Dance of the Happy Shades
Review of the story collection by Alice Munro
I’m binge-reading Allice Munro’s works. One story after another is delightful, but I’m having troubling distinguishing one from another. The same tone. The same rhythm. Extraordinary three-dimensional characters that hold my interest and empathy, but I can’t tell one from another, can’t remember their names. These people are like classmates of mine from elementary school — I can see them in my mind’s eye, but I forget far more than I remember. Maybe I need to reread these stories, maybe read them more than twice.
I love the way she describes scenes, people, and situations. Here are a few samples:
“the street is shaded, in some place, by maple tree whose root have cracked and heaved the sidewalk and spread out ike crocodiles into the bare yards. p. 1
“And Mary found herself exploring her neighbour’s life as she had once explored the lives of grandmothers and aunts — b pretending to know less than she did, asking for some story she had heard before; this way, remembered episodes emerged each time with slight differences of content, meaning, colour, yet with a pure reality that usually attaches to things which are at least part legend. p. 19
“… I pictured the current as something separate from the water, just as the wind was separate from the air and had its own invading shape. p. 37
“The tree trunks had rings around them, a curious dark space like the warmth you make with your breath.” p. 39
“They were like children in a medieval painting, they were like small figures carved of wood, for worship or magic, with faces smooth and aged, and meekly, cryptically uncommunicative.” p.101
“But we grew cunning, unfailing in cold solicitude; we took away from her our anger and impatience a disgust, took all emotion away from our dealings with her, as you might take away meat from a prisoner to weaken him, till he died.” p. 199
