I like short stories. That could be my whole review of this collection of short stories by Alice Munro, but I’ll say more. Munro received the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature, and I’m so glad my Nobel literature project gave me the impetus to read her work.
I think what I love about short stories is that they can still be interesting and heartbreaking without having much of a plot. Longer works that aren’t plot-driven can get tedious, but short stories can just concentrate on exploring one moment fully, or developing one character. I also feel like short stories are better at “show, don’t tell” than many novels are. I have a bad memory for literature, so reading is always about the journey rather than the destination for me, and I think short stories lend themselves perfectly to that kind of reading.
The stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage are beautiful and devastating. I think the first and title story stuck with me the most. Two teenagers pull a prank on a woman named Johanna. I felt anxious the entire time I read the story, and I think it wouldn’t have mattered how it ended–that anxiety was there in the middle, whether it worked out well or poorly. I thought the story did an excellent job cultivating that anxiety. By the end, it had become real dread for me. At the end, I felt relieved but not sure why.
The other two stories that stood out to me were “Floating Bridges” and “Comfort.” Both dealt with people facing diseases; one takes place during life and one after death. The second one in particular takes time to let the story grow slowly, gradually revealing the portrait of a man and a marriage.
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