Alice Munro, now age 92, is one of the world's premier short story writers and she shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, her writing continues to dazzle while still creating innovative curves to the short story structure. Born in Canada in 1931, Munro sets many of her story in her native country and often weaves her own life into her fiction. The many prestigious literary awards and honors including the Nobel Prize in Literature (2013), Man Booker Int'l Prize (2009), Nat'l Book Critics Circle Award and the Medal of Honor for Literature. THE MOONS of JUPITER published in 1982 is a collection of short stories that share themes of regret, disillusionment and forbearance over time. What unites the stories is their uncanny power of observation on daily life, its inflections and innate emotional responses. Munro masters a deceivingly simple story with the depth of familiarity she draws for the characters; what they are truly feeling despite what they may or may not be expressing. Munro gives an elegant clarity to her characters that enables the reader to identify individual personalities and traits. In the title story, family members assemble around the patriarch as his health is flailing. There's the gravitational familial ties that circumvent the parent. The father's doting daughter, Janet, is also coping with the dissension of her daughter which bears the most potency to cause her pain and regret. Meanwhile, Janet's father awaits an amputation required to save his life despite the inherent risks of surgery. A constant flux of power dynamics are at play while considering the risks of change and annexation. Another story focuses on two octogenarians who knew each other as young girls and now find themselves in the same senior center. Their trajectories took them in different directions once married and with children but they've found themselves situated together as elderly, wheelchair dependent widows. Imagining these two would become reunited as friends at this stage is premature for their keen disparate personalities which prove self-serving. We grasp how and why they try to dominate the other and how the two women seek out what they need from other residents. Another prevalent motif in the collection is the quest for love and its travails. Munro poses an astute view that traverses the varying stories. "Love is not kind or honest and does not contribute to happiness in any reliable way." In the short story, "Labor Day Dinner" there's a vying for one man's affections despite one's noting its futility once possessed. "Setting things up to find failure inhume, railing at him, then getting cold feet and making up. Gradually the need to get rid of him would build again, but I was always sure it was his fault-if he'd just do this or that I could love him." THE MOONS of JUPITER is one of Munro's many compelling short story collections to treasure.
No comments:
Post a Comment