Dear Life by Alice Munro

Alice Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature and that is how I first heard of her. It is funny, as I think through the books I have read, that I have not really read Canadian authors or stories - though of course these days it is difficult to count what is a Canadian author story.  Yep, there were Shyam Selvadurai's books; and Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes but what I realise, is that I have not read many 'White' Canadian authors .



Alice Munro is not easy. The stories have sharp sweet sentences. Dear Life (Dear as in expensive, precious and probably also dear..) is a collection of fourteen stories . I had this nice vision of Canadians as being hard working mild mannered half English half American people generally, living in a vast cold place.

Alice Munro though, weaves stories about people, mostly women,  people who we might pass on the road and whose lives probably would never end up on television or newspapers except in death announcements.  The stories are complete life stories or are about chance encounters which make life stories interesting.

To Reach Japan is about a random affair (people are always moving in these stories.. ) . Infidelity is a theme in the book. Amundsen is about a love affair in a stark place which ends not unhappily but with apathy. Leaving Maverly - love story which ends up nowhere really. Gravel - childhood loss. Haven - about a woman listening to music to break out of the oppressive marriage.  Pride - about a man and a woman who dance around each other in love but not in love. There is no passion, only utility.
Corrie about love and cheating and being blackmailed.  Train - Jackson jumps on a train and jumps off the train and meets Belle in an old farm house. Belle says about her Mennonite neighbours

"I'm lucky to have them. But then I say to myself, they are lucky too. Because they are supposed to practise charity and here I am, practically on their doorstep and an occassion for charity if you ever saw one"

In sight of the lake - a haunting tale of memory loss and ageing. Dolly - about an old couple who had talked about death and funerals but "It was just the actual dying which had been left out or up to chance"

The Finale of four stories are autobiographical. Poverty and violence.. her father beat her for her 'mouthiness' - repeated several times even though 'that is how it was done then'. So for all people who say that not beating children is a white people thing., it is written here.. as how many of the people in Guyana have to matter of factly deal with parents who beat them..

Alice Munro aint seh nutting bout how she would ah nevah turn Nobel Prize winner if she father did not beat she ..  her parting shot "We say of some things that can't be forgiven, or that we would never forgive ourselves. But we do - we do it all the time"