"Reading Alice Munro"
9/16/14

Dear Friend*：

Hope this note finds you at a less busy and relaxed time which may not come by for a while.  We had a wonderful time reflecting on Alice Munro's stories at our meeting last Monday.  Although there are only 8 of us, each of us had quite a few things to say about her stories.  The following is a few of my thoughts after reading her short stories collection titled "Carried Away".  I enjoyed reading them all, particularly:  "Hateship, Friendship, ....etc.", " Runaway" and "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" the latter was made into a recent film played by Julie Christie "Away from Her".

Her stories often feature females with relationship problems and those in the above mentioned stories were especially intriguing to me.  In the first story "Hateship", Johanna, a woman with no background and no prospect in any type of relationships was able to succeed in a marriage beyond her means by way of some mischiefs of two teenagers.  The ending of this story was skillfully woven into the last few lines.  By means of an obituary ad. of her past employer, we learn what happened in her new life she created for herself instead of an epilogue many Victorian style novels use in the past.

In "Runaway", Carla is yet another woman suffering from the bombardment of irrational demands from her husband.  The ending of the story (withheld here so as not to spoil the fun for potential readers) is a surprise to me.  Being a modern reader, I was expecting to find her landing a life free from the dominance of a not very kind husband but it did not turn out this way.

The third story "The Bear Came over the Mountain " though seems to be narrated from the point of view of the husband Grant, the focal character is really the wife Fiona.  It is indeed a very touching story and the film based on the story is also equally well done.

I could go on and on just to recite the interesting characters including the minor ones in some stories and the unusual twists and turns in several of them.

Hope you can find time to read just a few stories some other time.

*This was a letter I sent to Jane C. Telling her about the book we just discussed at our monthly which she missed while traveling.