Three Cheers for Alice Munro!

Nobel prize winner for literature. Great news!

Yes, exciting news. Time to dust off one of my unread Munro volumes.

No kidding! Mine are packed because we are moving but once we get settled, they are getting a reread. This is awesome news :)

Here's a fun and interesting article on why Alice Munro is considered a genius: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-genius-of-alice-munro/ar...

Excellent article Joyce. It's interesting to get explanations at specific points.

Congratulations to Alice Munro, the prize is well-deserved!

Hip hip, hooray! First Canadian to win!

If you don't know where to start with Alice Munro, here are some recommendations:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/10/alice_munro_best_stories_to_read_...

Congratulations, Ms. Munro! I'll have to start reading some of her stories. She's actually from my mother's hometown, Wingham (although my mother never liked her- I don't know why).

(although my mother never liked her- I don't know why).

Do you mean as a writer, or she knew her personally? Was your mother from Munro's generation, or the one just after? My mom was, and I can't see her liking Munro either. I have to admit, some of her stories have really creeped me out, and a few made me want to take a shower after reading them. Munro's stories would have been too raw and exposing for my mom's tastes.

For people who live in Wingham, Munro's stories would have at one time cut close to the bone. Not because of any sense of personal exposure but because of her merciless examination of souwesto mores. It can be difficult to confront the truth about your world. Her stories are as #9 says "raw and exposing." Imagine how raw they were in 1970.

Margaret Atwood summed up why in the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/10/alice-munro-nobel-literature-prize-...

I read The Progress of Love in highschool and it made no impression. I figured I was done with her. Then she goes and does this. Sigh. ;) I had no taste in literature then, so she was due for a revisit in any case.

>9 Nickelini:. She didn't like Munro as a writer. I think it was because she felt the author didn't 'do Wingham justice'.

We used to joke, "I spent a week in Wingham one day." Even as small towns go, it's pretty boring. I'm still stunned that someone from Wingham won the Nobel Prize!

#12 MadPoet - I just came across this quotation and thought of what you said (bold print is my emphasis):

" "People's lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable - deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. It did not occur to me then that one day I would be so greedy for Jubilee ... what I wanted was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together - radiant, everlasting." Her subjects - or those who believed they were her subjects, the residents of Wingham - were not appreciative. They wrote wounded editorials and angry letters; attempted to ban her in schools; there was even a death threat. "

from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview8

Well, the death threat was from a family whose personal tragedy (a baby accidentally scalded to death by a pot of boiling water) was used by Munro as the plot of a short story. And then, to add insult to injury, she portrayed the family as basically lazy, dirty hicks. Or so the family believed (the story might not have been based on them at all).

But it sounds like attitudes towards Munro are changing in Wingham, and after she won the Nobel Prize they'll probably erect a big sign: "Wingham: Home of Alice Munro"

Further, in the same vein:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/10/20/where_alice_munro_found_her_stor...

#14 - Interesting story. And I'm sure you're right about the sign (they'd be silly not to, really).

#15 - thanks for sharing that. I especially liked the short video.