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1057 ratings, 4.12 average rating, 148 reviews
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published
August 31st 2004
by Fischer S. Verlag GmbH
binding
Hardcover, 380 pages
isbn
3100488199
(isbn13: 9783100488190)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1436)
Read in December, 2007
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 ...more
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 ...more
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I tried and failed to read this again last night. Maybe the fifth time I've enthusiastically given AM another shot. It seems like it just can't be done. I can't stick with the sentences. I zone out. The sentences themselves don't seem to have enough tension in them, enough joy, enough oomph. I have trouble savoring stories (macro level) if the sentences (mirco level) don't hold and propel me. This is my opinion only: everyone else totally lurves her. I want to love her. I want to be like everyon...more
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Read in September, 2007
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. I...more
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Read in April, 2008
So, I read this book for the book club I recently joined. I voted for this selection for the month among a total range of 5 short story collections, and was pleased that this one was the most popular choice since it seemed most interesting to me. And it was pretty good, though I think Munro has a rather bleak view of male-female relationships (though some may call it realistic instead) - there was hardly a couple with whom extramarital affairs were considered unusual or ultimately harmful to t...more
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my mom-in-law handed this down to me recently and i adored almost every story and sobbed at the last. in a good way. a friend told me the last story is being made into a movie so read this first to understand how the movie will suck in comparison, guaranteed. oh man. [i'm updating this to acknowledge I saw a clip from the film on the new yorker web site and it may in fact not suck. it has julie christie in it. one difference is that part of the story's tremendous power is its narrative focus exc...more
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I take it back, my negative thoughts and comments about this collection of short stories. It is a stunning read, in Alice Munro's measured controlled style. Her stories began in one place and ended up somewhere else you didn't expect (although foreseeable), and this brings a quirky stolen pleasure, because it feels true to life, illuminating, and surprising. in "Floating Bridge", a woman who'd been very ill received a very positive prognosis she'd been utterly unprepared for, and the...more
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Read in September, 2008
Alice Munro is an author whose name I've heard over and over again in conversation, generally attached to enthusiastic and glowing reviews. After reading this collection, I don't quite get the love-fest. Her prose is clean and simple, her characters are beautifully ordinary, and it seems that these stories are being set up, or perhaps actually are set up, to equal more than the sum of their parts, but by the end they start to feel formulaic and I wonder if I've missed something.
Now that tha...more
Now that tha...more
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Read in June, 2008
i've only read the first story in this collection so far, but have already taken the liberty of giving this 5 stars because that one story was like, shattering. holy crap it was good. afterwards i was basically slayed and now i'm lying in bed being like, if all i were to ever do in life was to write the story i just read, and then died on the spot, i would have had an utterly fulfilling life.
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okay now i've read the rest of the book and while still good and thought-provoking and all tha...more
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okay now i've read the rest of the book and while still good and thought-provoking and all tha...more
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Read in January, 2008
These stories all have the same formula. Almost all take place in small towns, and because I'm from a small town I don't find the people very interesting. I would rather read about someplace different with different kinds of people. This book was a required read for my book club so I puttered through most of them, and I even quite liked Nettles and Queenie. But geeze, could we please have a happy ending once in a while? Munroe has a few great lines in this book that I will remember. But a...more
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Read in September, 2008
Confession: I bought this book when it was first published back in 2001. Yes, it is now 2008. I'm averaging just under a year per story. Sigh. But here's my excuse with this one -- these stories are as big as novels. Seriously, these stories have SCOPE. Frankly, I don't know how Munro does it. But I figure it's a skill I could use -- to tell large stories in less space, and to have them still feel as full as a novel. (I'm not surprised that "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" wa...more
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I've been reading Munro for years and still can't figure out how she does it -- or even how to begin describing exactly what she does in her stories. The narration is often deceptively simple, and the best of them seem to have the sweep of long novels. They can also appear as deceptively quiet stories -- chronicling the mundane existence of daily life -- but ones shattered by common but startling moments that make you sit up straight in your chair. She's been described as "Chekhovian&quo...more
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Read in October, 2008
Despite having a couple Munro books on my shelves, this is my first experience with her. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this collection showcases female leads - most of whom have come from less than perfect pasts. Some of them find themselves married, others with children. But each one is perfectly real (at least to me) in her ambivalence and exasperation over her situation. I found myself captivated by Munro's writing, she's one of those authors whose passages you read again and again...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
Emily K. Evett
To people who loved L.M. Montgomery enough to go beyond Anne of Green Gables and even beyond Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, people who read the books of short stories: Alice Munro is the adult version of those short stories ("adult" as in "uses the word syphilis," not "adult" as in Linda Berdoll). I really don't know if I'm only comparing the two because they're filed in the thin file "demonstrably Canadian authors" in my mind or bec...more
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Read in March, 2008
Divine.
Really. How else can I describe this collection of short stories? There's just no other way.
This is my first Alice Munro collection. I've read her stories in the New Yorker and for classes, but I'm glad I finally decided to pick up the full book. The stories flow well together, and tell a longer story about women in (cheese alert!) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship and Marriage.
Especially compelling: "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (the basis for the ...more
Really. How else can I describe this collection of short stories? There's just no other way.
This is my first Alice Munro collection. I've read her stories in the New Yorker and for classes, but I'm glad I finally decided to pick up the full book. The stories flow well together, and tell a longer story about women in (cheese alert!) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship and Marriage.
Especially compelling: "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (the basis for the ...more
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Read in February, 2005
recommends it for:
everybody
I think Alice Munro is the best living short story writer in North America. Sometimes I think about traveling up to Canada and seeing if I can get a chance to meet her, but I'd probably end up stammering and acting like an idiot. It's hard to pick which one of her collections is my favorite, but unlike Runaway, which has a strong sense of connection between stories, and earlier work like Moons of Jupiter, which focused so heavily on her roots in Huron County that it sometimes fel...more
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Read in July, 2007
Ok, so technically I'm still working on these. This is my issue with short stories -- the noncommittal/here today gone tomorrow/this is really reminiscent of most of my recent romantic relationships factor. I like to settle into a story for a while. I also have an issue with Alice Munro -- I have read a bunch of her collections and they all blend together. Really. Wouldn't it be great if Alice Munro wrote a NOVEL?! Moderately lonely Canadian women struggle with marriage, love and family wi...more
In fairness, my 2 star rating has a lot to do with the fact that I got the book on CD from the library. I am so annoyed with the poor chaptering that I gave up listening to it. You can't go forward or backward a few seconds, you have to go back a whole track. A new story always starts at the end of a track instead of the beginning... so if you don't like a story, it's nearly impossible to find a new story without wasting a bunch of time. Of the 2 stories I heard from start to finish, one was...more
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Read in February, 2008
Alice Munro is the master. She channels the complexities of women's lives by mapping their relationships in a way that feels as true as your favorite aunt explaining how your family came to be. Characters are rooted in real life details that make every single story utterly believable. It's hard not to imagine these are just the true stories of women she knows. The first story in this collection, the title story, has the kind of surprise ending that in another's hands could seem too pat, too trit...more
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Read in September, 2007
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."
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Read in December, 2006
recommends it for:
Everyone, but especially writers.
Alice Munro, I have read, is the only North American writer to have made her living entirely through the proceeds from her writing of short stories. Read this book and you'll see why she alone can make that claim. This collection, while not her best perhaps, is typical of the power and range of her literary gift. The title story, alone, is worth the price of the book--it is a gem of a story that dissects just how far we will go for love (to the Westernmost province of Canada to deliver used f...more
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