Alice Munro's Best: Selected Stories

My first experience with Alice Munro happened not that long ago. I had to read 'The Red Dress' for a Grade 11 English assignment. I started the story with my usual misgiving at having been MADE to read something. As I continued into the story my misgiving became less and less. I soon began to identify with the narrator as I have shared many of the same afflictions as she.

When I finished reading 'The Red Dress' I knew that it would not be my last encounter with Munro. Munro writes with such effortless talent, and evokes such an emotional pull with her work that I wouldn't have been able to stop there.

All of her plots are fairly 'simple' in that they revolve around ordinary people's lives. However, the emotion and feeling in her stories are far from simple and uneventful. I think the strength in her writing is the straightforwardness of plot. All of the events that take place could and probably have happened to you. I believe that being able to identify yourself so easily in a situation helps you feel the full extent of the story's sentiment. Because of that fact I find her writing to really take hold. When I immerse myself in a story of Alice Munro's I have found that I get to know something new about myself as well.

This collection of Alice Munro's Best I would recommend to anyone unfamiliar with her writing, and wants to read something honest.

Alice Munro’s characters are flawed and complex people. Ms. Munro’s goal seems not so much to make them likeable but to present them as real people with multiple layers of conflicting personality traits. Her stories are not filled with heroes and neatly resolved endings but multi-dimensional people living real lives. However, her stories and characters simply could not sustain my interest. If I put down the book in the middle of a story and went back to it the next day, I would have to scan what I had already read because I could not remember. Many stories seemed to blend together because of a similar central character. Ultimately, Alice Murno’s best was a disappointing and forgettable read.

This book is almost identical to an earlier release back in 1997 but with a fewer stories. What they've done here is selected the 17 best stories for this edition. There is an introduction by Margaret Atwood who talks about her personal experiences as a writer reading Munro's works which is a nice bonus.

If you've never read Munro, this book is basically the essential Munro reader. Nobody writes the short story as good as Munro. The stories are deep, oftentimes disturbing look into the lives and moods of rural Canada. Munro focuses mostly on children and women and as a child of the Great Depression many of the stories are set in that time period.

Plotwise, the stories are usually very simple. The characters however have a lot of depth and you often need to read each story a couple of times to truly understand the way in which Munro intends each character to be portrayed.

There are a lot of people who dislike Munro's writing style, but I actually like the minutia. Life is about the details, not the big processes. I like to imagine myself in the room with the characters, to get a whiff of the pungent smells, to hear the creaks in the old rotting floor, to feel the heat coming from a smoldering fire.

If there is one criticism of Munro's short stories it is that they are mostly predictable. She sticks to a template and there are no major plot twists or surprise endings. I guess some may find that pleasing, but I do enjoy being surprising every now and again.

Overall, I'd have to say this new edition of Alice Munro short stories is the definitive guide to Munro. I don't think you need to know Canada to appreciate the stories, but knowing the history and geography does help. You may not think she is Canada's Chekov, but Munro is certainly a true Canadian icon.