Vintage Munro

by Alice Munro

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the greatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions.

“In Munro’s hands, as in Chekhov’s, a short story is more than big enough to hold the world—and to astonish us again and again.” — Chicago Tribune

In an unbroken procession of brilliant, revelatory short stories, Alice Munro has unfolded the wordless secrets that lie at the heart of all human experience. She has won three Governor General’s Literary Awards in her native Canada, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Vintage Munro includes stories from throughout her The title stories from her collections The Moons of Jupiter ; The Progress of Love ; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage ; “Differently,” from Selected Stories , and “Carried Away,” from Open Secrets .

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Book Club, Female Authors, Contemporary, Nobel Prize

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2004

About the author

Collections of short stories of noted Canadian writer Alice Munro of life in rural Ontario include Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) and Moons of Jupiter (1982); for these and vivid novels, she won the Nobel Prize of 2013 for literature.

People widely consider her premier fiction of the world. Munro thrice received governor general's award. She focuses on human relationships through the lens of daily life. People thus refer to this "the Canadian Chekhov."

(Arabic: أليس مونرو)
(Persian: آلیس مانرو)
(Russian Cyrillic: Элис Манро)
(Ukrainian Cyrillic: Еліс Манро)
(Bulgarian Cyrillic: Алис Мънро)
(Slovak: Alice Munroová)
(Serbian: Alis Manro)

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro is a shining example of why I absolutely love short stories. This collection is comprised of six critically-acclaimed stories including "The Moons of Jupiter," "Differently," and "Carried Away." Munro's keen perception and ability to write about the human experience is undeniable. Her prose is simple and the stories are quiet and reflective, alternating between past and present and spanning decades and focusing intently on relationships. Be forewarned that illness and death are recurring themes.

In the Presentation Speech for the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, Professor Peter Englund states that "Alice Munro is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred." This is exactly how I felt after reading these works, completely immersed in another world. My favorite and the most challenging story was "Carried Away." I'd appreciate any interpretations on this story's ambiguous ending.

[Lesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

My short stories month continues with another author I’ve never read before, Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, often cited as the greatest short story write of our time. I heard it said recently that a short story collection should be greater than the sum of its parts, and I concur. ‘Vintage Munro’ is a greatest hits collection rather than a proper studio album, so to speak, so it was never going to pass the sum of its parts test, but I thought it would be a good place to start given Ms Munro’s vast back catalogue.

Frankly, my dear, I was underwhelmed.

I’m ok with uneventful stories about unexceptional people - I enjoy Anne Tyler and Anita Brookner and middlebrow-domestic - but I didn’t get anything at all off Alice Munro. Too family-centred. Too much extraneous detail and extraneous characters, too much backstory, too much physical description, humdrum dialogue, humdrum prose, no dynamic. Just flat.

A story about a librarian - ‘Carried away’ - kindled a little spark of interest, although for this former librarian that was inevitable. The connected-episodes-in-history structure worked well, but the spark had dwindled and died by the end. I feel like a philistine saying this and I’m clearly missing something here, but I was b o r e d.

[/Fitbrah/ · Rating 1 out of 5]

GET TO THE POINT, WOMAN!

[Billy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally unpacked this and finished it. All I want from short stories are reflective, lyrical and inventive language, characters I care about and a sense that the author-god behind it is intuitive about her characters' inner lives. Alice Munro is the Karl Malone of short story writers: she delivers.

That is the cheesiest sports analogy I've ever attempted.

[Monica Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Munro's lovely descriptions of ordinary things, like trying on clothes: "The fit was all right--the skirt shorter than what she was used to, but then what she was used to was not the style. There was no problem with the suit. The problem was with what stuck out of it. Her neck and her face and her hair and her big hands and thick legs" (from "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage").

Her works are like puzzles. They end ambiguously, and you find yourself turning to the beginning to figure out how the title applies to the story. I went a little crazy after reading "Carried Away" when a character appears in the story 30 years after he was decapitated. How did that happen? What did that mean? I turned to Google to discover the symbolism. Munro is a thinker like that.

"If you read a lot of Alice Munro's works carefully, sooner or later, in one of her short stories, you will come face to face with yourself," said Professor Peter Englund in the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. "This is an encounter that always leaves you shaken and often changed, but never crushed."

I found that line in "Differently," a story of a woman who finds a lover, then finds herself: "Trouble began, perhaps, as soon as they said that they loved each other."

Like a short story writer who earns Noble Prizes, Munro writes of small things and big things: health care decisions and death, letters and love, errands and endings. She is worth picking up.

[Sanjay Varma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Several friends and acquaintances recommended Alice Munro. So I read her out of curiosity, to learn why these stories had won such fervent support.

I think that Munro writes about daughter-protagonists who are not entirely comfortable being adults, and whose parents have grown old. The tension in these stories arises from the question, is anyone in charge? The parents are not in charge because they lose their authority and competence as they age. One would expect a succession to the younger generation, but the daughter-protagonist is not ready to be in charge. All the characters seem to know that something is wrong, but they are in denial and don’t speak openly about it.

I found the writing style to be extremely abstract and difficult to visualize, especially setting. These people live in houses, and there is a town nearby, but they are indistinct places. The fathers and mothers remind me of Rousseau’s automatons. The daughters’ inner monologues sound like that of a blind person completing a mechanical task in a factory.

[Owen Weitzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Munro comes with a ton of baggage. I have to say it was a weird experience. I think knowing now what we do about her family it colored some stories differently than if I would have read them ignorant. Obviously an expert writer and master of her craft. But I just felt a bit weird reading some of the pieces. Idk.

But for those of you in Victoria, who may or may not now be learning that there is baggage associated with Munro. I want to make sure you know that Munro’s books is still a supportable business. While expensive they have a good relationship with the daughter, and all proceeds from selling Munro’s books goes to SA charities. So there is a little good in the world there.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the news of Alice Munro's death, I realized I had never read any of her work.

This short story collection, issued after she won the Nobel Prize, gave me a short course in her brilliance and artistry.

There are six stories in this collection, but one particularly stuck with me, and I will try to sketch it without needing spoiler alerts.

In Friendship, Hateship, Courtship, Loveship And Marriage, Munro describes the stoical existence of a woman who is caring for the spoiled granddaughter of a small town's only wealthy man. When she receives a letter from the girl's father, complimenting her on her tutoring, she decides to reply.

You learn about this in retrospect, after you see her getting ready to stealthily leave the town by train and take a set of furniture with her to join the man. It appears they kept up their exchange of letters, and she now has reason to believe he may marry her.

But there is a surprise about the letters which I won't reveal. The true artistry of this story, though, is how the woman deals with the shock of truth after she joins the man in her new location, and Munro then quickly sketches out what the characters' lives have become as time moved on.

There is nothing flashy or particularly melodramatic about her stories, and yet they carry a sense of suspense and anticipation with them, and sometimes even surreal moments, all told straightforwardly.

I'm so glad I explored her work and would highly recommend it to anyone else. What gifts good writers bring to us all.

[Octavio Villalpando · Rating 4 out of 5]

A veces el cuento es despreciado un poco como forma literaria. Un cierto sector del mundo de la literatura, pareciera seguir terco en creer que de trata tan solo de un divertimento intrascendental, sin la misma relevancia de una novela, por ejemplo. Sin embargo, a lo largo de la historia, excelentes cuentistas han dado muestras de que esto no es más que una falacia, nombres como el de Kafka, Poe, Chejov o Quiroga dan buena muestra de esto. Ante esto, lo único que podemos afirmar es que el cuento no es para todo el mundo, y que no todos los escritores están listos para él.

Alice Munro es con certeza, una cuentista de un nivel excelente. Su dominio de la técnica les confiere una cadencia que hace que desde el inicio seas capaz de adaptarte a cualquiera que sea la historia que te esta contando. Y hablando del contenido de las mismas, encontramos un excelente reflejo de la condición humana, en particular de la mujer. No se puede decir que sus relatos sean feministas, pero son acerca de mujeres, de todas las condiciones posibles, y en ellos se nos revela un mundo cargada de infinitas posibilidades y matices, así como anhelos y frustraciones, como en la vida misma.

Esta pequeña selección da una buena idea del trabajo general de Munro, y es un gran ejemplo de lo que un buen cuentista puede hacer. Además de el fondo de las historias que nos presenta, la forma en que lo hace es muy relevante y muy merecedora de ser estudiada por si misma. Es una muetra de un talento que a veces evoca a los grandes cuentistas rusos, como el ya mencionado Chejov, claro, adaptado a las condiciones y realidad de Munro.

[David Sweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a Greatest Hits volume of Munro's stories and as such there aren't really too many flat spots. The second volume of Greatest Hits has just been released. Most of the stories are in rural Ottawa and the prose is sparse. I will be going back for more as there are some recurring characters that you need to find out more about. Be warned that there are three stories regarding suicide, so one suspects that has popped up in Munro's own life. The stories are gentle and at times there appears to be nothing much happening but then all of a sudden one sentence or paragraph changes everything. Loved it!

[Cate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm often happiest sitting at the feet of a master, while arrogant wannabes can bring out the worst in me.

What a gift to find these priceless works of art on display in a soft, cozy paperback.

I want to soak in their seasonings until my own stories reek with their aroma.

[Farhan Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the screen a bright jagged line was continually being written

Why would I want to get myself operated on?

Think of the risk at my age, and what for?

I think the best thing for me to do is go home and take it easy

I wished I’d had a boy and a girl. Or two boys

They couldn’t possibly know so much about you

I did the same thing at that age

We talked about our parents, our childhoods

About their mistaken ambitions

Those years you were growing up are all just a kind of a blur

I remembered each separate year with pain and clarity

I wanted to see somebody who wasn’t related to me, and who didn’t expect anything from me

I was always afraid to take chances

A wasted life

If there’s anything you can’t explain, there’s a great temptation to make a mystery out of it

To believe in Soul

-

Every day opened up to her to have God’s will done in it

My father was not much religious

Serious people — that’s how I would try to describe them

One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolor everything

God isn’t interested in what kind of job or what kind of education anybody has

She was always scared of a silent house

I always had a feeling, with my mother’s talk and stories, of something swelling out behind

Like a cloud you couldn’t see through, or get to the end of

There was a cloud, a poison, that had touched my mother’s life

And when I grieved my mother, I became part of it

I felt as if something could stop now — the stories, and griefs, the old puzzles you can’t resist or solve

She was a hard woman to live with

Why shouldn’t Beryl’s version of the same event be different from my mother’s?

My mother’s version absorbed Beryl’s story

You burned up money in the stove?

You burned their chances. You burned up everything the money could have got for them

I haven’t stopped believing it. But I have stopped telling that story

Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having

Old marriages — where love and grudges could be growing underground

-

Too many things. Too many things going on at the same time, also too many people

What do you want us to pay attention to?

She imagined that garden

Maya — vulnerable, gifted and brittle

Hilda had kept track

Rich girls were spoiled and brainless

They were not exactly lonely people, but they were lonely for somebody to talk to about books

She did not need to read much of a book to know about it

She got a sense of it easily, almost at once, as if by smell

She thought of being launched out on a gray, deep, baleful, magnificent sea. Love

She punished Maya. She punished Miles

She broke with Ben

We never believe we are going to die

We should behave differently

She walks back to town through the yellow-leafed streets with their autumn smells and silences

She doesn’t think about Raymond

-

My favorite authors are Thomas Hardy, who is accused of being gloomy but I think is very true to life

Every day she was sure he would come, every day she was prepared for him

He had been in the same room with her, watched her, and taken his chance

But never made himself known

He got a little carried away

In his dreams of an accident there was a spreading silence, everything was shut down

Every machine in the place stopped making its customary noise and every man’s voice was removed, and when Arthur looked out of the office window he understood that doom had fallen

The idea that the man who had died in such a way had been the last person to open these books, turn these pages

The thought that he might have left a bit of his life in them, a scrap of paper or a pipe cleaner as a marker

It’s natural to want to know the worst

A machine is your servant and it is an excellent servant, but it makes an imbecile master

Ask and ye shall receive

You can’t have a death without a doctor. That set the rest in motion. Doctor, undertaker, coffin, flowers, preacher

I should not have asked you. I should not have mentioned it

I can never explain to you why I did. I would like just to ask you, if you can help it

A mystery that would never be solved

What kind of secrets she could have?

I always meant to break the ice. I meant to speak to you. I should have gone in and said good-bye at least

Love dies all the time, or at any rate it becomes distracted

She believed in the swift decision, the unforeseen intervention, the uniqueness of her fate

-

If you want the quality, you have to pay the price

This was the smell of treachery

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of short stories. Munro is a student of persons - not just human nature. She is interested in the local, the individual, the particular. And so these stories are about us, in all of our interior complexity, even while our lives are quaint and quiet. Her characters are normal and ordinary - and curiously inaccessible.To be human is to be mysterious - even to ourselves. Munro's short stories are gentle reminders of the dignity and difficulty of being human. In her fiction, we're reminded that "All souls count" (193).

[Callista · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I have an experience with a physical book that sticks with me. Like The Pickup--I bought it on a bright winter morning at BTN in Williamsburg, drafty store, cold feet, being drawn to the title and her name on the spine. I was very moved by that novel and read it as if in a kind of trance while on vacation. Maybe because I enjoyed it so much, that memory of choosing it takes on new meaning.

It was similar with this collection, though not the same. Living on Bergen Street in June. There was a Sunday afternoon where I walked to the park and for the first time in memory, it felt, had this real feeling of escape from the city. Big fields of grass, gentle movement of leaves, dogs cooling off in water. On the way back I went to Troubled Sleep and saw this on the shelf. I started it on my commutes, then paused and finished the collection traveling in Madrid. Mostly I read in the quiet hours of the afternoon when everyone else was asleep. The reading was not dreamlike as it had been with The Pickup. Rather, there was that particular kind of pleasure that comes with great stories of ordinary life, of characters who remind you somehow--however distantly--of people you have already encountered in life. An excellent sample of Munro and great place to start if you're interested in her work.

[Maureen Neville · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago some of my co-workers were reading a book of Alice Munro's short stories entitled "The Moons of Jupiter." I didn't join them however I always kept this author in the back of my mind as someone to read (I normally don't read short stories and prefer novels).
This past summer (2013) I decided to try some short stories and looked for Ms. Munro's books in a local public library. I decided to try this "vintage" collection as it features stories from a number of her books of short stories.
I wasn't disappointed at all and now I see why Ms. Munro is considered such a compelling writer. Her stories resonate as they are often about regular people and everyday dilemmas yet examined from a very human and fallible viewpoint. You, the reader, learn to love the characters who move through life trying their best and yet are full of flaws as we all are. There are other characters whose flaws you, the reader, recoil from. Ms. Munro seems to depict her characters and the human condition with a wise and discerning eye.

[Katya Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vintage series of books is great. Whomever made the selections of writings of contemporary authors did a fine job. The short stories in this book show why Munro won the Nobel Prize. Her power of description is second to none. Her characters may as well be in the room with you. There's a lot of small town Canada in here. The central characters are often revisiting the past through the present, when someone or thing catches their eye. I love the way Munro walks us seamlessly through time, often to explore the interplay of relationships between several generations of any given family. What time has done to them. What time has given them. The characters often have a delicate understanding of their own lives, it seems. Confronted with the opinions and memories of their relatives, trying to hold on to the dialectic without shutting down or falling apart. Like no other, Munro is able to draw the reader into the art of investigating her characters' lives, and feel the pain of separate truths.

[Inna Zaichenko]

Unfortunately, this collection of short stories was the case of expectations killing joy. I would normally wait for a Nobel prize winner to grab all of my attention, make me crave for every word to follow and let me enjoy every twist and turn with awe. Alice Munro’s stories are well-fetched, offer a deep investigation of characters’ psychology, impress with a careful choice of wordings. Yet the stories are too refined, careful, and restricted. They seem to be written by a straight A student trying to please the teacher. Moreover, I had extreme difficulties feeling the writer herself. It’s as if the stories are written absently – with no traces of writer’s involvement. The only trace that gives away Alice Munro’s touch is her impeccable style.

Surely, the stories are worth reading. Especially when you feel thoughtful and philosophical. Yet I would suggest that you don’t expect anything – especially that you would get impressions similar to mine :)

[Hornthesecond · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was slightly disappointed by these stories, given the massive reputation of the author. That is likely just a matter of taste though - and probably I have very lowbrow taste in short stories. I found the stories mostly had quite an old-fashioned and melancholy atmosphere to them, and in some of them I felt that very little actually happens. You could say that a lot of what happens in these short stories is more on an emotional level. I was glad I read through to the end though, as I rather enjoyed the last story, which felt to me like it had much more of a plot to it. Most of the stories, at some stage, did make me feel some emotion or make me think, and I will perhaps try Munro again another time when I'm feeling more contemplative.

[Kevin McAllister · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vintage Munro is a collection of some of Alice Munro's finest short stories put together in recognition of her winning The 2013 Noble Prize for Literature.The actual presentation speech itself was also included. In that speech the presenter praised Munro's minimalist style, stating that she "is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred." Personally, this minimalist style left we wanting more, and I felt these stories could have easily, dare I even say , should have been; stretched out for a more fulfilling reading experience.

[Davida Chazan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Munro made history when she won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and became the first author of short stories to receive this prestigious award. After reading this collection, while I cannot fault the Swedish Academy for their choice, I can't say this collection should be your introduction to her work. Find out why in my review here https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2016/01/0...

[Joanne Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

She's a remarkable writer who captures depths of the human psyche in a few well-chosen, and sometimes surprising, words. "The Promise of Love" blew me away! I did not find all her stories equally worthwhile, but that is probably to be expected.

[Jk · Rating 4 out of 5]

1) The Moons of Jupiter - 3 stars
2) The Progress of Love - 4 stars
3) Differently - 4 stars
4) Carried Away - 5 stars
5) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - 5 stars

[Joshua Van Dereck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vintage Munro is quite simply a beautiful book.

I came across Alice Munro some years ago in a volume of Best American Short Stories and flagged her work for further exploration, enchanted by the clarity, intimacy and tenderness of her character portrayals. Since then, having explored an odd story now and again, I had arrived at the general impression of a flawed writer—one who approaches greatness but often falls just short, with a long string of also-rans. The stories I had read had wonderful moments, but somehow just slightly missed the mark, not entirely holding together and making their points with the clarity I had wished for. I am extremely pleased and indeed humbled to say that this is not the case in this volume.

Vintage Munro is not all perfection, in my opinion. Of the six stories contained in this volume, I feel that two of them fit my previous impression of a writer whose work doesn't quite attain the heights it ambitiously attempts to scale. The other four, however, are majestic and transporting. This is far better odds than I am used to in short story collections, where one is often tickled and pleased to come face to face with even one or two gems. Here, we have four rich, magnificent tales, and two that are thought-provoking and engrossing but somewhat flawed. Nevertheless, in sum, this is a fantastic effort, a book I would not hesitate to broadly recommend.

What is the nature of these tales then? The brief Novel Prize award speech included at the end sums up the work quite well. Vintage Munro is a series of snapshots of ordinary people engrossed in the rigors, challenges, and difficulties of everyday life. They are Canadians, like the author, women all, often undermined in various ways by their own lives or those of their immediate family or lovers or fantasies. The lines between their imaginations and their lives are often blurred by longing or confusion, yet, in their very ordinary, reasonable ways, Munro's characters struggle and strive to find peace, happiness, or clarity. They are immensely human stories, and it is the sheer, brutal sensitivity of the writing that makes them universal, provocative, and deeply, ensnaringly through-provoking.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Into the hearts and minds of quiet ordinary people! Superb. The entire collection on a whole was 4.5 stars. The last short story about the old woman with dementia in a nursing home was a bit less.

But overall- these were minutia peels of an onion into the cognitions, crux nuance and fleeting mood spell cores. Very hard to do. And the letter writing techniques? What could she have done now with email and ghosting?

My copy had the Nobel Prize ceremony speech printed at the ending. Short and PERFECT. Lauding her terrific skill at parsing the mundane and regular.

She could expand the particle to a wideness that more often only visuals or auditory can convey. Not mere words. But this is absolutely not a style or of subject matter for all modern readers today. Possibly not even half, IMHO. This Munro story prime is definition human as life WAS and perceived in rural stance/ era. Not at all what is called the "action" or plotting now. So the ADHD pacing style, active packed with immense overkill, or other forms of the 7 deadly sins on every 3rd page readers might (and do here) interpret this as boring and hodgepodge serendipity type runaround. While I rather often don't much like her primarily self-centered women (not all but most) to be truthful, I still become entrenched within their onus of thoughts. Nearly always. So I do understand the praise of her short story ability. Because it is rare.

I especially liked the story with the girl with the melodramatic mother who staged her own hanging scene. Different points of view, for sure.

All of her adults in her stories are FAR, FAR more like the parents (all around my crowded block) of my own childhood in the 1950's and before than nearly ANY of the parent styles you see now. This was a time when parents owned priority, kids not the top of the hierarchy. EVER and most especially in priority adult scheduling. The reader also gets to know about rural pieces of Canada too of earlier eras and FEEL the pace. And it seemed little different from some isolated and totally rural parts of MI. That I knew. Even now in the next century.

[Griselda Puspa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice Mundro is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2013. “She is a virtuoso of the elliptical... the master of the contemporary short story...” (From the Presentation Speech, Nobel Prize in Literature 2013). Vintage Munro has 209 pages divided into 6 short stories including The Moons of Jupiter; The Progress of Love; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; Differently; Carried Away; In Sight of the Lake. The book is published by Vintage International with themes centered at human relationship.

Major emotional responses:
The most memorable story is Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage as it builds the story slowly and unfolds the interconnectivity between events and characters.

Confusing parts:
Despite the revelation about the relationship between father and daughter, I still don't quite understand the meaning of “the moons of jupiter” in the first novel.

Things I wish in the book:
Vintage Munro is a great book compared to Munro's other books.

The overall experience:
Munro has the ability to bring storytelling beyond telling stories. She intricately design the plot to be flowing, realistic, never redundant, with drama related to the storyline. Compared to other Modern Literature, such as Kazuo Ishiguro's “Nocturne”, Munro writes with more compassion and feminine perspective.

Readers Recommended:
Those with interests in human life, literature, and novella should read Vintage Munro.

Biggest Takeaway:
Through her writings, Munro reminds us the importance of life. She encourages us to introspectively look into our decisions, our actions, and our relationships with surroundings.

[Patricia Vaccarino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alice Munro’s technique as a writer is clean, crisp, and plain spoken. No unnecessary frills dot her stodgy landscape, where the characters are ready to retire before they have reached their prime. The characters who inhabit her stories are stilted, a little off and a little nasty. In the story “Differently,” Georgia laments, “Maya and Georgia had never thought of Hilda as a woman like themselves. And Hilda and Maya had not been close—they had no reason to be. But Hilda had kept track; she knew of Maya’s death, she wrote these generous words.” The words Hilda had written were not generous; they were, in fact, mean spirited. And in the story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage,” the young girls pen love fake letters between the unwitting Johanna Parry and her love interest Ken Boudreau. If the girls were acting out of meanness, matters not. Their letter writing campaign backfires when, unbeknownst to them, the couple does end up getting married. There is no mystery as to why Munro is deemed to be a fine writer. Her work is similar to a ballerina whose technique is superb; she can execute every step with exceptional precision, and make it appear effortless when she whips out 32 fouetté turns. Sadly, though, something is missing. The ballerina, like Alice Munro, is unable to give her characters emotional depth or a soul. The work of Alice Munro resonates best with readers who want to be held at arm’s length; they want to be kept at a distance because forming an emotional connection to the characters would conjure too many messy feelings—and that can be too much for some people.

[Eric Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a collection of Munro stories after she won the Nobel that I found to be rather slow, but this collection of her better-known stories was...still somewhat slow, but mesmerizing at the same time. She creates wonderful little worlds in her stories and keeps you contained inside them. Her characters are layered and "defamiliarized" - a term I picked up from a Charles Baxter essay - in that they achieve dissonance through time, revelation, and juxtaposition, arriving at messy truths so accurately reflective of human nature itself. She is a magician with time - balancing various storylines and settings through flashback but never losing sight of her present narrative. I also really enjoyed Munro's knack for surprise. I would have a sense of where the story was headed only for it to move in a completely different direction. This is another aspect of defamiliarization. A story cannot give itself away too early. Her greatest strength as a short prose writer is her ability to write quiet domestic drama that contains such suspense because of our investment in her characters' conflicts and fates. Of the stories in the collection, "The Progress of Love," "Carried Away," and "Differently" were my personal favorites, those most affecting.

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Alice Munro until I stumbled upon a used copy of this collection in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood. What a welcome discovery!

My thoughts can be best summarized through the words of one of my high school English teachers. He said literature operates around 4 themes: life, death, love, and beauty. Munro's stories — each centering on adult women — get close and comfortable with these topics, seamlessly situating them in early- to mid-20th-century Canada.

There are terse familial relationships, second-chance romances (or decades-long pining), war and its effect on more than just the soldiers, what the world expects of women, what women expect of women, and much more.

This short collection says a lot. The writing is pleasant, but what I most love is its connection to place. The many small towns at the center of these stories feel real, like a mirror into Munro's own life, and taught me a little more about Canada lol. A good book to read to refresh your reader's palette.

[Jack Lyell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really want to enjoy Munro. Her writing style is impressive in the way marble architecture is-- the artistry is unmistakable, even though to imagine lying on its cold floors is less appealing than to sit in one's own house. This is a somewhat oxymoronic take, as Munro's style is close to the chest, taking in human moments in a way that has been compared to Faulkner... the domestic, the rural, the particulars of life really shine through here. But I make the prior comment because while I madly respect this volume, I don't think I'm ready for Munro yet. Or maybe I just have fickle grounds to see her on. I looked over the lot of this with a feeling of profound reverence mixed in with the feeling that I should be taking notes.

Except for Differently, which fucks. Everyone should read Differently and then go like, make their own garden world and commit an affair on motorcycle back. Don't actually do that.

[Simón · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't remember what I thought of Munro so I picked this up. Feels dated in terms of a careful, economic kind of style as well as focusing on people who were in generations of repression and emotional distance where there is a lot unsaid. My favorite story is the one where the wild aunt visits and reveals unexpected painful truths about a childhood incident of trauma. The main storyline isn't very dramatic. All the drama takes place in recollection or in contrast with the present. Incredible titles. Also enjoyed the convoluted plot about the furniture. A little puzzle where a fib turns real and the real people turn out to be empty. I'm picking up on themes of misunderstanding and distance. But then the distances collapse intensely and perfectly like Miranda July and then open up again.