A new collection of stories by Alice Munro is always a major event. This new collection — her most personal to date — is no exception.<...
read full description
reviews
Jun 06, 2009
Frank
rated it: 
I think this is my new favorite Alice Munro collection. Usually in her collections--in all collections of stories--there's a clunker or two, stories that seem to be there merely to fill out the book. Not so in this one. It's solid all the way through.
This book reminds me a bit of Munro's book The Beggar Maid, which is pretty close to a novel in that it follows a single character's life through a series of stories, from childhood to middle age. This one extends the reach of the narrat More...
This book reminds me a bit of Munro's book The Beggar Maid, which is pretty close to a novel in that it follows a single character's life through a series of stories, from childhood to middle age. This one extends the reach of the narrat More...
2 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 27, 2007
Paul
rated it:
Beautifully written and structured with concise, sharp economy. Munro clearly renders and explores the layered and often fraught relations of family members to each other, and to location and circumstance. I love the narrator's free mixture of speculation with fact in search of complex characters. This complexity only deepens as the stories enter the narrator's living memory and intertwine with her own acute self-awareness. I also love the recurring motif of the activity of writing itself --
More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Jul 28, 2008
KL
rated it: 
I haven't read Alice Munro in years, so am really happy to have stumbled across this book at the library. I've just started it but it has a really different structure then her usual writing. She is incredible at turning what seems to be an ordinary scenario onto its head. She is dark, and sincere and wonderfully observant. It has a feeling of being consistently pulled deeper in, she lets you glide along and then pulls, then repeats.
OK I finished this book now, the library wanted it b More...
OK I finished this book now, the library wanted it b More...
2 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Mar 12, 2009
Stephanie
rated it: 
In the dozen-odd collections of short stories she has published, Canadian writer Alice Munro has often mantained an element of autobiography. Her characters rarely stray beyond the borders of the rural Huron County, Canada, where the writer grew up and where she maintains a country home. There, they strut and fret in domestic settings, until one of them, usually a teenaged girl, packs her bags in a fit of self-determination and leaves to discover the rest of the world.
In what is repo More...
In what is repo More...
Feb 05, 2009
Alice Munro's fans will find many familiar themes in this collection: father-daughter relationships, small-town repression, domestic work, discontented girls, and education. At the same time, Munro extends her craft deeper into her own past. Yet while she labels some parts historical-autobiographical, it's unclear just how many stories arise from personal experience, no matter how much depth each possesses. Perhaps it doesn't matter: Munro's particular talent lies in recreating art as life. If t
More...
Jun 23, 2009
Sarah
rated it:
Alice Munro is one of the great short fiction writers out there today, a well-known fact, as far as I know. This collection of stories is actually inspired by and concerns Munro's family, her ancestors that immigrated to Canada from Scotland and her grandparents and parents. The stories she spins here are as startling and engrossing as any of her work, but are tinged with something extra--mortality, discussions of death or just the old icy grip of death hovering over past generations and conce
More...
Jan 21, 2012
Judi
rated it:
It may just be the point I am in life, but I have been enjoying memiors of late. Reflections on family history. This is a collection of memories, family history cobbled together in short story format. It must have been facinating to research and reflect. Alice Munro is a bit older than I, but I can relate to her family as we both have rustic Depression era roots. Hers in Canada, mine in Wisconsin. Both of us shared family immigration from greater Europe at the same time. Mine from Germany, hers
More...
Sep 30, 2010
Kevin
rated it:
I have tried in the past to get into Munro's short stories and have never been able to do it. So, either I'm older and wiser, or this hit me at just the right time, or it's different from her other work, but either way, I'm going to dig back in and read a lot more of her stories.
This book totally sails, no slow or clunky parts. It's creative non-fiction, part family history, part memoir, part fictional narrative. It's delicate and just achingly gorgeous in parts.
There is More...
This book totally sails, no slow or clunky parts. It's creative non-fiction, part family history, part memoir, part fictional narrative. It's delicate and just achingly gorgeous in parts.
There is More...
Aug 02, 2010
Eric
rated it: 
Admittedly, my approach to authors famous for their literary genius has been to avoid them like the plague. Also, I haven't been into biographies much. Finally, I decided to give Alice Munro a chance. I have to say that I enjoyed the story of her life in Castle Rock. She takes the reader back to the Scottish border lands, a land said to have given birth of some of my forebears, and then follows them into Ontario and Illinois.
Her descriptions of the hardships of her pioneering forebea More...
Her descriptions of the hardships of her pioneering forebea More...
Nov 18, 2009
Enrique
rated it:
Siempre he sostenido que la vida de una persona común y corriente es digna de una gran obra literaria y que no son únicamente aquellas vidas extraordinarias o quienes hayan pasado experiencias únicas como una guerra, un suceso histórico o grandes sufrimientos los que puedan reflejar su historia en un libro. Sin embargo, siempre tuve problemas para defender esta hipótesis, hasta ahora.
The View from Castle Rock, es una series de cuentos separados por capítulos que tratan sobre la vida More...
The View from Castle Rock, es una series de cuentos separados por capítulos que tratan sobre la vida More...
Mar 02, 2011
Joan
rated it:
I am an enormous admirer of Munro’s short fiction, but this particular collection that follows the history of Munro’s Scottish ancestors from the 18th century to the present is untypical of her work. One’s family is fascinating primarily to oneself and this holds true for Munro; the reader at times chafes with boredom or reads on hurriedly to find an inviting passage. Munro being Munro does deliver here and there and many of the details of the lives of the Scottish pioneers in Canada are interes
More...
Oct 26, 2011
Jen
rated it:
Munro tells the story of her Scottish family, the Laidlaws, as they leave Edinburg in the 19th century, to travel to Canada. The novel takes the form of individual stories from her family archives, the first set partly in the old world, then on the boat to Canada, and then in their new home. This section of the novel, which tells of frontier life was not as successful as the later chapters which deal with the younger Alice and her family during tough times in the Depression, and of her later l
More...
Aug 23, 2009
Carole
rated it:
This is another of my "re-reads by accident." I listened to the audio version, as I did the first time. So, even though I only gave it 3 stars, it held my interest for 24 hours.
The book was a compilation of stories, some related, some seemingly not related, of British immigrants to Canada and their lives there.
Alice Munro is an accomplished writer. She would have to be, to keep readers' interest in very mundane stories about very ordinary people. This book s More...
The book was a compilation of stories, some related, some seemingly not related, of British immigrants to Canada and their lives there.
Alice Munro is an accomplished writer. She would have to be, to keep readers' interest in very mundane stories about very ordinary people. This book s More...
Nov 22, 2010
Marieke
rated it:
It's been a while since I've posted anything about books; I feel a little rusty. The upcoming holiday distractions have got hold of me -- knitting, making cards, a cooking frenzy this week (Thanksgiving on Thursday), shopping, well, you know the drill.
I especially wanted to write something about Alice Munro's family history memoir, The View from Castle Rock, both because I loved reading it and because it is the last book I'm counting for the Women Unbound Challenge this year.
More...
I especially wanted to write something about Alice Munro's family history memoir, The View from Castle Rock, both because I loved reading it and because it is the last book I'm counting for the Women Unbound Challenge this year.
More...
Dec 18, 2011
Philip
rated it:
A fascinating experiment, comparing your personal life with that of your ancestors who first set foot on the American soil: this is what Ms Munro does in this book and the result is excellent. She doesn't risk unnecessary parallelisms between the XVIIIth century and the XXth, she just puts the two "histories" side by side to see what comes out. The reader is free to draw any conclusions (if any are to be drawn) or simply enjoy the narrations. No, says Munro, the past doesn't always exp
More...
Jun 27, 2010
Jennifer
rated it:
A series of short stories that trace the author's family line from Scotland to the present day. The early stories are of course entirely fabricated beyond the dates and names, but the later ones are heavily autobiographical. Grouped together, they form a series that is elegiac without being sentimental. The disjunction between distant past and recent past is a little too jarring for me--I can see what she's doing, the connections she's making and the themes she's drawing out, but being able to
More...
Nov 18, 2010
Gloriagloom
rated it:
ho acquistato questo libro in un megastore feltrinelli poco prima di Natale, non riuscivo a trovarlo in mezzo a tutte quelle agendine e quei calendari con i gatti, allora spazientito ho chiesto aiuto a un commesso, lui, con modi gentili, mi ha domandato se dovevo regalarlo a una donna, dato che -a parere del commesso o dell'ufficio marketing della Feltrinelli non so- è il libro di un'autrice indicata per una donna. Signori dell'accademia delle lettere di stoccolma o come diavolo si chiama, se pr
More...
May 16, 2010
Kay
rated it:
After completing "too Much Happiness" I decided to go back and read this most popular of Alice Monro's work. A charming series of stories that follow one Scottish family from a subsistence living in Scotland, over the Atlantic to new lives in America and Canada. The early stories are mostly to describe life in 17th century Scotland to explain why the family would leave. I like Alice Monro's gentle style and her women are always sympathetic. I do get tired of all the men dying or runni
More...
Jan 12, 2011
Joe
rated it:
My expectations were such that this collection would include a lot more on Munro's immigrant/Scottish ancestral past and I was looking forward to what I had heard about the melding of memoir into short fiction. That being said, the book starts strong and ends strong, but I found the middle a bit hard to muddle through - especially her childhood stories. All stories are punctured by beautiful moments. Munro very carefully sets up a web of tensions between characters, but rarely do they give the r
More...
May 07, 2010
Yngvild
rated it:
Dull, dull, dull. This charmless collection of tales broadly describes the immigrant experience in Canada.
Family histories are rarely intrinsically interesting to outsiders, the exceptions being famous characters doing fascinating things - or when the writer adds humour, insight or drama.
In The View From Castle Rock, Alice Munro hubristically makes no attempt at embellishing her famously spare prose. Add to this a persistent didactic strain and you have an idea why I w More...
Family histories are rarely intrinsically interesting to outsiders, the exceptions being famous characters doing fascinating things - or when the writer adds humour, insight or drama.
In The View From Castle Rock, Alice Munro hubristically makes no attempt at embellishing her famously spare prose. Add to this a persistent didactic strain and you have an idea why I w More...
Mar 16, 2009
salinthebay
rated it:
I love Alice Munro ever since I discovered her in the NYer many years ago. However, this 1/2 novel, 1/2 biography about her father-daughter relationship and the family Scottish history had me questioning her motive. I could not get past, why? Why would she choose this 1/2 and 1/2 voice for such an important book? It is never clear how many parts are historical-autobiographical and how many are fiction. As one reviewer wrote, "Perhaps it doesn't matter: Munro's particular talent lies in r
More...
Sep 18, 2011
Cv
rated it:
I've been hearing about Alice Munro for a while and usually it's come with the recommendation, "you have to read The View from Castle Rock." So this week I read it, and I'm wondering, after page number 368, when is this book going to get good? But it was over. It's not that the book was bad - it just wasn't very good. It was a common immigrants coming to America, struggling with the changes, drama, tragedy and then settling in story. It's a common enough tale and it's been done many
More...
Jul 30, 2011
Josh
rated it:
The stories in this collection were closer to Munro’s family history than her other collections, but she reassures the reader in the Foreword that they were stories and not memoirs.
Even so, I approached them with some caution, not being a huge fan of historical fiction that tended to boast more names, dates, and places than my mind had room for. What I look for ultimately is an engaging story.
When the first story, ‘No Advantages’ traced her ancestors from Scotland, alarm bells that this was goin More...
Even so, I approached them with some caution, not being a huge fan of historical fiction that tended to boast more names, dates, and places than my mind had room for. What I look for ultimately is an engaging story.
When the first story, ‘No Advantages’ traced her ancestors from Scotland, alarm bells that this was goin More...
Mar 26, 2011
Alberto
rated it:
Alice Munro nos comparte sus ancestros y a su misma persona que protagonizan esta serie de historias que mezcla la investigación familiar con la encantadora forma femenina de escribir que tiene esta gran mujer. Tiene un técnica admirable pero a la vez no es compleja la narrativa.
La Vista Desde Castle Rock, es un conjunto de historia evocativas y ricas de datos y experiencias, que podrían incluso manejarse de manera independiente, pero que en conjunto dan la historia con el panorama comple More...
La Vista Desde Castle Rock, es un conjunto de historia evocativas y ricas de datos y experiencias, que podrían incluso manejarse de manera independiente, pero que en conjunto dan la historia con el panorama comple More...
Jun 02, 2010
MsLarkin
rated it:
My first semi-voluntary experience with Munro. Voluntary, since I checked it out of the library under no visible duress. Semi, since there were only two audiobooks that were not written by Nora Roberts or James Patterson (the other I had already read).
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with the first half. She seemed to be trying to force the story, weaving lives out of a sense of duty to her family history. The second half, her own life, was much richer.
Her obser More...
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with the first half. She seemed to be trying to force the story, weaving lives out of a sense of duty to her family history. The second half, her own life, was much richer.
Her obser More...
Jan 12, 2011
Carly
rated it:
I'm gobsmacked! Alice Munro has always been my favourite Canadian author; but this book tops everything.
It's different than her others, in that the stories deal with people from her own ancestry. Every page is a delight.
I'm doing chapter by chapter summaries here . . .
http://wildcity.proboards.com/index.cgi?...
I'm still working on the first story though. Click in often to see my progress.
.............
September 2k10 - I've lo More...
It's different than her others, in that the stories deal with people from her own ancestry. Every page is a delight.
I'm doing chapter by chapter summaries here . . .
http://wildcity.proboards.com/index.cgi?...
I'm still working on the first story though. Click in often to see my progress.
.............
September 2k10 - I've lo More...
Aug 20, 2010
Elizabeth (Alaska)
rated it:
The author has spent some time researching her family history, and what she learned was the basis for this interesting collection of stories. The first story is of her ancestor in Scotland, and this story is followed by an early crossing of the Atlantic from Scotland to Canada. I have learned a branch of my own family followed emigrated from Scotland to Canada at nearly the same period in history. The first section continues with a couple of stories of the settling of Ontario, all stories that m
More...
5 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Apr 04, 2011
Ben
rated it:
My first experience with Alice Munro was with "The View from Castle Rock" in excerpted form in The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories. Even shortened, something about the ocean journey of this immigrant family intrigued me. On the surface, the story is rather bland. A Scottish family is making the crossing to Canada. The characters, however, are engrossing. Their relationships are unromantic. The father once inspired his son with talk of going to America, and now that they ar
More...
Oct 21, 2009
Ginna
rated it:
Sometimes I find myself telling the story of what is happening in my life to myself in such a way that it would make narrative sense. Or I imagine the way my grandmother must have felt as she saw my grandfather and his two friends walk up the path on the day she first met him on a triple blind date with her sister and cousin. Alice Munro's collection The View from Castle Rock reminds me of this tendency in myself, which makes me feel kind of like a real writer... I particularly enjoyed the stori
More...
