Skip to main content

5 Classic Short Stories Of Nobel Laureate Alice Munro Who Died At 92

Nobel-winning Canadian writer Alice Munro was best known as a master of the short story. Here are five from her celebrated trove:

- 'Boys and Girls' (1964) -

In one of her earliest stories, Munro delved into what would become a signature theme: the complex, often fraught transition to adulthood.

Set on a fox farm and told from the point of view of a young girl, "Boys and Girls" explores gender conventions in 1940s small-town Ontario -- Munro's birthplace and home, and the setting for much of her writing.

The story was included in her first book "Dance of the Happy Shades" (1968).

- 'Royal Beatings' (1977) -

This story is about daily family violence in a rural Canadian town begins with stepmother Flo's threat to administer a "royal beating" to her fiery teenaged stepdaughter, Rose. 

The girl's imagination is sparked by the term, and she imagines chariots, horses and kings, but she discovers a far more brutal reality when her father beats her with his belt. 

Munro would delve deeper into the world of Flo and Rose in "Who Do You Think You Are?" (1978), a collection of interlinked stories about the two women that was nominated for the Booker Prize. 

- 'The Progress of Love' (1985) -

Reminiscing about growing up, the 30-something real-estate agent Euphemia ponders her parents' dysfunctional marriage and her decision to run away from home and reject all they stood for. 

Love in the course of the story does not progress so much as it congeals and becomes intermingled with recrimination, and through Euphemia's conflicted feelings, Munro's explores how emotions evolve.

The characters "so resemble ourselves that reading about them, at times, is emotionally risky," wrote Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Times in 1986.

- 'The Bear Came Over the Mountain' (1999) -

Sadness pervades this story about a man who loses his wife to Alzheimer's, with Munro unflinching observation of the devastating details of the disease as it erodes memory, language and personality.

It was adapted for the screen in 2006 as "Away from Her" by Canadian compatriot Sarah Polley and with Julie Christie as the ill-fated wife, earning two Oscar nominations including best actress.

- 'Corrie' (2010) -

An expertly rendered central deception in this story dupes reader and protagonist alike, showcasing Munro's careful and intricate weaving of storylines in deceptively banal settings.

Corrie, a young wealthy woman who seems destined for spinsterhood, embarks on a years-long affair with an architect, Howard.

When he tells her a mutual acquaintance has discovered their secret and is blackmailing them, Corrie agrees to pay a monthly stipend to keep the potential snitch quiet. 

But, years later, she discovers this was a lie and Howard had been pocketing the money all along.

Munro, who liked to revisit and tweak her stories even years later, changed the ending for the version of "Corrie" that appeared in her collection "Dear Life" published in 2012.

For Munro, her stories "cause second thoughts," said Margaret Atwood on The New Yorker Fiction podcast in 2019, "she liked rethinking things and wondering whether she got it right the first time".

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/FkM3v5Z

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK In 'Diplomatic Contact' With Syrian Rebels After Bashar Al-Assad's Ouster

Britain's foreign minister said Sunday that London had established diplomatic contact with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group in Syria, which led the offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad. They remain "a proscribed terrorist organisation, but we can have diplomatic contact and so we do have diplomatic contact, as you would expect", said Foreign Secretary David Lammy. "We want to see a representative government, an inclusive government. We want to see chemical weapons stockpiles secured, and not used, and we want to ensure that there is not continuing violence," he added. "So, for all of those reasons, using all the channels that we have available, and those are diplomatic and of course intelligence-led channels, we seek to deal with HTS where we have to." (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/ybLIfjx
Post a Comment
Read more

US Has Agreed To Send More Bombs, Warplanes To Israel: Report

The US in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah. The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post. Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden's party call for him to cut US military aid. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration's steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity. Bid...
Post a Comment
Read more

UK-Born Italian Teen To Become Catholic Church's First Millennial Saint

A London-born Italian teenager who spent his short life spreading the faith online will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint, after the Vatican attributed to him a second miracle. Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 aged 15, was beatified four years ago after the Vatican ruled he had miraculously saved another boy's life. He will now become a saint after Pope Francis approved another miraculous act, an intercession on behalf of a young woman in Florence who suffered severe head trauma in July 2022. Carlo was born in London on May 3, 1991, to Italian parents, and moved with them to Milan as a young boy, where he grew up with a huge interest in computers. "He was considered a computer genius... But what did he do? He didn't use these media to chat and have fun," his mother Antonia Salzano said in an interview with Vatican News at the time of his 2020 beatification. Instead, "his zeal for the Lord" drove him to make a website on ...
Post a Comment
Read more