What's so great about Alice Munro?

Almost any of her story collections should give you an idea of what she's capable of. She's never obvious even when her subject matter is well-worn. She's innovative within the genre of traditional fiction. She's extremely inventive when it comes to constructing her stories. The fact that she's been doing it for so long and still maintains such a high level of craft is what boggles people's minds. You could easily teach a fiction-writing course based on any one story from a dozen different collections of hers. Her stories aren't "easy" even if on the surface they appear to be.
But really, her gift is to provide great stories for people who like great stories and great writing on every level for people who love that. (and if you love both then you should be able to find something to like about her.)

I would say: pick up the Hateship, Loveship..collection. Read the first story. If you don't like that one then she isn't for you.

What can I say, she just impresses the hell out of me. And I came to her late. Only in the last couple years. I never used to read her stories in the New Yorker.

add Flannery O'connor(Munro is much influenced by her),Carver,Cortazar,Borges,Kafka, abd Balzac to that list.

the one canadian short story writer that i find comparable or even superior is sharon butala.

Actually, I pretty much would, though Carver and Cortazar would be a little lower than the others. I went for my first three mainly becuase of the sheer size of their output, as well as its quality.

she's my favorite writer i've discovered over the last two or three years. she is unbelievably great. my only complaint (in the middle of a story) is she has these *moments*. but then she does amazing things with the moments. but then i wonder, are moments really like that?

but then i think she knows this, and she uses these moments to illuminate everything.

<3 <3 <3

cosign 1000%

i've been getting really into her work the last 6 months, and 'open secrets' is the greatest short story collection i've ever read. scott totally otm: she's so elegant, and there's not a wasted word, and such a natural flow to her prose. i like that a lot of her stories have these sinister undertones.

The short story writer I've most imitated, ever since I read "The Albanian Virgin" fifteen years ago. I've taught "Royal Beatings," "Floating Bridge," and "The Turkey Farm" quite a bit. The seemingly artless manner in which incidents accumulate, illuminated by the perceptions of an older narrator, always astonishes me.

i wld say pretty much everything

stayed up l8 last nite reading all of &cship, marriage feeling bewildered by something so great. the last story is just ...damn but there were a few others the one that opens the collection and the one with the golf course "nettles" are so n/l i kind of want to talk about them like physical effects like something that happened 2 me

idk maybes its kind of like that franzen review/meltdown theres no way to talk about her stories just u have 2 read them but... idk. my head is filled w/ them

also what should i read next i bought lives of girls and women and open secrets and id already read runaway and dance of the happy shade. recs plz

the only other one i've read is moons of jupiter - i think that's what it's called? anyway it's awesome but yeah i would like some recs too

i wonder, are moments really like that?

The fact that she has you wondering means that, within the universe of the story she is telling, she was able to convince you of their reality. That is part of her storytelling art.

The fact that, after laying down the book, you have lingering doubts about the reality of those moments means to me that she is probably placing an exaggerated throw-weight into those instants, in order to increase their immediate impact on the reader. A writer like Henry James would arrange such moments so that their impact grew in retrospect.

This is a rather small weakness in my opinion, but it is a gauge as well.

no one ever tells me anything so i went to the bookstore and bought a bunch of her books all at once gathered up the slim gray volumes and read through them v. quickly all wknd @ the beach

*spoiler*

at the end of lives of girls women which has the best title when the girl sleeps with the dude from the lumberyard and fails her exams daydreaming of sweat and pleasure i felt kind of angry with her like she was such a fool but i *think* i wasnt supposed to or at least i should i *get* what she was doing what was really impt &c

still i felt sad and irked by her

the collection with "Save The Reaper!" (published in '98) is marvelous.

To be honest I can't really recommend any one in particular--every one of her books (haven't yet read the most recent) struck me as being pretty bloody excellent.

Open Secrets is a good starting place. Or Hateship, Friendship...

but, yeah, just dive in.

though maybe don't start with The View From Castle Rock just cuz it's a little different. combining historical autobio stuff with fictional stuff.

(i mention those two books - Open Secrets and Hateship...just cuz i feel like they contain one knockout punch after another.)

yeah hateship is all killer no filler although still MAYBE not as a good as runaway

moons of jupiter has a couple of really fantastic ones too... "hard luck stories" is like a vision or a song or something idk

The thing I think is really startling about her is her descriptions which are eerily precise and cliché-free.

yah she really "captures it," as they say

new book out later this year!!

i luv munroe

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6hDZt1e0ofY/SYx69iz66mI/AAAAAAAADT0/dPnDpZBnOxI/s320/jim-j-bullock.jpg

the penguin classics covers are amazing:

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/41V377QRHBL._SL500_AA240_.jpg
http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51hlVD4wUzL._SL500_AA240_.jpg
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http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/4141QK017FL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Stock photos of self-conscious women. Fitting?

the ones with faces seem out of place.

idk i think theyre waaaay nice than stock photos are mb i just like the stock photo aesthetic

the girl in "there's something..." is mesmerizing to me

The new collection is her best since Hateship...

there's only been one other btw them (?) which is my absolute favorite of hers. although there's something i've been menaing to tell you has the story about the dude that tries to walk on water.

Yeah, they're lovely. I thought they were Hoppers for a minute

I believe they're not stock, but were taken especially for the books.

Alice Munro is like the female northern version of William Faulkner.

o_0

there's only been one other btw them (?)

Runaway
The View From Castle Rock

Oh they're def not stock

woo a copy of 'hateship, friendship' showed up at work today, i can read this person now

you will love it (maybe)

hateship is a good place to start, it's pretty much amazing

Yup.

i really like those penguin classics covers, why do they not have them over here

picked up 'open secrets' & 'the love of a good woman', half way thru the latter now. kinda wonder what im going to do when i run out of her books, i always love knowing that theres more of them to read

I know! I've only got Castle Rock left unread, and I'm trying to hold off on that until she gets a new one out, so that I won't be without something to live for.

i just looked on wikipedia + ive got 6 more to go which is a relief

hahaha this was exactly my thinking, but then i got greedy and read the last 3 in recent months ;_;

the last collection seemed to imply this was the case, maybe, a little

but, yeah, i mean, good on her, i think?

I'm all in favour of people quitting while they're ahead--see E M Forster--I just want more good stuff because I'm greedy

Good for her. I've got enough Munro to reread the rest of my life.

not why forster quit iirc

only just saw this! sad news

Great profile in today's NY Times. Amazing that she published her first stories at age 37, in 1968.

Yep. She gives me hope. Prodigies are rare.

Nobel Prize!

WOOOOWWWWW

https://twitter.com/Nobelprize_org/status/388258838744297472

fuck yeah

this news makes me v happy

she deserves it!

Hurrah!

Congratulations to Ms. Munro. Many excellent writers do not get the prize because the selection committee tends to shun controversy, but she is at least as deserving as the winners of the past.

<3 you baby if you're reading this lol xxx

heyyyyy way to go, alice, great work!!

i'm really pleased about this.

yeah this rules

nice little retirement present. beats a gold watch.

i think i'll let myself read a new story of hers to celebrate, i've been hoarding a pile of unread ones like silas marner but without the gloom.

wow cool that THE AMAZING RANDY writes for the onion now

http://www.theonion.com/articles/thunk-u-for-nobbel-prise-me-happie-now,34171/

nobel prizes for algernon.

haha yes i've had the newest book for awhile now and am putting off reading it, since it's probably the last one!

ex boyfriend just said her work was "overrated." How much do I pay bounty hunters?

Tell me one great Munro short story to read. I've never gotten through one.

"Floating Bridge"

Meanwhile, in Norway,
I've heard a buncha people complain about how the Nobel "once again" picked someone "no one has heard of." Wtf.
Quite a few of her books have been Norwegianed, for what it's worth.

Uh, I love "Englished" but "Norwegianed" was a lousy idea.

James Wood: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/alice-munro-our-chekhov.html

i've been wondering recently why munro seems so underexposed despite being so beloved. like, is it just that she writes in a relatively unpopular form (the short story)? how much does it have to do w/ her being a woman? or canadian i guess? (or am i just mistaken about her popularity?)

"or am i just mistaken about her popularity?"

this

maybe i need a more literary friend group

she definitely has fans in the u.s. (among literary types who have been reading her in the new yorker for years and her trade paperbacks are fairly ubiquitous and she always gets gushing reviews in newspapers so anyone who buys lit books based on those reviews has to know about her) and canada, but i don't know about elsewhere. my opinion is skewed though cuz i have lived in philly, marthas vineyard, and western mass for decades now and those places are filled with brainiacs who read a ton. but her rave newspaper reviews are nation-wide. i would say "college-educated New Yorker Magazine reader" would seem to be her target audience here BUT i think there is also book club crossover with her and i kinda can't believe Oprah never raved about her but maybe she did and i missed it.

also, yeah, short story collections one notch above new volumes of poetry as far as sales go probably. with some exceptions.

she is listed on oprah mag's fave women writers list:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Favorite-Women-Writers/3

and she gets reviewed by francine prose in O mag:

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Too-Much-Happiness-by-Alice-Munro-Book-Review

she is way too subtle for an oprah bookclub choice

As much as anything, I became more aware of her as each Best American Short Stories annual, from the late 80s through the 90s, featured one and sometimes two of her stories, without a break in the run.

Would it shock y'all to know that Bret Easton Ellis thinks she's overrated?

http://i39.tinypic.com/ff48q0.png

http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/show/2013/10/18/ill-health-keeps-canadian-author-alice-munro-nobel-ceremony

"Short story writer Munro, 82, revealed in 2009 that she had undergone coronary bypass surgery and had had cancer treatment."

http://25.media.tumblr.com/aa3ee53eb18c9323f19043a1b81aab70/tumblr_mutvbot7CZ1qb4dbmo1_500.jpg

some of her stories so many of them really are like a long swim in the ocean you come out of them feeling refreshed & born anew

― polymath & psychics club (Lamp),

otm. I had a similar response reading the late story "Fiction" in one sitting this morning. Wow. She has a talent for drawing circles around circles, and when I'm afraid she's spinning away from the center she pulls the circles together and tight.

yeah maybe it was on this board where someone described her stories as kind of starting in the middle and then expanding outward like tree rings

the retail person in me wants to know more about alice in her bookstore days.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXU1priUUAA3wHj?format=jpg

my eyes are terrible. i see james joyce.

https://shortstorymagictricks.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/munro-alice-1965.jpg

i like the peek at her shelf. i feel like i'm spying.

i didn't even see that she had died! well, i'll be reading her for as long as i live. don't know if there is more that i can say. i used to say she was my favorite living writer. now i don't know what to say! she lived long. she wrote good.

Just reread “Family Furnishings”. Not much happens. Everything happens. A genius.