Name: Gigi V's review of Dear Life by Alice Munro
Item: Dear Life
Rating: 3
Author: Gigi V

Alice Munro

**Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature** Alice Munro captures the essence of life in her brilliant new collection of stories. Moments of change, chance encounters, the twist of fate that leads a person to a new way of thinking or being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be.

Dear Life

With her peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but spacious and timeless stories, Alice Munro illumines the moment a life is shaped -- the moment a dream, or sex, or perhaps a simple twist of fate turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into another way of being. Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these stories (set in the world Munro has made her own: the countryside and towns around Lake Huron) about departures and beginnings, accidents, dangers, and homecomings both virtual and real, paint a vivid and lasting portrait of how strange, dangerous, and extraordinary the ordinary life can be.

stories

Dear life

Xiang

She had a rule also that if she stepped off a curb on the wrong foot the whole day would go bad for her, and so they would have to go back and do it again. Her rules enthralled him. To tell the truth I was privately un-enthralled when told this. I had thought how men are charmed by stubborn quirks if the girl is good-looking enough. Of course that has gone out of fashion. At least I hope it has. All that delight in the infantile female brain. (When I first went teaching they told me there was a time, not long ago, when women never taught mathematics. Weakness of intellect prevented it.) 

Gigi V

A brilliant study of character, in the form of short stories. Alice Munro writes lifelike, flawed characters (some dislikable, some boring, some intriguing). I like how she traces the contours of betrayal, love, guilt with small everyday gestures. Some stories were stronger than others for me, favourites are “To Reach Japan”, “Gravel”, “In Sight of the Lake”, “Dolly” and “Dear Life”. Too many favourite quotes but good collection if you want glimpses into pre-WW1 domestic slice-of-life, something grounding, real and relatable.

katrina montgomery

Alice Munro's stories leave me feeling destroyed but, like, in a good way.

Maelys

Alice Munro a le don de nous faire entrer dans le quotidien banal et pourtant si unique d'habitants ordinaires des villes moyennes de l'Ontario américain, au moment où tout peut basculer... ou non. Et c'est peut-être dans ces rebondissements médiocres que se tient l'extra-ordinaire.

charisa

hovering between 3 and 3.5. this was one of those collections where i was fond of a few stories ("amundsen", "leaving maverely", "pride") and unimpressed by others. munro has an almost shockingly forthright writing style, full of choppy, unfinished sentences and narrative structure that doesn't require much imagination to follow. 

sometimes this bare-bones approach provides opportunity to read between the lines and extract deep meaning and pathos, but sometimes (ok, most of the time) it engenders flat characters with nonsensical motivations. her most successful stories, in my opinion, were those that relied on the subtlety of expression (both physical and emotional) to convey character motivations and shifts, rather than spelling it out explicitly in one hurried breath.

she does, however, cover a lot of relational ground in these small-town stories, so i'd be remiss if i didn't mention that! also, the cover art is sublime.

Shrouk Shafie

It is weird how sometimes life put us in situations that we least expected. Some of the stories were pretty wise, some were a little bit boring. A nice collection of a variety of short stories.

Melissa Schwartz

This was a book of short stories, so I rated each one individually. The average happened to equal a straight 3.

To Reach Japan: 1
Amundsen: 1
Leaving Maverley: 4
Gravel: 5
Haven: 4
Pride: 2
Corrie: 2
Train: 3
In Sight of the Lake: 3
Dolly: 3
The Eye: 4
Night: 2
Voices: 3
Dear Life: 5

Stories

Melody Izard

Short stories that I really liked and now I want to read more things by the author

Hana

3.5 overall, 5-star stories: Amundsen, Leaving Maverley, Gravel, In Sight of the Lake.

Trevor Berrett

Thank goodness Alice Munro didn't actually retire and we have this new collection of short stories. There is no sign of decline as Munro continues to give us complicated stories with complex structures, all to explore the complicated lives of seemingly mundane people.

Dear Life: Stories (Vintage International)

Amber Laha

I don't think short story collections are for me. I feel like there just never is enough there for me. I especially did not like the second story. It really just pissed me off.

Daryl Houston

This was a really solid collection. I continue to marvel at how serene and just exactly right her prose feels even when her subject matter doesn't especially inspire me.

It occurred to me while reading this collection that I read Munro much as I've often read Frost -- as someone who on the surface seems by and large wholesome and pastoral but in whose writing can be found much darkness once you've shaken that easy sense of the pastoral or provincial.

It kind of made me sad to see that the last four pieces in this book are offered as generally more autobiographical than fictional. They have a brief preface titled "Finale" in which Munro says these are the first and probably the last things she'll say about her own life. I don't believe the author ought to be expected to tell us more about her life, but I do worry that this means Munro is somehow figuring her work is coming to an end (she is not a young woman).

Bundel verhalen over het leven in Canadese plattelandsstadjes tijdens of vlak na de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

Gigi V &
Dear Life by Alice Munro

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Gigi V &Dear Life by Alice Munro

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Gigi V &
Dear Life by Alice Munro