“Train”

“Train,” by the Nobel Prize winning Canadian writer Alice Munro, to be found in her Dear Life collection, is one of my favorite short stories. I first read it in a “Best American Short Stories” anthology, and then I eventually purchased Dear Life and read it again. What astonished me upon my second reading was how different my memory of the story was from the real thing – “Train” was more expansive, more tragic, and more heartbreaking than I remembered. Munro holds back and holds back, until she finally reveals the cruel heart of the story and then examines it. It’s a work of genius by a true master of the short story, and serves to remind us that there is no need for Munro to write novels when her chosen art is more exquisite, more difficult, and more piercing.

Munro, born in 1931, is 90 years old now. She has never been the kind of writer who prances about in the media, but she is no Elena Ferrante, and there are illuminating interviews with the Nobel laureate to be found out there. She doesn’t speak about her writing a lot, but she does sometimes. She really doesn’t need to – the stories say so much by themselves. But for those of us who are fascinated by her stories, there of course could never be too much said by their author.

I haven’t read all of Munro’s fiction, but I’m working on it. I’m at the point though that instead of reading the books of hers I have not read, I’m planning to reread what I already have. A lot of critics compare her to Chekhov, but they are so, so different – the greatest similarities are their mastery of and their commitment to short fiction. Chekhov, despite his sensitivity, could be coldly ironic. Munro, however, merely stands there, witnessing what you’re witnessing in the story, but for her it’s the millionth time.