babble book club reading "reader's choice" selections of Alice Munro
To paraphrase the blog post:
Delayed, but not forgotten, the babble book club has an official new selection! Or perhaps that is better phrased as selections?
You see, we wanted to read some Alice Munro in light of her recent Nobel Prize in Literature win and her general excellence. So, we started discussing which selection we should all read together, and well, you can see how that would be tough.
We had many, many suggestions and couldn't narrow the field, so we decided that we wouldread them all! Just kidding! We're only a monthly book club here! Instead, we are leaving it as a reader's choice and discussing not only our selections, but the themes presented in Munro's writing across her canon as well as how she became such a prolific writer and so much more.
Our final discussion date is Friday December 13 at 2:00 p.m. EST as previously noted. So that is a little under a month, officially, but given we decided this what seems like a million years ago, it is lots of time (hopefully).
We've discussed that some Munro books are hard to come by, given her recent fame, so the flexibility to choose your own selection should overcome that inconvenience.
Munro books are widely available in e-book formats (library and online), libraries (some holds probably apply), second handstores and independent bookstore. Given the recent slew of publishing all her books with "Nobel Prize in Literature winner" on it, I have seen a TON of her books for cheap dollars too. Oh, and I'm pretty sure you can borrow some from friends, moms, really any Canadian passerby.
Please be sure to tell us what you are choosing to read and why you are choosing it!
As always, try to reserve final blows for the last day (or thereafter), but everyone is encourage to discuss during their reading!
Yay book club!
I went out last night and picked out an Alice Munro book -- first time I have bought a book in awhile, so that was exciting!
Due to all the great recommendations, I went with, *drumroll* Lives of Girls and Women.
IM EXCITED
Also, can I point out the irony that in a selection dominated by short stories, I chose the only novel. What's with that?!
ETA: I have a hold on Dear Life. I considered buying it yesterday as well, but the cover for the new "Nobel Prize" release is super ugly and I just couldn't go through with it.
or is a short story cycle?
The Moons of Jupiter.
Because Caissa's reading it.
I'm reading The Moons of Jupiter because I knew Unionist would be a copycat.
I was just about to say that. Sheesh.
Oh you two.
I started reading the first short story last night.
Read just over half on the weekend. How is your reading of it coming along, Unionist?
Slow. 24%. But I'm enjoying it.
Reading it on an e-reader, I presume?
Yes, Dr. Livingston.
How are others coming along with their reading?
Great! Just not any Munro. [/sheepish]
Sheesh, get off my back, Caissa.
So much for democratic centralism.
This probably qualifies as 'too much information", but such are the risks of Book Clubs.
In the early '80s, my girlfriend of the day dumped me, with her parting line being something akin to "You don't really get it, do you?" And to be honest, I didn't.
So, like any other healthy, heterosexual guy in his 20s who has suddenly realised that women are indeed quite different from our buddies at college and work in so many ways, - well, it seemed obvious to me that the best way to start trying to understand women was to start reading them. At the time, it seemed a lot easier than talking with them.
I think I started with Jane Austen and the Brontes, and over a two year period worked my through the centuries to Virginia Woolf, my sister's collection of Virago Books, and then into the contemporary wave of Canadian writers... notably Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. I loved Margaret Laurence and read pretty much her whole body of work. I liked Atwood's early stuff but stumbled at The Handmaid's Tale and have struggled to reconnect since.
I did make it through Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women. But I found it "uncomfortable" - though I can't quite remember why. This mildly unsatisfactory experience meant that I have never since returned to her writing. But 30 years on, I am game to give it another go, if only for the BBC. (I am hoping that the experience of living with a highly literate feminist and big Munro fan for a quarter century will make it easier going.)
Which is a very round about way of saying that I am currently halfway through "Too Much Happiness".
Never TMI for BBC. In grade 12 English class we read Wuthering Heights. I also took a Can Lit course that year (1980-1). We read The Lives of Girls and Women, The edible Woman and surfacing. Most of the Canadian canon at that time were male authors writing male coming of age stories ex. The Mountain and the Valley, Who Has seen the Wind, Duddy Kravitz etc.
My reading is low .. per usual.
From the first few pages, 'Live of Girls and Women' doesn't technically fit my usually book ready steez, but I have a feeling it will all hit and all devour it.
I finally finished my other book though -- do I get some credit for that? It wasn't even assigned!
I have read 134 books, Kaitlin? Have you caught up to me yet?
Ms. C is not happy that she is 40 books behind me.
Hmmm... I think I have just understood why I have never warmed to short stories: I don't like surprise endings.
Not the unexpected narrative twist type of "surprise ending". But the turn the next page and realise "Oh, - that's the end!" type of surprise ending.
As I start each new story in the collection (Too Much Happiness), I have taken to checking ahead to see how many pages long this story will be, in an effort to minimise any surprise endings. Now that I think of it, I suspect I would have the same problem with e-readers. I guess I just appreciate the physical / tactile sense of progress that one gets from working ones way through a regular book, from front to back cover.
En passant: in one of the stories in this collection, the lead character discovers that an old associate has actually made her a character in a work of fiction. The character muses:
"How are We to Live" is the book's title. A collection of short stories, not a novel. This in itself is disappointment. It seems to diminsh the book's authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hanging on to the gates of Literature, rather than safely settled inside."
Nice touch, Ms Munro.
We are friends off right now because I missed my reading goal this year. I've pretty much given up on it. I'm not telling you the number though because compared to that, it is embarassingly low.
Although, I have finished every bbc book, so that's something!
SF -- interesting assessment there. Haven't experienced any surprise endings yet, but since I'm reading her novel, I'm not only far from the ending, but wonder if she'll use a similar formula?
I haven't read Munro, so I wonder if she is formulaic like that or it just happens to be that collection?
I booked December 13 off work to do some Christmas shopping so I'll miss the BBC discussion. I'll comment either the day before or the Monday after.
I think you may have misunderstood, Kaitlin. What I got from SF is that there were no surprise endings - he was just surprised when the end came.
On the other hand, maybe I misunderstood.
Hey SF, you dig yourself out from this one, ok?
Unionist: What I got from SF is that there were no surprise endings - he was just surprised when the end came.
As always, Unionist, you read me like a book. Err, ... collection of short stories.
I finished “Too Much Happiness” a couple of days ago, - it’s a work from 2009 and comprises 10 short stories (wholly unrelated, stand alone, set in contemporary Canada) and one ‘long story’ or novella. I will not be around for the BBC conversation next Friday, so here are a few initial thoughts and reflections.
Full disclosure: I am not a short story buff, so do not know much about the genre. I guess what I expected were stories with a relatively tight focus, - that sought to communicate a depth of meaning and significance from small moments and incidents. A bit the way that close-up photography works: you get greater detail, depth and unique insights from a narrower field of focus.
In this collection, there were only a few stories like that: the two that spoke most compellingly to me were also the only stories in the collection told from a male perspective. (I presume that says more about me than about Munro.) One was about a middle aged guy with a facial disfigurement, who years later thinks back on an unhappy childhood incident with a young friend. And the second was about a man working in the woods who has an accident which prompts him to think through some ‘meaning of life and relationships’ types of questions.
Those two stories resonated with me. But not so much the others.
Some of them just seemed to have too big a story to tell in such a narrow space: they covered the full arc of a character’s life through multiple jumps backwards and forwards in time. It reminded me of how I feel after Christmas dinner: too much content uncomfortably stuffed into too small a container.
Something that did surprise me was Munro’s use of melodrama. Central to three of the stories were major acts of violence … unkind children drowning a disabled child; a jealous husband murdering his children; a murderer on the run invades the rural home of an elderly woman. All certainly narrative opportunities for major character development. But hardly the stuff of “small moments of life”.
So, all in all, not exactly my cup of tea. There were certainly some interesting gender-related dimensions in most stories, as well as some complex inter-generational dynamics. Perhaps others will speak to those themes.
To be fair, - I did glance quickly at various internet listings of “Alice Munro’s Best Stories”, - and none from this book were in any of those listings. So maybe 2009 was just not a vintage year for Ms Munro. I await with interest the forthcoming BBC discussion to help me decide whether I should take a run at another of her books.
Most of her stories are built around character and reflect a slice of life. Some have closure but others just stop with life going on. Usually the character has some sort of revelation or epiphany. Some are major, most are minor like life.
Dear Life just arrived into the library for me! I think I can try to finish it for Friday!
So... you've been hanging on for dear life?
No, I've been reading Lives of Girls and Women -- hasn't gripped me yet, but I'm excited to read this selection too!
Quick reminder that today is our conversation -- 2pm EST. Right here.
Bring your thoughts, the books you read, and, well really anything.
Excited to chat!