Sometimes, I am reading a book and suddenly just mentally step back and admire the artistry of the author. It is a strange experience—the book has a plot, but I am not really noticing the plot but rather the amazing way the plot has been so deliberately constructed. It’s like watching a play from backstage; you notice how everything is done. I have this experience a lot when reading Wodehouse. And I just had that experience with Alice Munro.
Dear Life is her
last volume of short stories, but it is the first of her work I have ever
read. She won the Nobel prize, and I am
quite happy to report, after reading just one book, I am certain she merited
that award. As noted here before, I have
been reading short stories on a regular basis for the last year or so as a
means of overcoming my prior aversion to the form. Munro knocked the short story form into
another realm. Short stories are, almost
by definition, short. They are
undeveloped relative to a novel. (That
is, as I have figured out his last year, their virtue, not a flaw.) But, Munro writes novels which are the length
of a short story. And it is that
artistry which is stunning to observe.
I’ve never really had this sensation before. The story “Train,” for example, is 42 pages
long, but finishing it, I felt like I just read a complete novel. The characters had depth and the plot was
intricate and the story unfolded seemingly slowly with sudden reversals and revelations. Even now, I am a bit amazed that that story I
just read was under 50 pages long. Then
we have “Corrie” which was an even longer and fuller story than “Train,” but
was actually only 20 pages long. I have
that same wonder at many of the stories in this volume—the stories are longer
than they actually are.
How does she do it? Well,
obviously, there are no wasted words.
Munro has mastered the art of compression, packing things which would take
mere mortals pages to explain or show
into a precisely crafted parenthetical aside.
She is a master at creating the illusion that you have just read whole chapters
of material between two connecting events in the story. After reading a volume like this, I am quite
glad I do not fancy myself a writer of short stories—I would despair of ever
being able to do so much in so few pages.
Another interesting feature of a book like this—it’s silly
to even try to summarize the content of the volume. It would be like trying got write a quick
summary of Faulkner or Dickens. In
Munro, there is a longing for a better life, the illusion that if one just
makes the right choices, all will be well.
But, while I can write that, and while it is true of this book, what it
leaves out makes a mockery of the statement.
Instead, far better to look at, say, “Pride,” which is (in a
mere 21 pages) a brilliant examination of the absurd lengths to which pride
will drive us; we often note that Pride gets in the way of forming genuine
human relationships, but “Pride” (the story) shows that Pride (the Vice) can actually
make life worse for the proud person.
The story feels so natural, and when we see the proud making decisions which
objectively make zero sense at all, it does not come across as a surprise, but
rather as something that obviously a proud person would do. Pride is a tricky thing to manage, in other
words. But why? Why should Pride result in self-destructive
behavior? It does, but there is something
odd about that fact. The way we normally
think about Pride would suggest that the Proud should always be engaging in
behavior which will benefit the Proud; to be filled with Pride seems to mean
that one thinks of oneself as above all the lesser beings and that one who
thought that way would act in a manner in which all actions are designed for
self-benefit. Yet, it is true, as Munro’s
story beautifully illustrates, that the Proud make decisions which will be harmful
and they know they will be harmful, but somehow preserving Pride trumps objective
self-interest. Quite honestly, I have a
hard time understanding this; indeed, before seeing it so manifestly
demonstrated in Munro’s story, I would have had a difficult time even articulating
the problem.
Munro’s novels masquerading as short stories are like that—they
grab a hold of an oddity of human behavior and throw it into marvelous relief by
the act of compressing the story to its essence. As someone who is enamored with the Great
Books, it is nice to read a brilliant contemporary writer. Given the choice between Munro and Chekhov, I’d
now opt for Munro. That is high praise
indeed.
Also high praise: this song and the story “Dolly” are each,
in their own way, marvelous testaments to an enduring love.
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