Runaway
Review of the book by Alice Munro
Now I’m addicted. This is the third Alice Munro book I’ve read this week and I’m looking forward to reading more soon.
Each of the eight stories in this volume is 30–40 pages long, long enough to develop several characters and show them from a variety of perspectives, bouncing back and forth in time. And several characters appear in multiple stories.
Minor but amusing — in “Chance” she notes that in The Iliad, Homer uses the same adjective to describe both Chryseis and Briseis, the slave girls that are the source of antagonism between Achilles and Agamemnon. The Greek word is “kallipareos,” which she translates as “Of the lovely cheeks.” p. 83 In modern parlance, that would probably be “great ass.”
Memorable passages:
about the realization that Flora, her missing pet goat, was probably murdered by her husband —
“Other things cold have happened. He could have chased Flora away. Or tied her in the back of the truck and driven some distance and set her loose. Taken her back to the place hey’d got her from. Not to have her around, reminding them. She might be free. The days passed and Carla didn’t go near that place. She held out against the temptation.” p. 47
about a traffic accident that left Ann paralyzed for life —
“‘Can you blame them?’ said Juliet…
“No, he said. But it was jsut that the whole thing was a lot more complicated than that. Did Ann feel that it was a tragedy? probably not. Did he? It was something you got used to, it was a new kind of life. That was all.” p. 70
“But, nevertheless, she kept referring to him, in her mind, as if he was still the person to whom her existence mattered more that it could to anyone else. As if he was still the person in whose eyes she hoped to shine.” p. 146
