October 22, 2024
The title suggests that men and women have differing perspectives on Alice Munro’s work. Can that be verified? I do not know. But our book club had a lively discussion about Munro’s book entitled Dear Life, a short story collection published in 2012.
Surprisingly, our members read some stories, but not all of them. They found the stories dark and stopped reading to avoid being depressed. One found the lack of “redemption” in the stories disappointing. But does life always have a happy ending? Many people have challenging lives and fail to reach a satisfying old age. There could be health, financial, and family issues that are never resolved. The shock value of missing an ending to the stories made me think of what could have been should the author have completed it. And that I found exciting, and I dreamt up options for finishing the stories.
Although most of us considered the subjects dark, we all agreed that the writing was extremely smooth, and the characters in the story came to life. Descriptions of small towns, the location of many of the stories, also came to life with such force that one of us thought she described the city where he grew up. I admired the ease with which Munro described her characters in a few pages in such detail that I thought I thoroughly understood the person and her motivation in life.
Most of Munro’s characters are women residing in small Ontario towns during the 1950s and 1960s. These women did not usually attend university, and the smart ones hid their intelligence; it was not fashionable for women to be clever in those days.
Her characterizations reminded me of my parents: my mother stayed home and occupied herself with housekeeping while my father was the breadwinner. My mother was the sole exception among her siblings, who all attended university. One of Munro’s stories is an exact copy of one aspect of my parents’ life: the wife prepares dinners for her husband, a doctor, just like my father, who expects dinner on the table when he returns home from work.
Munro’s description of women’s societal role and status started a conversation about their role today, with the understanding that women now surpass men at university graduation. It’s common for wives to be the breadwinners while their husbands take on household responsibilities. This has been a significant change over the past fifty years. Thinking of this trend, some of us questioned to what extent Munro’s stories would be relevant today. I thought that they would. Confirming my view, the Nobel Committee recognized Munro’s universal writings and awarded her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.
But after her death this year, Munro’s reputation suffered with the widespread publication that her husband sexually abused their daughter. Many followers of Munro expressed moral outrage about Munro being aware of the situation and not doing anything about it. Doubts were raised about her genius, and discussions ensued about the quality of her books after her questionable behavior was uncovered. Interestingly, despite anecdotal evidence of changing opinions about Munro, our book club did not dwell on this subject. Maybe this is one difference between men and women when considering Munro’s work. Three out of eight of us resonated with the book, while one person didn’t find it appealing. Most agreed that the stories were dark and depressing but beautifully written.
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