Our Own Chekhov?

Alice Munro keeps turning out interesting and exquisitely crafted stories.  She’s no spring chicken at this point, and it would be understandable if she were to opt for the Philip Roth escape hatch of retirement.  But if the latest collection, ‘Dear Life’, is any indication, she still has much to express and lots to teach us about life and writing.

The fourteen stories in the collection had been published elsewhere individually.  I had read a few of them in The New Yorker.  As a set the stories are well matched.  They’re less kinky than some of her recent stories, less explicitly focused on evil.  For the most part the tone is quite neutral; the language is unpretentious.  We see the characters as if from a great height, and the stories maintain a very controlled and almost wistful tone.

My favorites are ‘Amundsen’, ‘Gravel’, ‘Corrie’, and ‘Dear Life’.  Some have interesting plots, a few have a dramatic turn or two, but most are quite even in tone and plot.  Suffering, pain, and joy are referred to but from a distance.  We know they’re there, but Munro doesn’t want us to experience them first-hand in the moment.  Rather years later we come to know the puzzled wondering, the loving reminiscence, the warm recollection, the regrets, the hidden dangers. 

I don’t know how she does it.  The language is so straightforward and calls no attention to itself.  Not much happens.  It can take some effort from the reader to figure out what’s what.  Feels a little like the detached rambling narration of a senior citizen who sometimes mixes times, people, and events in random but telling ways, and always from the point of view of someone who is no longer deeply involved. It must take some effort to keep out anything dramatic, jarring, or strongly felt.  Doing that leaves room for the more subtle intimations of danger, evil, love, and regret that lurk in many of these stories.

Whatever Alice Munro writes I will read.  I will do my best to follow wherever she leads.