Book Review: Family Furnishings by Alice Munro

Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2013, and the key to her writing is short stories.

The Nobel Prize presentation speech summed it up - Reading one of Alice Munro's stories is like watching a cat walk across a laid dinner table. A brief short story can often cover decades, summarizing a life, as she moves deftly between different periods. No wonder Alice Munro is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred. She is a virtuoso of the elliptical and the master of the contemporary short story.

The Family Furnishings collection offers twenty-four accomplished tales. It is worth time and effort to read each story slowly, relish the details, and ponder her characters and their life choices.

I liked this line from the story Too Much Happiness - "Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind," her friend Marie Mendelson has told her. "When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her."

Observe life with Alice Munro. Read Family Furnishings.

Book Review: Dear Life by Alice Munro

From the cover blurb: Alice Munro's peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but always spacious and timeless stories is once again everywhere apparent in this brilliant new collection.

Indeed, chance encounters, twists of fate, small town gossip vs. big city anonymity, accidents, dangers, departures, and beginnings - all paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

I enjoyed this collection, Dear Life, and Munro is so graceful in her writing. It seems effortless, but at age 81 she's had quite a lot of practice. Her descriptions, settings, and characters are just so good. Why am I even commenting? I am not worthy. Truly - just not worthy. But I'm delighted to be a reader of her work.

Here are a few samples of her prose:

P. 10  Here nobody was safe. Judgement might be passed behind backs, even on the known and published. An air of cleverness or nerves obtained, no matter who you were.

P. 176  Jumping off the train was supposed to be a cancellation. You roused your body, readied your knees, to enter a different block of air. You looked forward to emptiness.

P. 319  We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do - we do it all the time.

For those who admire the short story, read Alice Munro's Dear Life and shake your head in awe of great writing.

January Jolly Reads

Alice Munro is a smooth writer covering complex emotions and the unpredictability of life. If you are looking for happiness, this book might make you feel better, since her characters are rather miserable. I enjoyed the writing in these stories - descriptions, dialogue, and quirky twists of entangled lives kept me interested and yet not entertained. Each little world of thirty pages, fraught with anger, sadness, and pain, left me bereft of feelings, hollowed out inside and anxious. So, for reading pleasure, I can't recommend this book. For a master class in writing, Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness gets an A plus.

Michael Lewis' Home Game is heartfelt, well-written, and at times appallingly funny. He kept a journal as his kids were born. Instead of sunny delight and enthusiasm for fatherhood, Lewis discusses why it is parents don't hurl babies off balconies after many sleepless nights. His exhaustion, his descriptions of reality - his two girls arguing over everything, and his realization that he's more of the third string quarterback kept me chuckling throughout the book.

P. 42 At some point in the last few decades, the American male sat down at the negotiating table with the American female and - let us be frank - got fleeced. The agreement he signed, foisted all sorts of new paternal responsibilities on him and gave him nothing of what he might have expected in return. Not the greater love of his wife, who now was encouraged to view him as an unreliable employee. Not the special love of his child, who, no matter how many times he fed and changed and wiped and walked her, would always prefer her mother in a pinch.

p. 108 Small children are also a mood altering substance with financial consequences

p. 109 I know for a fact that my children are insane

p. 154 I've sometimes felt that we are using the wrong manual to fix an appliance - that say we're trying to repair a washing machine with the instructions for the lawn mower. But my wife presses on, determined to find room enough for three children's happiness.

Home Game is a quick, entertaining read and Mr.Lewis' love of his three kids, wife, and life shines through. I relished his exasperation, trials, and down home astonishment at family life in general.

p.187 Like dreams, these fatherhood moments are easily forgotten, and no doubt also a lot more interesting to the teller than to anyone else.

Michael Lewis' writing will keep you interested.