Helpful Score: 3
This collection of short stories by Alice Munroe is a marvel. The characters in each are subtly and skillfully drawn that I found myself as much in awe of Munroes grasp of her craft as in the ability to inhabit the stories themselves. At the end of most I found myself wishing this were not a disparate collection, but a full-length novel where I could voyeuristically continue observing the characters.
In some cases this wish for an extension of the stories stemmed from the fact that I really wasnt sure Id caught the nuances of character and plot. I suspect some who dont often explore the world of honed fiction might end a number of stories with the line, What exactly was going on here? This is my confession as well, but at the end of the book, I still felt as if I had somehow been treated to prose so beautifully crafted as to breath fresh air. What a rare treat.
In some cases this wish for an extension of the stories stemmed from the fact that I really wasnt sure Id caught the nuances of character and plot. I suspect some who dont often explore the world of honed fiction might end a number of stories with the line, What exactly was going on here? This is my confession as well, but at the end of the book, I still felt as if I had somehow been treated to prose so beautifully crafted as to breath fresh air. What a rare treat.
Helpful Score: 3
I read this book of short stories for a fiction class. The stories are wonderful and the characters are real, something very hard to do in a short story.
