A review by anetq
Livet by Alice Munro
4.0
Munro is a member of some exclusive clubs: short story authors, who get's taken seriously and female Nobel Prize winners. And I can see why. "Dear Life" consists of 14 short stories and 4 autobiographical memory pieces. The novels describe 14 different little universes a moment before they get tilted off their axis and everything changes. It made me think of the line from John Lennon's song "Life is what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans" - Life does in deed happen to the characters in Alice Munro's stories, and most of the time life is a bit of a bitch, really. Leaving you in your best dress put on a train, not at your own wedding, which you thought you were going to.
To a certain extent this makes the stories a bit depressing (life does not seem to take many happy turns!), but at the same time the stories are well crafted and the brief slices of life described are well crafted and fell like full characters. And it is a fascinating look into many ways of canadian life - a country one hears little about, apart from the funny pronunciation of that word "aboot", and as a light version of USA (without the death and violence).
PS: Did you know John Lennon was just quoting Allen Saunders? The things you learn on the internet.
To a certain extent this makes the stories a bit depressing (life does not seem to take many happy turns!), but at the same time the stories are well crafted and the brief slices of life described are well crafted and fell like full characters. And it is a fascinating look into many ways of canadian life - a country one hears little about, apart from the funny pronunciation of that word "aboot", and as a light version of USA (without the death and violence).
PS: Did you know John Lennon was just quoting Allen Saunders? The things you learn on the internet.