili. Di questa raccolta della Munro non si scarta niente. Alcuni racconti sono davvero dei piccoli gioielli, come “Dimensioni” e “Buche profonde” o “Radicali liberi”, ma anche “Bambinate” e “Troppa felicità” che dà il titolo alla raccolta; altri forse meno pregevoli, ma tutti lasciano...more

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Apr 29, 2010 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Now I've listened to the collection as well as read it. A slightly different take but equally brilliant.

Every story is to be savored. Like an exquisite meal in which one flavor builds upon the next, Munro's stories appear deceptively simple but offer great satisfaction as they take hold of one's imagination.

The first story is about a woman who has lost three children. This horrific fact is described without emotion as we follow Doree (the children's mother) in the aftermath of the killing. With...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Thing Two rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-you-might-have-missed, country-canada, rogers-writers-trust-fiction-nomine, nyt-notable-book, short-stories

More beauty from Munro. It's getting hard for me to review her writing - to distinguish a four star from a five. She's just a brilliant writer.

There are ten stories in this collection. Each is vastly different; from "Too Much Happiness" about the last days of Russian author and mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya to the haunting story of young co-ed in her first year of college "Wenlock Edge", Munro's women move through life with steam - taking it as it comes and, somehow, surviving, learning, and...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars

What can I say? I love Alice Munro's work. And finding a whole book of stories that I haven't read previously in the New Yorker was a treat. Well, maybe I'd read one before. These stories are chockful of Munro's interesting characters, followed over a much longer time span than many short stories. And which come to unexpected endings just when you think you've got them figured out. Beautiful writing, but of course that's to be expected with AM. If I had to pick a least favorite in this bunch, it...more

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Apr 03, 2013 William rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book reminds me of a dish made by a skilled chef with first-class ingredients but simply does not taste good. Munro is a gifted writed, with an elegantly simple style and an eye for compelling detail. And "Too Much Happiness" made the "100 Most Notable Books" for 2009. I really wanted to like this book, but just couldn't get there. The cover blurb suggests that the ten stories share a theme of individuals transcending difficult events in their lives. My experience reading the book was an in...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alice Munro might be the reason I hate short stories. I mean, she’s the best short story writer ever - perfect detail, brilliant dialogue, the amazing ability to move forward and back in time in seamless slips of paragraphs - but with this incredible talent comes (my) the awful realization that the story is only going to be 30 pages long. And that you want it to be 300. Which doesn’t even make sense because short stories have a certain something-something in the punchiness of the plot, the pace...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Andy Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars

A nice collection of short stories by Alice Munro. My favorite was "Fiction" which begins with the narrator, a music teacher, describing her life in a remote Oregon valley with her woodworker husband and we watch as his apprentice slowly seduces her husband away from the marriage. The story then moves years into the future where she is giving a 65th birthday party for her second husband, a university professor in a big city. Her reminiscences tell us what happened to her, her former husband, the...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Mauremkayna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Descobri essa autora por indicação de um amigo, e a leitura dos 3 primeiros contos foi uma supresa e tanto. Estou lendo a versão em inglês porque foi a que encontrei na Amazon e, embora meu inglês seja limitado, isso não tem estragado o prazer da leitura. Há edição em português, da Cia das Letras.

A narrativa de Alice se desenvolve como uma sucessão de cenas de um filme. O tema é a miséria cotidiana de indivíduos comuns e os finais costumam surpreender ou impactar. Com a descrição de situações b...more

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May 14, 2012 Gabriel Nita rated it 4 of 5 stars

‘Prea multă fericire’ a fost prima mea întâlnire cu Alice Munro, o prolifică autoare canadiană de proză scurtă. Volumul, publicat în 2009, cuprinde zece povestiri, diferite ca tematică, întindere, localizare geografică sau în timp, dar totuși sensibil asemănătoare prin atmosferă. Indiferent de subiect, de multe ori violent, miza povestirii pare să fie aceea de a surprinde un moment decisiv în interiorul intim al eroinei (căci cu o singură excepție fiecare povestire este despre o fată sau o femei...more

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Apr 13, 2011 David Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars

Alice Munro is my favourite living short story writer, and this collection does not disappoint except, strangely for the long title story. Unlike the other contemporary pieces, this one is set in the nineteenth century and centres on the real-life Sophia Kovalevsky, a Russian mathematician and novelist. The story simply did not come to life for me, and it seems out of place among the rest of the collection, though Munro clearly wants to draw attention to it through the title. Other readers may b...more

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Nov 28, 2010 mstan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: holiday-reading-2010, short-stories, canadian

I am so happy. It's school vacation time, and I'm tearing through books again (after having faced a drought almost the entire year). This one probably warrants a much more leisurely pace than I've adopted with it.

There are 10 short stories in this collection, and my favourite is, predictably, 'Fiction', which is about a couple whose marriage falls apart. Not much time is spent on the disintegration though; more surprising is the inclusion of the plot of a story written by the daughter of the int...more

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Jun 17, 2010 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

I love short stories, and was excited to finally get around to Alice Munro's "Too Much Happiness: Stories." Although I know the collection was well-reviewed, I hadn't actually read any of the reviews before diving in, and I was naive enough to think that the stories were, indeed, about happiness. In a way, they are, but it's a different, quieter, more dignified happiness. The ten stories involve dark, sometimes tragic, subject matter, and yet despite these tragedies, Munro's characters manage to...more

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Jun 07, 2010 J.M. Blevins rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nobody can touch her writing. That's undeniable. The difficulty lies in why she is such a "women's" writer, at least to me. She writes like a girl! Yeah, so does Virginia Woolf, so take that as a compliment if you like.

Honestly, this was easy to read and the stories and characters were easy to become. I just felt like, why? Why did she have these situations happen to her characters and why did she bother to write about them? It's not like I demand a lot of action, I just didn't get her choices....more

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Mar 29, 2010 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have been reluctant to return Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness just so I could reread a few before I return it to the library. Like most Munro stories, it deals with everyday women, usually housewives, mothers and daughters, aunts and cousins. Something dark and savage lurks in many of her characters, revealed slowly as her narratives unfold.

Last night I reread my favorite story in the collection, "Child's Play." It is really a haunting story. It is a story of an elderly lady reflecting on he...more I have been reluctant to return Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness just so I could reread a few before I return it to the library. Like most Munro stories, it deals with everyday women, usually housewives, mothers and daughters, aunts and cousins. Something dark and savage lurks in many of her characters, revealed slowly as her narratives unfold.

Last night I reread my favorite story in the collection, "Child's Play." It is really a haunting story. It is a story of an elderly lady reflecting on her childhood. She describes memories from her childhood of a neighbor girl who was persistent in trying to befriend her. But the girl was "mentally deficient" or "different" or whatever label they used back then for being developmentally delayed. She hated the girl. I loved this description of her hate: "I suppose I hated her as some people hate snakes or caterpillars or mice or slugs. For no decent reason. Not for any certain harm she could do but for the way she could disturb your innards and make you sick of your life." Wow. That packs a punch.

I also found this observation about women's friendships true to my life experience:

"Grown-up women do the same sort of thing that Charlene and I did. Not counting the moles on each other's backs and comparing toe lengths, maybe. But when they meet and feel a particular sympathy with each other they also feel a need to set out the important information, the big events whether public or secret and then go ahead to fill in all the blanks between. If they feel this warmth and eagerness, it is quite impossible for them to bore each other. They will laugh at the very triviality and silliness of what they're telling, or at the revelation of some appealing selfishness, deception, meanness, sheer badness."

Yes, a good friendship is one where you finally feel comfortable to share your sheer badness. But in this story, a friendship takes a sharp turn into criminal behavior.

This collection of stories has it all: love, murder, kinky sex, dysfunctional families, twisted marriages, and tragedy in settings where you would least expect it. It's the kind of book that makes you think about people, and wonder, what really goes on inside their private lives?
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Mar 03, 2010 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 06, 2010 Tamara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Puts into words feelings that you never thought describable. But each story also has a horrifying event that defies description, leaving you feeling a bit unsatisfied.

The namesake story was my least favorite. If you read one story from the collection it should be Child's Play.

Favorite Quotes:

Love. She was glad of it. It almost seemed as if there must be some random and of course unfair thrift in the emotional housekeeping of the world, if the great happiness - however temporary, however flimsy...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Beautifully written as always - Munro is a true artist. I loved reading this compilation of short stories because I love her writing and ability to bring characters to life and make them identifiable. There is a certain "Canadian-ness" to her writing that appeals to me as a Canadian. Like Atwood, her writing is evocative of the landscape and the puritanical mindset that dominated throughout the 20th century. Believe it or not, it's a heady mix.

I think my favorite was "Wood". The end was a bit pe...more

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May 26, 2011 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Something about Munro's writing style really hooks me. It's very clear, lucid prose, free of embellishment, describing things that seem at first very mundane (and often are), but usually when I finish one of her stories I surface from the book dazed and almost gasping, as if the story walloped me right upside the head somehow. They're unflinching, and yet not (usually) despairing: intimate portraits of people getting by.

Stories that especially struck me:

"Dimensions" reads almost like a horror st...more Something about Munro's writing style really hooks me. It's very clear, lucid prose, free of embellishment, describing things that seem at first very mundane (and often are), but usually when I finish one of her stories I surface from the book dazed and almost gasping, as if the story walloped me right upside the head somehow. They're unflinching, and yet not (usually) despairing: intimate portraits of people getting by.

Stories that especially struck me:

"Dimensions" reads almost like a horror story for the first half or so, as Munro skilfully leads the reader toward an increasingly-reluctant revelation about what has happened to the protagonist. The story is almost unbearably painful--I had to put it down and walk away a few times--but Munro leads you through the protagonist's experiences with a kind but firm hand.

"Fiction," a story about a woman who crosses path with the daughter of her husband's mistress, years after her divorce. A story about telling stories, sardonic and pointed. Perhaps one of the more cynical stories in the collection, but complex and fascinating.

"Free Radicals" makes a good companion piece to "Fiction," a story about a recently-widowed woman who uses the raw stuff of her life to spin a yarn that gets her through a crisis. One of my favorite protagonists in the book.

"Some Women" was just the opposite of "Fiction", a surprisingly un-cynical story, although I admit near the end I suddenly had an intuition I had misunderstood everything in it and had to go back and re-read it all. A story about very adult interactions as seen by a young girl who only has a dim understanding of what's going on.

"Child's Play," in which a woman remembers a summer long ago, a friendship, and her dread of a differently-abled girl who lived nearby, was very close to a horror story as well. A clear-eyed, unsentimental and unsparing look at the cruelty of childhood which left me feeling chilled.

Oddly, the one story that didn't grab me was the title story, which might be because it was more biographical, a fictionalization of a Russian mathematician's life. Running very close to the facts of her life means it lacked both narrative sharpness and surprise to me. I would highly recommend the collection, though.(less)

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Dec 31, 2010 John Salois rated it 4 of 5 stars

Good so far.

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Jan 20, 2010 Sarah Pi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, fiction_non_genre

I think there should be a law regarding the inverse relationship between books and movies with "happiness" in the title and the actual happiness allowed the characters. Munro acknowledges that in the excellent story "Free Radicals," in which the protagonist is a reader. "She read modern fiction too. Always fiction. She hated to hear the word "escape" used about fiction. She might have argued, notj ust playfully, that it was real life that was the escape. But this was too important to argue about...more

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Jan 08, 2010 Cdrueallen rated it 4 of 5 stars

If the function of fiction is to provide maps for human lives, then Alice Munro's collection, Too Much Happiness, is one of the best works of fiction published in 2009. In these stories, Ms. Munro has created an elegant symbol system that marks the paths women take through the dangerous territory of love and friendship. Most of their problems are caused by men, though there are plenty of scheming and possibly evil women who populate these tales. Ms. Munro is an acute and critical observer of the...more If the function of fiction is to provide maps for human lives, then Alice Munro's collection, Too Much Happiness, is one of the best works of fiction published in 2009. In these stories, Ms. Munro has created an elegant symbol system that marks the paths women take through the dangerous territory of love and friendship. Most of their problems are caused by men, though there are plenty of scheming and possibly evil women who populate these tales. Ms. Munro is an acute and critical observer of the pathologies of character created by what an old feminist like myself would call patriarchal society, and her description of the father in the story "Face" is one of the wittiest and most devastating portraits of a member of the privileged male class I've read:

"My father went to college, joined a fraternity, had what was referred to as a high old time, entered the insurance business when the glove factory went under. He was as popular around our town as he had been at college...At home my father's most vivid quality was a capacity for hating and despising. In fact those two verbs often went together. He hated and despised certain foods, makes of automobiles, music, manners of speech and modes of dress, radio comedians and later on television personalities, as well as the usual assortment of races and classes it was customary to hate and despise (though perhaps not so thoroughly as he did) in his day. In fact most of his opinions would have found no argument outside our house, in our town, with his sailing companions, or his old fraternity brothers. It was his vehemence, I think, that brought out an uneasiness that could also amount to admiration."

The weapons the women in these stories have in their unequal struggle for love and survival are their wits, and narrative. Looks don't seem to help them at all, but the stories they tell have the power to change lives (in the appropriately named "Fiction"), preserve life (in "Free Radicals"), and lead to murder (I won't say in which story, in case you want to be surprised). On the other hand, these women can be led astray by the stories men tell them. But no matter who's telling the story, Ms. Munro believes implicitly in its power. You and I probably would too, if we could write like this. There's no superfluity of metaphor and adjective here, as is the case in so much of modern lyrical realism (and lyrical non-realism too), so what there is, is strikingly effective. Language for Ms. Munro is not an end in itself, but a tool for limning character and laying out plot. Yes, each of the stories has its own complete, tightly knit, and often surprising plot, and does not depend on a final epiphany (as so many modern stories do) for its structure. Ms. Munro manages to perfectly balance language, plot, and character, so that no one of these elements grabs the microphone and drowns out the others.

If I had to find a fault with these stories (and it seems that I do), it would be that they're too perfectly crafted. They go down too smoothly, and don't stick in the mind the way some less skillful fiction manages to do. Perhaps the reader needs some roughness of texture to make things stick, because the image that stays with me is girl narrator of "Wenlock Edge" sitting her naked backside down on prickly plush in Mr. Purvis's elegant library to read him selections from "A Shropshire Lad". This story of shame, sexual humiliation, and revenge, is one of my two favorites in the collection, the other one being the title story, "Too Much Happiness". Appropriately for a story about a real Russian female mathematician, "Too Much Happiness" manages that Chekhovian miracle of condensing a whole life into a few pages. Here the rough texture of real life is smoothed but not eliminated by Ms. Munro's artistry, creating a small but no less masterful for that masterpiece. (less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Rosa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alice Munro never fails to amaze me. Even if her characters are not what I'd usually relate to or identify with, she has an amazing way of trapping the reader with her flawless narrative, her non judgemental approach to the story, her clean presentation of what drives her characters to be who they are and make the choices they do... You just find yourself caring for them before you even notice. My favorite story was the one that gives the name to the book "Too much happiness", I liked it so much...more

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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."

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Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

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Quotes from Too Much Happiness

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” — 33 people liked it

“Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind... When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.” — 23 people liked it

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