Alice Munro is such an artist. I simply loved Too Much Happiness and definitely wanted to read more of her work. This is one of her earlier collections published in 1982 and though I didn’t find it as good, there are still plenty of little jewels I thoroughly enjoyed.What Munro does so well is everyday interactions, these beautiful everyday moments we tend to ignore because we think they have no meaning, but they say so much about who we are.There are also more defining moments in this collection, but she gives them the same weight as the everyday things. Which i like, because in reality we typically only find out that something was defining when we have the power of hindsight knowledge.My favourites: 1. Chaddeleys and Flemings; part 1: ConnectionThis story is particularly beautiful about family, and being perhaps slightly ashamed of some connections you have which you never chose. But too many prejudices and you fail to notice their true worth. "My father would never have admitted there were inferior people, or superior people either. He was scrupulously egalitarian, making it a point not to 'snivel', as he said, to anybody. (...)There were times, later, when I wondered if my father and I didn't harbor, in our hearts, intact and unassailable notions of superiority, which my mother and her cousins with their innocent snobbishness could never match." 2. Chaddeleys and Flemings; part 2: The Stone in the Field "Now i no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize." Family can be weird. Aunts for example: you know them and yet you don't. You know them only as they are now, not like they were young. Nor do you know their stories, or what made them who they are. You take guesses, but you'll likely be very wrong. I loved this simple story. 5. AccidentAnother really good one. I love the stories with a more tragic, dramatic tone of voice that show simple lives in all its glory.Frances, music teacher in a small town has been waiting for the moment that her life ould start. "They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life." The story unfolds itself slowly but surely. It was Frances, who had always believed something was going to happen to her, some clearly dividing moment would come, and she would be presented with her future" And i imagine a waiter, who passes by with a new round of lives, waiting to see which one she'll pick.Behind the spoiler tag my ongoing notes about the stories (not really spoilery, they’re not part of the review but I didn’t want to lose them either)(view spoiler)[3. DulseNot my favorite. Some stories to be honest, i don't quite get. I don't know whether for some of them i'm still too young? As for as i gather, the theme of this one is about the search for love, but for more the search of someone to love you than for you to love."The day may come when Lydia will count herself lucky to do the same. In the meantime, she'll be up and down. 'Up and down,' they used to say in her childhood, talking of the health of people who weren't going to recover."4. The Turkey SeasonI got no clue how to summarize this one.Next!6. Bardon busBusses make links between cities, towns, they go uphill-downhill. And sometimes they make a link with memory lane. An important person, an important event. And sometimes things just don't go as planned. Scratch that - typically things don't go as planned.Where are you heading next?7. Prue"She presents her life in anecdotes, and though it is the point of most of her anecdotes that hopes are dashed, dreams ridiculed, things never turn out as expected everything is altered in a bizarre way and there is no explanation ever, people always feel cheered up after listening to her. Sometimes a quote is the best way to cover a story.8. Mrs. Cross and Mrs. KiddI can see this happening. Two old ladies and the general life of a nursery hime. Mothering the new guy, drinking tea, playing cards and scrabble and then struggling to get back to your room.I always like it when stories aren't about the bold, the young and the beautiful, but about something simple, a small moment of life, a normal person.Ans this one has got a beautiful yet simple end scene to match.9. Hard-Luck stories "Then I felt something go over me - a shadow, a chastening. I heard the silly sound of my own voice against the truth of the lives laid down here. Lives pressed down, like layers of rotting fabric, disintegrating dark leaves. The old pain and the deprivation. How strange, indulged, and culpable they would find us - three middle-aged people still stirred up about love, or sex." Two women and a man heading back home with the car after a conference. The women are sharing stories of love on the way: the intelligent kind of love and the irrational kind. But then when they walk in a cemetery, there's something easy that comes along. It doesn't always have to be big, daring and difficult. Alice Munro has a way with words.10. Visitors"In Wilfred’s stories you could always be sure that the gloomy parts would give way to something better, and if somebody behaved in a peculiar way there was an explanation for it. If Wilfred figured in his own stories, as he usually did, there was always a stroke of luck for him somewhere, a good meal or a bottle of whiskey or some money." I have to admit to not always 'getting' Munro's stories, but i nonetheless enjoy most of them. This one i got an interpretation ready though. So you have visitors, they're family but because you don't really know them they feel like strangers. And then they're in your house, telling stories that don't make any sense. Everybody tells his stories differently, some make sense, some don't. Just like reading short stories. You make it up along the way.11. The Moons of Jupiter"The planetarium show had done what I wanted it to after all – calmed me down, drained me." Thirteen moons around Jupiter apparently when the book was written. Wikipedia says there are 67 these days. They grow, we discover them. They keep our mind occupied so we don't think about the other things. Dad in hospital with a failing heart valve, one daughter on the way to Mexico with her new boyfriend and the other daughter is incummunicado and doesn't want to talk nor see anyone. But she says everything is well. You might want to visit a planetarium and count to moons of Jupiter for less. (hide spoiler)]
من النادر جدا أن تقول عن كاتبة أنها تمثلك كرجل. أليس مونرو العظيمة الأولى التي أقابلها وأجدها تخطت أنوثتها إلى إنسانيتها وكتبت عن الناس فقط بصوت المرأة. قرأت من قبل لكاتبات هيرتا موللر على سبيل المثال ولم أقدر على إتمام الكتاب، طبعا مستغانمي ﻻ نقاش حولها، وهناك أخرى لا أذكر اسمها لكنها أيضا تكتب أدبا "نسويا" شديد العبط.. مونرو تكتب أدبا حقيقيا مليئا بتفاصيل إنسانية مخيفة، ﻻ يملك تجميعها سوى كاتب، كاتب مجنون.هناك تصنيف لدي يضم مجموعة من الكتاب على رأسهم ويليام فوكنر، أسميه العباقرة ذوو اﻷخﻻق، مونرو انضمت بجدارة للمجموعة.. هؤﻻء الذين يناقشون العﻻقات الانسانية بصفة عامة والاسرية بصفة خاصة.. هؤﻻء الباحثين في حقيقة انهدام اساس المجتمع.. ﻻ يمكن اطﻻق كلمة قصة قصيرة على ما تكتبه مونرو.. الامر اشبه بالروايات القصيرة.. نوفيلا بالمفاهيم الغربية.. القصص متباينة الجودة بالتأكيد، وقد تصيب كثيرين ممن لا يهون هذه التفاصيل الانسانية المعقدة، قد تصيبهم بالملل، بالنسبة لي الكتاب شديد اﻹمتاع، وﻻ استطيع ان افضل قصة على اخرى بحكم اني قرأته في فترة طويلة نسبيا.. لكن ما ﻻحظته على مونرو شيئين: اﻷول هي ﻻ تجيد النهايات.. قلما اعجبتني نهاية في الكتاب.. ربما واحدة او اثنتين.. لكن ربما هذه احدى سماتها.. الحياة فقط هي ما تريده وتصفه.. الثاني انها لديها عقدة من تعريف زوجها بصديقاتها او اقاربها هذا امر واضح جدا واسعدني تتبعه وتحليله على كل حال.. اخيرا وهو شيء شديد الذاتية بصفتي كاتب: أليس مونرو مثلي تماما ﻻ تقدر على ادارة حوار كامل.. حواراتها تكون اشبه بالمونولوج..كما انها تهتم جدا بقضية الكاتب.. ثﻻث قصص من الكتاب فيها كتاب. باختصار المجموعة ممتعة واليس مونرو تستحق نوبل بجدارة..
What do You think about The Moons Of Jupiter (2004)?
I love her spare and understated style - still waters run deep indeed. Her writing is so observant and wise. All of the main characters or narrators (for the most part women) in this lovely collection of short stories are likeable and admirable in their human strengths and weaknesses - you have the sense that they are real people. I wouldn't say this is an "unputdownable" book, but it is one you can come back to without any difficulty and it is one that will stay with me for longer than others that can be described in that way. The book I have moved on to now, also by a fine female novelist and a favourite of mine, seems blowsy to the point of being overdone by comparison. I'm going to buy a copy of this for all my girlfriends as birthday presents as I believe more people need to know about Alice Munro.
—Ann Brogan
La verdad es que no conocía el trabajo de Alice Munro. Pero aprovechando las re-ediciones que han salido de su trabajo una vez que se anunció que el Nobel de Literatura 2013 sería adjudicado a ella, y de un modo algo auto indulgente, decidí ver que onda. Normalmente le tengo algo de desconfianza a los del consejo que otorga el Nobel, a veces se me figura que son casi como los monos que otorgan el Oscar. Así pues, decidí leerla no con muchas esperanzas... ¡Ah, pocas cosas en la vida son tan alentadoras como cuando tus ideas preconcebidas sufren un duro trance que las hace cambiar completamente de dirección! La verdad es que no bien había empezado a leer el primero de los cuentos que conforman "Las lunas de Júpiter" y esas pocas esperanzas que al inicio había alentado, fueron trocadas por la certeza de que estaba ante algo grande. Y sí. Hoja tras hoja me fui dejando envolver por la prosa de Munro (manejada con una maestría tal como pocas veces se ve a últimas fechas)hasta el punto que mucho antes de terminar el libro ya no me refería a "esos idiotas del Nobel", sino a los "ejemplares miembros del comité del Nobel", que con tan buen tino habían elegido a la Señora Munro para la presea.Y bueno, ¿de qué va "Las lunas de Júpiter"? Se trata de un libro conformado por 11 relatos, más o menos teniendo todos en común que son protagonizados por mujeres. Mujeres de mediana edad en su mayoría, a punto de pasar a esa etapa de la vida donde la madurez empieza a ceder su lugar a la gloria (o desdicha) de la senectud, y la dura regresión que esta conlleva. Afrontada a veces de un modo más desdichado que otras. Sus personajes son complejos, pero están retratados con una delicadeza tal y de un modo tan rico que los 11 relatos pronto de tornan en una plétora de historias, mucho más profunda de lo que la extensión del texto sugiere. En si, no puede decirse que se trate de relatos felices, o que nos dejen una lección simple de asimilar. No. Por el contrario, la expansión del propio universo contenido en ellos nos abre la puerta a todo un mar de posibilidades, que aunque no se trate de un mar en calma para los personajes que nos presenta, no deja de ser un mar al fin, poblado de inmensas posibilidades...Lo recomiendo, ya lo terminé, seguro buscaré más cosas de la autora.Corrijo, ya lo terminé, pero se que no ha terminado, y que pasará un buen rato antes de que al fin deje ir esas historias que Alice Munro me ha contado.
—Octavio Villalpando
I suspect that Munro's stories are like a mood ring--the color and tone reflect a great deal who you are when you read them. That said, the stories in The Moons of Jupiter seemed to me to be lacking the luminous inner quality of many of her stories I've read, that touch of grace that illuminates the heart of so many of her stories. These felt more opaque, heavier and duller (not more boring but less bright). Perhaps that's a function of the reader, perhaps it's that these are earlier works than any of hers I've read before. Two stories stood out to me--"Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Kidd" and the title story, both of which dealt with aging and had that twisting lucid pain to them that marks so much of her work to me. The rest had occasional brilliant moments, but somehow failed to hook me as securely as her stories usually do.
—Jennifer
