What's so great about Alice Munro?

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the stories blur if you read too many of'em at once but that's normal -- it happens every time I read a story collecction

A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 May 2013 22:00 (twelve years ago)

^^^^^^^^

I gobble collections too quickly and I'm left with just an oconnorness or a carverness or a xueness or a barthelmeness or w/e, but how the hell else am I supposed to read?

too busy s1ockin' on my 乒乓 (wins), Wednesday, 29 May 2013 22:08 (twelve years ago)

three weeks pass...

Bum. She has announced she is retiring from writing.

ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Sunday, 23 June 2013 22:57 (twelve years ago)

i think its fine. she's 81. plus, i can imagine she'll write some more stuff anyway. kinda hard to stop if you've been doing it as long as she has.

scott seward, Sunday, 23 June 2013 23:11 (twelve years ago)

the last collection seemed to imply this was the case, maybe, a little

the bitcoin comic (thomp), Sunday, 23 June 2013 23:24 (twelve years ago)

but, yeah, i mean, good on her, i think?

the bitcoin comic (thomp), Sunday, 23 June 2013 23:25 (twelve years ago)

I'm all in favour of people quitting while they're ahead--see E M Forster--I just want more good stuff because I'm greedy

ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Monday, 24 June 2013 01:39 (twelve years ago)

Good for her. I've got enough Munro to reread the rest of my life.

A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 June 2013 01:42 (twelve years ago)

not why forster quit iirc

the bitcoin comic (thomp), Monday, 24 June 2013 16:19 (twelve years ago)

only just saw this! sad news

just sayin, Tuesday, 2 July 2013 10:38 (twelve years ago)

Great profile in today's NY Times. Amazing that she published her first stories at age 37, in 1968.

lols lane (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 July 2013 14:53 (twelve years ago)

Yep. She gives me hope. Prodigies are rare.

A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 July 2013 14:55 (twelve years ago)

three months pass...

Nobel Prize!

woof, Thursday, 10 October 2013 11:02 (eleven years ago)

WOOOOWWWWW

the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 10 October 2013 11:04 (eleven years ago)

https://twitter.com/Nobelprize_org/status/388258838744297472

woof, Thursday, 10 October 2013 11:15 (eleven years ago)

fuck yeah

just sayin, Thursday, 10 October 2013 11:27 (eleven years ago)

this news makes me v happy

just sayin, Thursday, 10 October 2013 11:28 (eleven years ago)

she deserves it!

nostormo, Thursday, 10 October 2013 12:06 (eleven years ago)

Hurrah!

Ismael Klata, Thursday, 10 October 2013 13:31 (eleven years ago)

Congratulations to Ms. Munro. Many excellent writers do not get the prize because the selection committee tends to shun controversy, but she is at least as deserving as the winners of the past.

Aimless, Thursday, 10 October 2013 20:35 (eleven years ago)

<3 you baby if you're reading this lol xxx

i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Friday, 11 October 2013 01:10 (eleven years ago)

heyyyyy way to go, alice, great work!!

anonymous jazz majors (Matt P), Friday, 11 October 2013 22:40 (eleven years ago)

i'm really pleased about this.

estela, Friday, 11 October 2013 22:54 (eleven years ago)

yeah this rules

anonymous jazz majors (Matt P), Friday, 11 October 2013 22:55 (eleven years ago)

nice little retirement present. beats a gold watch.

scott seward, Friday, 11 October 2013 23:02 (eleven years ago)

i think i'll let myself read a new story of hers to celebrate, i've been hoarding a pile of unread ones like silas marner but without the gloom.

estela, Friday, 11 October 2013 23:19 (eleven years ago)

wow cool that THE AMAZING RANDY writes for the onion now

http://www.theonion.com/articles/thunk-u-for-nobbel-prise-me-happie-now,34171/

anonymous jazz majors (Matt P), Friday, 11 October 2013 23:21 (eleven years ago)

nobel prizes for algernon.

estela, Friday, 11 October 2013 23:24 (eleven years ago)

haha yes i've had the newest book for awhile now and am putting off reading it, since it's probably the last one!

just1n3, Saturday, 12 October 2013 03:16 (eleven years ago)

ex boyfriend just said her work was "overrated." How much do I pay bounty hunters?

the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 12 October 2013 04:39 (eleven years ago)

Tell me one great Munro short story to read. I've never gotten through one.

idembanana (abanana), Saturday, 12 October 2013 16:07 (eleven years ago)

"Floating Bridge"

the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 12 October 2013 16:09 (eleven years ago)

Meanwhile, in Norway,
I've heard a buncha people complain about how the Nobel "once again" picked someone "no one has heard of." Wtf.
Quite a few of her books have been Norwegianed, for what it's worth.

Øystein, Saturday, 12 October 2013 21:04 (eleven years ago)

Uh, I love "Englished" but "Norwegianed" was a lousy idea.

Øystein, Saturday, 12 October 2013 21:04 (eleven years ago)

James Wood: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/alice-munro-our-chekhov.html

the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 12 October 2013 21:10 (eleven years ago)

i've been wondering recently why munro seems so underexposed despite being so beloved. like, is it just that she writes in a relatively unpopular form (the short story)? how much does it have to do w/ her being a woman? or canadian i guess? (or am i just mistaken about her popularity?)

1staethyr, Saturday, 12 October 2013 21:32 (eleven years ago)

"or am i just mistaken about her popularity?"

this

nostormo, Saturday, 12 October 2013 21:48 (eleven years ago)

maybe i need a more literary friend group

1staethyr, Saturday, 12 October 2013 22:02 (eleven years ago)

she definitely has fans in the u.s. (among literary types who have been reading her in the new yorker for years and her trade paperbacks are fairly ubiquitous and she always gets gushing reviews in newspapers so anyone who buys lit books based on those reviews has to know about her) and canada, but i don't know about elsewhere. my opinion is skewed though cuz i have lived in philly, marthas vineyard, and western mass for decades now and those places are filled with brainiacs who read a ton. but her rave newspaper reviews are nation-wide. i would say "college-educated New Yorker Magazine reader" would seem to be her target audience here BUT i think there is also book club crossover with her and i kinda can't believe Oprah never raved about her but maybe she did and i missed it.

also, yeah, short story collections one notch above new volumes of poetry as far as sales go probably. with some exceptions.

she is listed on oprah mag's fave women writers list:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Favorite-Women-Writers/3

and she gets reviewed by francine prose in O mag:

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Too-Much-Happiness-by-Alice-Munro-Book-Review

scott seward, Sunday, 13 October 2013 02:40 (eleven years ago)

she is way too subtle for an oprah bookclub choice

just1n3, Sunday, 13 October 2013 03:44 (eleven years ago)

As much as anything, I became more aware of her as each Best American Short Stories annual, from the late 80s through the 90s, featured one and sometimes two of her stories, without a break in the run.

Lover (Eazy), Sunday, 13 October 2013 05:15 (eleven years ago)

Would it shock y'all to know that Bret Easton Ellis thinks she's overrated?

the vineyards where the grapes of corporate rock are stored (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 16 October 2013 15:55 (eleven years ago)

http://i39.tinypic.com/ff48q0.png

Lover (Eazy), Thursday, 17 October 2013 02:26 (eleven years ago)

"Short story writer Munro, 82, revealed in 2009 that she had undergone coronary bypass surgery and had had cancer treatment."

nostormo, Friday, 18 October 2013 11:03 (eleven years ago)

http://25.media.tumblr.com/aa3ee53eb18c9323f19043a1b81aab70/tumblr_mutvbot7CZ1qb4dbmo1_500.jpg

i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 18 October 2013 12:37 (eleven years ago)

ten years pass...

some of her stories so many of them really are like a long swim in the ocean you come out of them feeling refreshed & born anew

― polymath & psychics club (Lamp),

otm. I had a similar response reading the late story "Fiction" in one sitting this morning. Wow. She has a talent for drawing circles around circles, and when I'm afraid she's spinning away from the center she pulls the circles together and tight.

poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 17 February 2024 15:26 (one year ago)

yeah maybe it was on this board where someone described her stories as kind of starting in the middle and then expanding outward like tree rings

brimstead, Saturday, 17 February 2024 16:55 (one year ago)

the retail person in me wants to know more about alice in her bookstore days.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXU1priUUAA3wHj?format=jpg

scott seward, Saturday, 17 February 2024 18:52 (one year ago)

my eyes are terrible. i see james joyce.

scott seward, Saturday, 17 February 2024 18:53 (one year ago)


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