Dear life: Alice Munro says so much without saying it!

Posted on February 26, 2014

When I read the first story from Dear Life, ‘To reach Japan’ about a poet, who is a mother of a young daughter, I was smitten by the writing style. The author says so many things without saying them at all. Just to give an example, not once does she mention of an unexciting, creativity-locked -out marriage of Greta to her engineer husband; though we sense it between the lines as we read along.
Most of the stories in the book are about women, who are candid narrators of their stories. The small girls appearing in stories seem to be so real that the reader is reminded of her own childhood. I know that the stories can be looked upon as stories by a woman for women; but only stopping there would not do justice to the stories. Sure, it is a book by a woman but I hope men too, find the stories intriguing.
The author is Canadian and her stories are about life in Canada. They also are about a bygone era of the 40s and 50s of the last century. The four stories at the end are autobiographical but to quote the author they are “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact, I believe they are the first and last — and the closest — things I have to say about my own life.” And I enjoyed reading them the most.
The stories are simple and without a plot at times. Sometimes they end abruptly and in the story ‘Train’ the reader is taken back in time unexpectedly. I can imagine those who want the stories to move fast getting frustrated while reading. I at times found myself checking ahead how much of the story was left. This can make some readers not like the book.
I am not a huge fan of short stories because I think they do cover only a small expanse but I thoroughly enjoyed these stories. Talking about large expanse, my pet peeve is that the books of today are getting fatter and fatter and brevity seems to be a lost virtue but then we have authors like Alice Munro who can write a short story that can create a big impact. I’m recommending this book to all!